TABLE OF CONTENTS 
Vessels sink or become disabled, airplanes crash in disasters, land vehicles and expeditions get lost in the wilderness and other causal emergencies occur that jeopardize many lives and property at sea, in the vast inland regions and air space of the entire world. Continuous advances in technology and rapidly improved use of radio communications has been an historic objective of those charged with solving the Search and Rescue (SAR) problems at sea, on land and in the air. However, early in the history of mobile radio systems, only a hundred years ago radio equipment was installed on ships and aircraft to improve the safety of life and property at sea and in the air. While these improvements generally started well and assisted saving many lives and much property, they were not effective when there was a sudden, catastrophic loss of the supporting platform. For that reason, the most effective improvements occurred to this plan at the end of the preceding century.
Available high technology and requirements for improvement of safety mobile radio were combined in the early 1970s to enable a new system to be developed to counter the really alarming catastrophic loss problem. At that time, small beacons for ships and aircraft needs in the USA, Canada and in Europe were developed in large numbers. These radio beacons are generally small, inexpensive and very lightweight. At that time, the only monitoring platforms were overflying aircraft and in such a manner aeronautical distress frequencies...
