On Wednesday, April 2, 2014 1:02:20 PM UTC-4, Soartech wrote:
PLBs do ONE THING extremely well, but they do not supersede SPOT/INREACH.

Good observation. It won't be long before someone sees the advantage of this and comes up with a device that does BOTH.

I'll wait for that one.

You may be waiting a very long time. One of the reliability factors in a PLB design is that it is a sealed unit with a high reliability well-tested and carefully manufactured lithium long-life battery, and the unit suffers no wear and tear from ongoing use.

One of the advantages of a SPOT/INREACH is that it has a replaceable battery, so you don't have to worry about running down the battery by making "I'm OK" transmissions and tracking.

A unit that covered both bases would not eliminate any of the need for circuit and battery redundancy.