406 ELT recommendations

[amekler]

My new to me 2000 Bravo has a 121.5 ELT. I'd like to upgrade to a 406. Looking for recommendations.

Regards,

 Alan

 N9127M

[Pinecone]

I think I had a ACK in my plane.  But the avionics shop recommended changing to an Artex due to issues with the ACK.  Things like accidental activation.

[adverseyaw]

I've had two A&Ps recommend Artex 406s. Ten years cumulative on two Artex ELTs without any issues.

[EricJ]

I have the ACK and it's been fine.   Nice unit.

If you have an ACK-01 then upgrading to an ACK-04 can reuse elements of the existing installation.

[amekler]

I have an ACK in my Vans RV-12 and it goes off in the hangar never while flying. I have to shut it off after flying.

Alan

[amekler]

6 hours ago, adverseyaw said:

I've had two A&Ps recommend Artex 406s. Ten years cumulative on two Artex ELTs without any issues.

which model Artex?

Alan

[Fly Boomer]

21 minutes ago, amekler said:

which model Artex?

Alan

Looks like the ME406 has come up before.

[philiplane]

The ACK ELT-04 is a great unit if you are lonely. It goes off at random, and you get to make new friends with people that call you to see if you're ok. ATC will check on you while you're in the air, when it goes off in mild turbulence. On the ground, people not only call you, but if you don't answer right away, they'll call your family, and then the airport manager to be certain that you haven't crashed. 

[DCarlton]

2 minutes ago, philiplane said:

The ACK ELT-04 is a great unit if you are lonely. It goes off at random, and you get to make new friends with people that call you to see if you're ok. ATC will check on you while you're in the air, when it goes off in mild turbulence. On the ground, people not only call you, but if you don't answer right away, they'll call your family, and then the airport manager to be certain that you haven't crashed. 

I’ve had an ACK ELT 04 for years.  Never gone off randomly.  Perhaps it’s not working?  

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, DCarlton said:

I’ve had an ACK ELT 04 for years.  Never gone off randomly.  Perhaps it’s not working?  

Mine's been fine as well.   It's gone off a couple of times when were doing work either on it or something near it, so I don't hold that against it.   It always stops immediately when you hit the reset, which is easy to do even in the airplane.   No complaints here after six years with it.    I know the 406 works because I got called by the Air Force once when we set if off inadvertently.   

[Bolter]

17 hours ago, amekler said:

My new to me 2000 Bravo has a 121.5 ELT. I'd like to upgrade to a 406. Looking for recommendations.

Regards,

 Alan

 N9127M

I wanted to ditch the old tech 121.5 ACK, and went with the Artex 345.  Primary reason was that my A&P had done the same model in other Mooney's, which meant there would be the least billed hours and no learning curve on my install.  

-dan

[adverseyaw]

14 hours ago, amekler said:

which model Artex?

Alan

Both are Artex 345 units

[philiplane]

12 hours ago, DCarlton said:

I’ve had an ACK ELT 04 for years.  Never gone off randomly.  Perhaps it’s not working?  

That's good. But if you ask around you'll find there are dozens of these going off at random every year. Customers have given up on six of them here, and switched them to Artex 345's. I've got two others that have been sent back twice for repairs. Both came back with new boards. One of those is going off at random again, and will make its' third trip home to ACK in less than two years. A nice additional "feature" of these events is that ACK gets to sell you another expensive battery. 

ACK also says that low battery voltage in the remote control, or corrosion in the battery case, can set them off. So when you do the ELT repairs, you end up replacing the remote battery, the horn battery, and the ELT battery. 

The biggest population of the ACK ELT-01 is in Cirrus aircraft. They were original equipment from 1999 to 2006. Probably 3000 to 3500 units installed. Many if not most of those were upgraded to the ELT-04. Many of the upgrades were driven by persistent G switch failures that caused the ELT to go off at random. I probably changed out over a hundred myself.

In 2007 Cirrus switched to Artex ME406, and then to the Artex 1000 to add the GPS interface. 

So far, ACK has not charged for any of the repairs to the ELT itself, and the oldest one I've sent was seven years old. 

[EricJ]

That must be a regional phenomenon.    If they were going off randomly around here the local CAP Squadrons would know about it.   As it is, the ground search teams (who get called when one goes off on the airport) rarely get dispatched here.

[DCarlton]

2 hours ago, philiplane said:

That's good. But if you ask around you'll find there are dozens of these going off at random every year. Customers have given up on six of them here, and switched them to Artex 345's. I've got two others that have been sent back twice for repairs. Both came back with new boards. One of those is going off at random again, and will make its' third trip home to ACK in less than two years. A nice additional "feature" of these events is that ACK gets to sell you another expensive battery. 

ACK also says that low battery voltage in the remote control, or corrosion in the battery case, can set them off. So when you do the ELT repairs, you end up replacing the remote battery, the horn battery, and the ELT battery. 

The biggest population of the ACK ELT-01 is in Cirrus aircraft. They were original equipment from 1999 to 2006. Probably 3000 to 3500 units installed. Many if not most of those were upgraded to the ELT-04. Many of the upgrades were driven by persistent G switch failures that caused the ELT to go off at random. I probably changed out over a hundred myself.

In 2007 Cirrus switched to Artex ME406, and then to the Artex 1000 to add the GPS interface. 

So far, ACK has not charged for any of the repairs to the ELT itself, and the oldest one I've sent was seven years old. 

Will cross my fingers and keep that in mind.  I've got a few Navy and Coast Guard technical contacts.  Will see if they have an opinion.  Looks like Airtex has a strong presence in the Marine market as well.  

[Pinecone]

On 4/13/2024 at 12:11 PM, EricJ said:

That must be a regional phenomenon.    If they were going off randomly around here the local CAP Squadrons would know about it.   As it is, the ground search teams (who get called when one goes off on the airport) rarely get dispatched here.

CAP is not getting called on most 406 beacon activations.

The unit identifies itself to the SAR people, so they know who it is and where it is (GPS) and they call the owner and airport manager.

[EricJ]

48 minutes ago, Pinecone said:

CAP is not getting called on most 406 beacon activations.

The unit identifies itself to the SAR people, so they know who it is and where it is (GPS) and they call the owner and airport manager.

The 121.5 still goes off and has to be disabled.   If there were a lot of inadvertent activations there'd still be a lot of calls to disable them.   Locally they're usually a unit in a dumpster at a recycler, not in an aircraft.

[amekler]

Went with the artex345

thanks for everyone’s help

alan

[Pinecone]

On 4/18/2024 at 12:14 PM, EricJ said:

The 121.5 still goes off and has to be disabled.   If there were a lot of inadvertent activations there'd still be a lot of calls to disable them.   Locally they're usually a unit in a dumpster at a recycler, not in an aircraft.

If both go off, the call to the owner registered for the 406 side gets it taken care of.

And normally quicker than anyone notices the 121.5 side.

[Jerry 5TJ]

Aside to the topic:  I installed a diversity Mode S transponder.  It has both top and bottom antennas so it will respond to interrogations from above, such as those from the Aireon satellites.  In case a plane with a diversity transponder goes missing the Aireon record will show the last location down to the ground, and to a few meters accuracy.  

Advantage—No false alarms such as with ELT.  

Disadvantage—You are still required to have an ELT.  

[EricJ]

4 hours ago, Pinecone said:

If both go off, the call to the owner registered for the 406 side gets it taken care of.

And normally quicker than anyone notices the 121.5 side.

Ideally that's how it goes, but like many systems, it seems like it often doesn't fit the script.