KSMooniac Posted May 21, 2012 Report Posted May 21, 2012 I'm finishing up this year's annual and much to my surprise my ELT is not working! It is an Ameri-King AK-450 (121.5 MHz) that was installed by the previous owner, perhaps 7-8 years ago. It lights up with the remote switch, main switch, or via the G-sensor, but doesn't transmit anything. I took it to my local avionics shop today, and they can't work on them and referred me to Merl, Inc. in CT for repairs. I called them up, and the guy I spoke with confirmed they can repair the Ameri-King units and has lots of experience doing so since they're "cheaply made." He also said their AK-451 is also starting to show up for repairs regularly now too, and it is also cheaply made. In his opinion, there isn't a good 406 MHz product on the market yet, and his company was going through the approval process currently with a new one that will drop-in to current Ameri-King installations. and will come with a built-in GPS so it won't have to be wired to a panel mount, which is an option for many of these. He couldn't say when it will get approved, but it will be in the $500 range when it hits the market. He said they're seeing what fails with the current crop of ELT's and trying to keep those failure mechanisms out of their product. Sounds great to this engineer! I'm opting to repair my current unit in the hopes of getting enough time out of it so I can wait for the new Merl unit. FYI, I found some take-out units at Dodson Salvage and tried to buy one for $95. I asked if they would test or guarantee and he said they usually don't test them, but he would try to scrounge up some batteries. He called back an hour later and said both were bad, so he cancelled the transaction. Quote
N601RX Posted May 21, 2012 Report Posted May 21, 2012 I had a similar problem about 2 months ago. I installed the ACK 406 MHz unit. It had a test panel and buzzer that went in the panel and behind it. It does not have a internal gps, so I had to run a 3 conductor shielded cable up to the gps in the panel. At that time they were $568 for the complete kit. Quote
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