Scenarios & Demos
TracMe Trial at Torquay
On Sunday the 31/05/2005, the Torquay Search and Rescue and the Victorian Water Police arranged a search and rescue exercise on the ocean beach at Torquay. The operation was supervised by Sergeant Steven Towers of the Victoria Police and Greg of the Torquay Search and Rescue.
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The purpose of the exercise was to test the new search & rescue boat recently acquired by the Victoria water police and to also trial the TracMe
non-satellite Locator Beacon with the police helicopter direction finding equipment.
The testing of the TracMe was done to confirm the range and directionality of the signal from the TracMe when operating with the police helicopter direction finding equipment. |
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Results
The TracMe was activated and placed on the beach in the vicinity of the activity. The operator of the Police helicopter reported picking up the beacon on first approach without being previously made aware that it was operating. The police from the helicopter also correctly indicated where they thought the beacon was located.
Shortly after this, the search and rescue exercise commenced, during which the police monitored their direction finding equipment. They reported receiving good signal strength at approx 3km out to sea at 300-500 ft altitude with consistent directionality. |
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An issue which arose out of the exercise was the need to notify all police and emergency services of the newly gazetted emergency channel on UHF CB channel 5. Also, most of the two-way radios and the direction finding equipment have the commonly used emergency frequencies preset into the equipment. With the TracMe
non-satellite Locator Beacon now on sale, it would be pertinent for these emergency services to add the UHF CB channel 5 frequency as one of the preset channels on their equipment.
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