Why can't foreign PLBs be registered in NZ?

From that website CAN YOU USE YOUR BEACON OVERSEAS? The 406MHz distress beacons work all over the world, so you can use your New Zealand-coded beacon when travelling overseas. If the beacon is activated, the rescue centre responsible for the region where it is transmitting will be notified. RCCNZ will also be notified, because it holds the beacon's registration. If you leave New Zealand permanently, then your beacon must be recoded for the new country and registered there. DON'T BUY A FOREIGN BEACON! Each country has an individual 406 code. When you purchase a 406 MHz distress beacon, make sure it is coded for New Zealand. The New Zealand Country Code is 512. If you buy one from overseas or over the Internet, it could be an expensive mistake if it has the wrong code. When it is activated, the satellite may notify the wrong rescue coordination centre, which could mean a long, potentially life-threatening delay in your rescue. In some cases, it will not result in a rescue at all. If 1 is true then 2 probably isnt

I researched this in depth when I purchased my PLB overseas (for $200 less than buying it here). Plenty of overseas sites will precode to 512 before sending - if your beacon isn't coded 512, a certain high profile NZ supplier will recode it for you for $120. The same supplier is one of the main sources of the 'overseas PLBs are the antichrist' rubbish repeated ad nauseum by anyone who hasn't done any research. It's a rort. PS Excellent quotes @geeves, illustrates my point nicely.

Yes it doesn't make sense from Maritime NZ. What I'm trying to understand though is why Maritime NZ doesn't just take registration details for foreign PLBs. It's hard to imagine that Maritime NZ would have a commercial interest as a few retailers might. If it's going to get a notification anyway, you'd think it'd make their life easier to at least have contact numbers and stuff on record when someone's brought in a PLB from overseas. I can see why it might be less reliable in certain scenarios, though. If the PLB couldn't get a location fix before transmitting (and keeping in mind that some PLBs don't even have GPS hardware available), then it might be more time of satellite triangulation before the service can determine which is the closest authority (NZ) to also notify... Maybe that couldn't even happen if something blocks the initial signal, meaning an emergency's been notified but nobody knows which authority should even be searching. If Maritime NZ's concerned about reliability if there are masses of parallel imports coming in for which it'll only be notified when there's an exact location determined, that might be the real reason why it doesn't want to acknowledge any acceptence of foreign-coded PLBs at all. That's the only reason I can think of, though.

i read about an aussie with an aussie rescue beacon who set it off in NZ, he didnt have to wait too long for a rescue helicopter.. the delay involved in using a beacon registered in one country in another isnt necessarily going to be that long, rescue centres from different companies talk to each other, they'll be used to contacting the authorities in the relevant country, america has 300 million people, americans set of US registered beacons world wide on a reasonably regular basis...

I noticed they've relaxed their position on Australian purchased PLBs. Considering the COSPAS Mission Control Centre is in Canberra or Melbourne it seems appropriate that they wouldn't split hairs over Aust/NZ coding, but maybe if you were from Iceland and you set off your Icelandic coded beacon on Stewart Island it would add another level of unnecessary checks and double checks to the system before they dispatch an expensive search & rescue mission? So from that point of view I can understand their desire to keep the status quo. Flipping it on it's head, I wonder if you set off your NZ coded beacon in Peru for example would the Peruvians come running or just go Nah!?

On that thought I noticed this article earlier in the year. Someone may have already posted it? http://www.radiocomms.com.au/content/gps-satellite/article/regional-sar-gets-new-satellite-capabilities-1019205829

I gues to me the point is - if you're buying something to (presumably) save your life, why would you not make it as easy as possible for the device to work. Sure buy a beacon overseas but at least get it coded for NZ. It's all well and good that various country's rescue co-ordination centres talk to each other but why would you want to add an extra level of complexity to saving your life at the cost of a few dollars?

@1strider that article's interesting. I hadn't realised that authoirities needed their own satellite receiving stations as part of the system to work for them. (I thought maybe it went through some central place and was then relayed.) If that's the case then it makes more sense then for PLBs to have an internally-coded country, instead of just a unique number that gets externally mapped to a country as they're sold, as the internal country code being transmitted would let the system know exactly where to contact directly without needing to go through a centralised index.

@izogi. I think the point is subtly different. For _any_ beacon activated in 'our' geographic area to be picked up you need both the beacon and an earth-station to be able to see the same satellite. At medium-earth-orbit the area of earth able to see the satellite will be greater than for a low-earth orbit - but you'd still need a good network of earth-stations scattered around the globe to ensure all satellites were always visible from at leastone earth station at all times. If I didn't have mucus where my brain ought to be I'd work out the footprint of a satellite at that altitude and thus the number of earth stations required ... but honestly that's just 'too hard' right now! That earth station would then, presumably, forward the distress message to the relevant authority. Whether this is done transparently (they just send the signal and the 'home' authority is responsible for decoding / assessing it) or manually (the local authority decodes and assesses the signal and manually liases with the 'home' authority) I don't know.