The installation of the ACK ELT is very well detailed in Van's plans. It starts by drilling a few holes to attach the main unit to the fuselage and the remote buzzer unit to the nose rib of the rudder. Following that, a simple antenna installation with only 1 nut and some surface cleaning. I also tested SWR for the antenna at 121.5MHz and it resulted in SWR=3. Not bad.
On the main unit there are 4 pins that need soldering in the connector and in the front panel there is a remote unit for testing and activation. On the connector, there is a testing lead to verify that GPS data is reaching the ELT. I installed a D-SUB standard pin to make it easier to test.
The ELT setup makes use of 3 batteries. The main battery that will actually drive the locator/emergency radio, is one battery on the buzzer remote unit and one battery on the panel mount remote unit.
All batteries have to be replaced. But it is a long battery life.
Here I list the installation date and battery expiration dates that will be later noted in the maintenance logbook.
Main Battery
Type: Proprietary
Installation date: Sep 12th, 2023
Expiration date: Aug 15th, 2028
Remote Buzzer Battery
Type: CR2
Installation date: Sep 12th, 2023
Expiration date: March 2031
Remote panel mount unit Battery
Type: 28L
Installation date: Sep 12th, 2023
Expiration date: March 2032
https://youtu.be/7lvxmlarVKQ