Personal Locator Beacons

thanks test of battery shows it is ok.( flashing white light 3 times)

if its coded to aus, any alert goes to australian rescue services first, they will just forward it to nz rescue services when they see where it is.... doesnt result in a great delay.... read about someone in that situation, helicopter still turned up within the hour

Yes, in theory having an Australian (or any other country) coded PLB does not add a huge amount of time to the alerting of New Zealand search and rescue services. However, it is adding an additional link(s) to a chain you want to be as smooth and streamlined as possible. For the sake of changing it to New Zealand coding you might as well Just get it done. Bear in mind there can be a cost to this. I am not sure of the policy with all brands but I know when we sold GME ones Standard Communications made it very clear that if customers mentioned they had found a cheap one online overseas we should point out that if they wanted it recoded to New Zealand there would be a not insignificant fee.

Just looked at the https://beacons.org.nz/ which is where you register. Its free and no questions on where the beacon came from. Remember they want you to register so a cost could well mean you dont register and that could complicate any search which would cost far more than any registration fee they could charge. Also remember people immigrate to here and bring their beacons with them.

Dont confuse registration and coding. Registration is saying who this nz-coded beacon belongs to and is free. Coding is changing the code the beacon transmits so that the distress message goes to NZ rather than australia or USA or wherever.

Found that now. $165 sort of makes buying an overseas beacon pointless

don't see it as that much of an issue being coded for aus... you've got yachties and trampers normally going back and forward between the two countries. teh rescue services of each country are famiiar working with the other country...

Each person’s individual mileage will vary but personally if I ever need to set my PLB off I don’t want a completely unnecessary country involved in the mix.