I purchased my PLB from the following company, but their website hasn't been active since the hurricanes hit Florida. They had the best prices when I checked around, and I bought a lot of other gear from them, too:
Concorde AeroSales, Inc. (click here)
2046 Madison St.
Hollywood, FL 33020
800-413-7233
954-929-4200
FAX: 954-929-4241
The manufacturer information is here:
ACR Electronics, Inc. (click here)
5757 Ravenswood Rd.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312
800-4320-227
954-981-3333
FAX: 954-983-5087
Their newest product has both GPS and PLB. It is almost the same size as the Gypsy 406 PLB that I have, and it has nearly the same size antenae. Here is a picture of the two items side by side for comparison (new model is on the right)...
Nevertheless, I still like having two separate units (PLB & GPS), because I want the battery in my PLB to do nothing but run my PLB. The more power available for the antennae, the better and longer it will run. I carry an optic cable to transfer coordinates from my new Garmin GPSMAP60CS, which I use outside the aircraft often. For example,
Geocaching (click here) is a lot of fun for the kids (kinda like burried treasures for the young ones).
Also, if my GPS fails or there is a problem in that circuit, it won't affect the PLB. Having a coordinate uplink in your PLB is important because it gets SAR in the air within ONE hour (pretty darn good & better than ELT). Here is a picture of the GPS that I carry (
picutres are NOT to scale)...
