Personal Locator Beacon – Repeated activation in Colorado

From December 14 to January 5, the ACR PLB-300 beacon was activated nine times—eight times near Berthoud Pass, and a ninth north of Crested Butte. Unfortunately, the owner never registered the device, so he or she couldn’t be contacted.
After the fourth or fifth activation from the same device, the Clear Creek County Sheriff decided not to alert SAR teams anymore. Instead, authorities focused on trying to determine who owned the PLB, and on getting the word out to the public that there was a problem.

Click to expand...

…It was further determined that 12 of these beacons where sold in Colorado between July 1 and December 13. The Clear Creek County Sheriff’s office made contact with the 12 owners that purchased the PLBs. Although no one has come forth and admitted that this was their beacon, there has not been an activation since these folks where contacted.

Click to expand...

Woodward said the take-home message for PLB users is they need to learn how to use these devices to prevent false alarms, and they need to register them so a simple phone call might prevent inadvertent SAR-team call-outs.

Click to expand...

tb69wemt said:

Not sure if this guy should be laughed at or have his butt kicked.....

Click to expand...