The aviation authorities are making it more difficult to get rescued with your 121.5 Mhz emergency locator transmitter starting February 1. There’s an interesting thread over at Slashdot on this subject.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/16/0916226
A lot of the comments make excellent arguments that most pilots aren’t the millionaires jetting around the country. We’re just normal folks who decided to spend our hobby money this way. Ground based stations will still monitor 121.5. It may be more difficult to hear and pinpoint the transmitter without the satellite though.