Same situation here but here is what u can do.
In Reply to no 2
Register a PLB via on-line at NOAA ( USA ). They allow foreigners to register. They even send you free of charge the registration sticker. I am now on my 2nd year with NOAA and I am Indonesian. Same shi-e-t in my country, can not register PLB when McMurdo first came to the market, they simply do not have the department. Now the BASARNAS or National SAR equivalent handles PLB, so they said but..........
In reply no 3.
For me a PLB, my McMurdo 210FF and Custom Diver housing is for what I call PERSONAL rescue.
As shie-ty as your diving area is when it comes to SAR asset, I am probably in a shietti-er country for that kind of "luxury".
The idea is, when my wive get the alert, she and/or 2nd emergency contact to request emergency SAR or to call via satellite phone to the LOB I use on that trip or to call my dive buddies which 4 out of 8 has handheld satellite phones. So it is local rescue if possible by my own diving team with COSPAS SARSAT asset only for information of my position. Anyway I also carry an Icom M72 in a Under Water Kinetic D8 torchlight housing, which so happened, if I want the McMurdo 210 and the Icom M72 can fit in that D8 housing , tight but both can fit. Worse case scenario is my wife or friend will "rent" a SAR team. I always informed well ahead of my dive locations to my wife and 2nd emergency contact. I make it like a "will".........ha ha ha ha. When one is about to die floating in open sea, money is useless .........so if any real PERSONAL rescue is needed, it is an open cheque book. BTW, my dive spots when doing LOB is 1,600 miles from where I live or where my wive is based.
The Icom M72 I love so much and have rescued me many times. I am not changing to Lifeline Nautilus even if it is FOC.
I also have Icom M88, Standard Com HX850 with GPS and some others. I like real solid Icom engineering and a NON firmware operated radio where too much computer involved like Nautilus, which can not be as robust as the dumb radio ICOM is. I also like my Icom M72 6 watts of power and the super loud speaker it has and the massive battery size nearing 2000 mAh.
CASE TO NOTE :
A friend of mine bought exactly the same config, 210FF + custom diver cannister.
For reason unknown, his canister leaked and short circuit took place and the 210 self powered itself and made the transmission. The best part is, the 210 was in the cannister, in a dive bag and in a dive center warehouse, which I am sure its roof is not concrete but those cheapo red clay roof common in poor country like mine.
Since his unit is also registered at NOAA, hold and behold, someone from the US Navy ( or Coast Guard ) called him on his cell. It was missed call at first , twice , as my friend was on a boat ( not diving ) so it was noisy. He noted the USA prefix and twice missed calls and this must be important he thought. So he called back and was asked if he was OK and was informed that his PLB made a distress transmission bla bla bla. DANG, only USA can afford to do that !!!
THE IRONY is, in COSPAR SARSAT network arrangement, the nearest ground station to 1st receive my friend's distress signal, BY RIGHT is the Indonesian airport in Jakarta, the capital city, not USA ones !!!
We had one more ground station somewhere in the middle of Indonesia, but it was out of action, usual shi-et due to no funding ha ha ha ha, life is cheap here. The public only knew the 2nd ground station was out of action because of a famous airline crash, the Adam Air. Adam Air Flight 574 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It was Singapore ground station which first received Adam's distress signal, not the Indonesian one at Makassar City ( the one dead due to no $$ or money corrupted , same shi-et). So Adam air cheapo method of aircraft maintenance with my government cheapo maintenance program on SAR asset = LIFE IS CHEAP.
Now, never even after hours and hours, the Indonesian SAR EVER called my friend to verify if he was in trouble. By arrangement of COSPAR SARSAT members countries, the Indonesian SAR/BASARNAS is the one who has to respond first as the emergency IS in Indonesian waters.
So, you must understand why I call my PLB purchase being for PERSONAL rescue and why I will never want to change registration to Indonesian one. I rather keep my PLB registration with NOAA. I have a living and breathing proof that even being a non resident, USA SAR asset will respond to the emergency. The way USA gives us billion of dollars free GPS service, is what makes USA so admirable in that sense. Ok Ok, they send smart bombs using GPS, I get it...
On my LOB (Live on Board ) trips, I have a nice paper, sticked to the wall near the radio and satellite phone.
There I wrote, all the registration numbers of all the PLB my dive team has, all countries SAR contact numbers where the PLB are registered at and all the cell numbers of emergency contact persons of each and every PLB are attached to. The drill is, if within 2 hours a drifting diver is not found, the dive team member/s is to call the diver's emergency contact person and asked if PLB distress transmission receieved. We carry 3 kind of satellite phone on board. 1 is the vessel satellite phone, desk version with fixed antena, but it is not Inmarsat based, it is Indonesian based : Welcome to BYRU Website This is not as reliable as the Inmarsat Mini M sat-phone with mini gyro capability. Incoming call is more difficult to get thru than outgoing call, usually this is the case.
1 portable Inmarsat, 1 portable Iridium and 1 portable Indonesian one same network the Byru one.
All portable sat-phones are not the best stand-by phones, unless you place it towards open sky all the time. So this is why the drill is, we call out and not wait for call to come in.
All emergency contact persons have direct cell phone links and are supposed to exchange by TEXT/SMS when any of them get positions coordinates of the lost divers. The reason I do this is, there are times it is easier to call to an Indonesian cell phone or land line from Indonesian sat-phone than it is to call from Inmarsat or Iridium. So I try to avoid any possibility where delay or problem can occur from international phone exchange.
I even tell them to make sure to read coordinates properly and verify to SAR authority what format is being used.
I do not know what is the international SAR GPS coordinates when broadcasted but I do not want my wive to get mixed up between decimal degrees minutes and degrees minutes seconds. She is not a navigator like me.
Eiffel Tower in Paris
48° 51.489'N
2° 17.678'E ...........in decimal degrees minutes
48°51'29.34"N ............in degrees minutes seconds
2°17'40.68"
48.858150° ............in decimal degrees
2.294633°
I fear when one gets degrees-minutes-seconds and wrote it as decimal degrees minutes.......shie-it, that will set back the rescue. If say my wive mistaken 48°51'29.34"N by 2°17'40.68" as 48*51.2934 by 2*17.4068 , any GPS with the common 3 digits of the minute capability will register it as : 48*51.293 by 2*17.406 , that is a whopping 485 meters off !!.
In a sun over the horizon scenario at 5:30 ish PM in a country near the equator like mine or rough water, 200 meters human vision is expected. Hard to see sometime beyond a 100 meters when sun that low and we look towards it.
If in open ocean, 485 meters off is not too bad, in Komodo Straight where small islands are plenty and many blind spot, 485 meters can put the position on a rock
I DO NOT, I repeat I DO NOT rely or will power my PLB for emergency transmission, unless I think I will die and my ICOM M72 flooded/damaged/sank/lost and I been drifting at least 90minutes. The same stringent discipline I told my friends to adhere to. I even place a message in the NOAA PLB form : Diver carry VHF radio and will stand by on channel 16
The drill is, I set my Icom M72 in channel 69/16 scanning mode if ever I activated my PLB. I use channel 69 for local rescue for divers to rubber boats or the LOB mother boat. I do not use channel 68 because 69 ( also the legal pleasure channel anyway ) is easy to remember, it is so kinky sexy hahaha.
A typical baby sized PLB can not be powered off when already activated and has only approx 24 hours battery life.
This is why fast response is crucial. I dove where typical current can be at 3.5 knots peak or more, so in 20 minutes of delay at time current is peaking, I am drifting at the rate of 1,856 meters x 3.5 = 6,496 meters per hour. A boat crew standing from a rubber boat with eye height of 1.7 meters, can hardly spot me from 1,000 meters away even if I use a 3inch diameter sausage, let alone 2,000+ meters. I will look so small like a germ
already. I have drifted past 2000 meters a few times and my friends have done 4000+ meters when shi-et happens. Hence I love my Icom M72 so much. Dont take it for granted on handheld radio range, let me tell you the average radio distance for an ICOM M72 at diver's height in water towards another ICOM M72 on a zodiac, at the most 4,000 meters where there is no radio traffic at all. This test I conducted a few times, sometime I can get as low as 2,700 meters, depending on radio "weather/atmosphere" and I am within the line of sight theory which said 1.7 meter eye antena height from zodiac's M72 and diver's M72 at 40cm height, I should be getting 4.7 - 5.xx KM or so.
So BLACK, please put local rescue as priority, I mean your dive boat members as rescuers. Do not rely on something where the need to relay information is a must in the case you choose that InReach unit. Radio on a diver is 1st choice.
ADD :
My typical search pattern which I devised is using this formula.
Speed in knots multiply by the diver dive time or at least 2,500 meters down current from dive spot. This has work so well. Diver dive time assumes the prick diver drifted from minute 1 ( impossible but we anticipate for dummies aka pricks ...ha ha ha ).
Dive Safe.........
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