Working With the Artex ELT 1000
The Artex ELT 1000 is a 406 MHz emergency locator transmitter commonly found in general aviation aircraft. It meets TSO-C126a standards and broadcasts on 406 MHz with a 121.5 MHz homing beacon. Getting the thing installed and working right isn't complicated, but there are enough gotchas that people still mess it up. I've installed about a dozen of these over the years. The manual itself is reasonably clear if you actually read the section on mounting orientation instead of skipping ahead to wiring. Here's what matters. The unit needs to be mounted so the antenna has an unobstructed line of sight to the sky. That sounds obvious until you're dealing with a fuselage that already has a maze of rivets and structural ribs. I once spent two hours moving the bracket around on a Cirrus SR22 because every location I picked had a wing spar or fuel vent running right through the antenna footprint. The manual tells you to maintain at least a 30-degree elevation angle clearance. It doesn't warn you that the interior structure of most light aircraft will fight you on that.
Wiring is where people get sloppy. The ELT 1000 runs on a dedicated 28V DC supply with its own circuit breaker. Do not tap into an existing bus and share the breaker with something else. The 406 MHz burst draws about 2 amps for a few seconds, and the 121.5 MHz beacon can pull current for hours if it stays active. I saw a setup once where the ELT shared a breaker with the cabin lighting. The 10-amp breaker held fine during tests, but when the unit actually activated in a real scenario, the voltage sag was enough to cause the g-sensor to misfire and reset mid-transmission. The aircraft owner never found out until the FAA annual caught the anomaly in the logbook. The manual specifies a minimum wire gauge of 16 AWG for the power leads up to 10 feet. Going longer than 10 feet means stepping up to 14 AWG. People skip this because the unit works fine on first bench test with croc clips. It won't work fine in flight when the battery is at 24 volts under load. This is the kind of thing that doesn't show up during an operational check at the shop. It shows up three years later when someone needs it and the transmission range is half of what it should be. Programming the EPIRB ID requires a laptop running the Artex software and a serial-to-USB adapter. The USB version of the programming cable is not compatible with the ELT 1000's serial port. You need the actual RS-232 cable. I learned that the hard way when I drove to an airport with a $40 Chinese USB adapter that turned out to be a charge-only cable. The manual mentions this in a footnote on page 23. Nobody reads page 23.
The 406 MHz registration process happens through NOAA's Cospas-Sarsat system, not through Artex directly. You register the unique 15-digit hex ID etched on the unit's label. Make sure the aircraft N-number, owner contact info, and emergency contact are all current. I've received simulated alert emails for aircraft that were sold three years prior because the registration was still pointing to the previous owner's address. The SAR coordinators take this seriously. False alerts waste resources and they track down the source. Battery replacement is the main maintenance item. The manual calls for a full battery replacement every five years or after any accidental activation. The Li-SOCl2 cell has a shelf life of roughly ten years from manufacture date even if unused, but the five-year rule exists because these batteries degrade faster when cycling through temperature extremes in an unpressurized aircraft. I replaced a set on a Beechcraft Bonanza that was only three years old because the previous owner had been doing cross-country flights through the Southwest in summer. The battery temperature inside the unit exceeded 160 degrees Fahrenheit regularly. The capacity drop was noticeable on the internal test readout. There's no way around it. The ELT 1000 is a solid unit. It does what it's supposed to do when installed correctly. The problems come from shortcuts during installation and delayed maintenance. The manual is available from Artex's website in PDF format. It's not particularly well organized. Start with the installation section, then go back and read the troubleshooting chapter, then read the regulatory compliance section. That order matches how the work actually happens in a hangar.
Get the Full Details
