rwthompson67
Active Member
A little over 100 hrs on the airplane but only recently flew through moderate rain. VA to TN and back, rain both ways and the ELT went off about an hour into the flight. It was raining on both legs and the ELT went off at around the same point on both flights. This was my fist time flying in significant rain and also my first false alarm on the ELT.
First time it went off I wasn't aware it was me (the led on the RC panel is pretty dim). The 121.5 signal was so strong though that it bled over to the ATC frequency so that whenever someone used the frequency all I could hear was the beacon. I was unable to stop the beacon from xmiting. Tried the Test/Reset on the remote panel and also pulled the circuit breaker. Finally reached over my left shoulder and disconnected the cable from the ELT antenna. This allowed normal comms until I could get on the ground, take the emp fairing off and turn the ELT off. Of course I had a voicemail from the AFRC.
After talking to ACK, it sounds like the remote alarm is very sensitive to moisture. And after looking at my installation, there was definite evidence of water making its way to the ELT in the empennage. I ended up drying it out, replacing the battery and wrapping the unit in saran wrap. Hopefully that'll eliminate the false alarms.
Anybody else have this issue?
https://postimg.cc/gallery/246r83110/
First time it went off I wasn't aware it was me (the led on the RC panel is pretty dim). The 121.5 signal was so strong though that it bled over to the ATC frequency so that whenever someone used the frequency all I could hear was the beacon. I was unable to stop the beacon from xmiting. Tried the Test/Reset on the remote panel and also pulled the circuit breaker. Finally reached over my left shoulder and disconnected the cable from the ELT antenna. This allowed normal comms until I could get on the ground, take the emp fairing off and turn the ELT off. Of course I had a voicemail from the AFRC.
After talking to ACK, it sounds like the remote alarm is very sensitive to moisture. And after looking at my installation, there was definite evidence of water making its way to the ELT in the empennage. I ended up drying it out, replacing the battery and wrapping the unit in saran wrap. Hopefully that'll eliminate the false alarms.
Anybody else have this issue?
https://postimg.cc/gallery/246r83110/