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Emergency beacons are part of a system that provides a rapid alert that can trigger a response to emergencies that occur in the air, on the seas or on land. There are three components to the system:

SATELLITES
Cospas-Sarsat satellites orbit the earth and receive signals from emergency radio beacons and relay them to ground stations which determine where the beacon is located and attempt to validate the emergency, then pass this validated information to search and rescue response authorities.

More about Cospas-Sarsat Cospas-Sarsat Website Article "Why Cospas-Sarsat is Critical to Saving Lives"

BEACONS
There are three types of radio beacons, classified by who uses them:

• aircraft have an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT)
• vessels have an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB)
• Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) are for land-based activities such as hiking, camping or working in the wilderness.

BEACON REGISTRY
Beacon information is held in the Canadian Beacon Registry maintained by the National Search and Rescue Secretariat for use in search and rescue operations.

Online access to the Registry is now available for all beacon owners to register new beacons, update their information and receive automatic confirmation.

Attention 406 MHz beacon owners

If you own a 406 MHz PLB, ELT or an EPIRB you MUST register it to make finding you easier. If your beacon is registered are you sure that the information we have in the Beacon Database is up to date? Please update your beacon information:

• if you move
• if you want to update the emergency contact information
• if your phone number changes, or
• if any of the important information in the database changes.

You can do it yourself online if you have a username and password at http://beacons.nss.gc.ca/ or call us with updated information for the database and we will update it for you.

Call 1-800-727-9414 and ask for the Beacon Database. You can also fax us updates at 1-613-996-3746 or by e-mail at beacons@nss.gc.ca