I have an ACK 406 elt in my citabria. Just put it in last november. A month ago I had a little mishap. The elt did not activate, and my ame confirmed this when he looked at the plane. About a week later, wuth the plane already at the mechanics shop, my dad gets a phone call saying that the feds are wondering if I'm ok because the elt is going off. The mechanic goes out to check and sure enough, its intermittently going on and off.
Has anyone else ever experienced this? Seems weird to me.

David

I've had a few activate with moisture dripping onto the remote switch. Had a few more activations from rough students (yeah, maybe I let it go a little far for the learning experience). Short-field "mud" landing where it might have nosed over but didn't set off another one.

If it wasn't moisture or a short on the remote switch then the g-switch would be suspect. If you thought the "little mishap" should have triggered the ELT and now the switch is somewhere in-between, maybe just try a reset. My SAR crew guys tell me ELT's transmit a locatable signal less than 50% of the time in the case of an accident, and the so-called ADELT (automatic deployable) ELTs have an even worse record. In fact, none of them has ever transmitted a signal in a ditching, and any that accidently fell off have never been found.

I'd bet my own life on satellite tracking. Aircraft has an ELT to be legal.

I bet my own life on anything other then my elt as well. I don't think my mishap was enough to set it off. Right now uts disconnected, but once the plane is back together I'd like to make sure it doesn't happen again. Ill check the remote switch for moisture. Thanks.
Fwiw, I had a buddy nose over his 170 going fairly quick and didn't set of his elt either. Youd think that something that required equipment would be more reliable, especially with all the hoops and tests that one has to do for an STC. Seems to me like a life saving device should be put through even more hoops...