Originally Posted by
ChristiaanJ
Any link to a halfway sane discussion would be welcome.
Good to see there IS some sane discussion!
Even if interspersed with nonsense (I thought Habsheim was settled, except among the conspiracy bats).
As to
djp's suggestion about a "listener".... I like it!
Contrary to what
tuj says, "listening", with modern technology, would consume far less power than regular "pings".
So pinging for a few weeks, then listening for a few months, is a good idea. It would need a new module inside the FDR and CVR (or rather inside the beacon), which doesn't exist yet, so whether there will be enough of an impetus to update the beacons, for what is a rare occurrence, is an open question.
Totally agree with
tuj's other remarks. It's almost like the search for Steve Fossett's plane, and over a similar or larger area, and a few miles down under the sea. And no way a hiker will stumble on the wreckage this time....
CJ
PS for
tuj
I know it's a lousy analogy.... but look at a kitchen timer.
The very much passive timer display uses extremely little power. The battery usually would die from old age rather than being exhausted... we're talking microwatts.
Your kitchen timer bleeper puts out milliwatts of sound each time. Use it every day, and you have to replace the battery every year.
As I said, not a very good analogy, but a "listener" circuit would still use an order of battery capacity less than a "pinger.