How do Distress Beacon work?

[Wakeup]

Since they're widely mentioned in many scenarios, I'd love to have some clarification (if there's an official one) on how they work specifically, since the CRB has no description, other than lifeboats and escape pods being equipped with one.

Can a starship send more than one, and is it assumed that each starship comes equipped with a number of these? RAW, they're included only in lifeboats and escape pods so that would be kinda debatable. (would you expend the use of one DB from one of your lifeboats/EPs?)

Do they have a maximum range/lifetime? If so, since they're mentioned widely as "hooks" in scenarios, are they found just by sheer luck? I take that if one gets sent from the Vast, chances for it to be found by a wandering ship are pretty low even though it seems quite the common occurrence

How do they work with the Drift? Do they work AT ALL if sent within the Drift? Can you catch a distress signal while traveling the Drift?

Thanks for anyone who can give some (even unofficial) input on these, or point me to the relevant section in the published material!

[Metaphysician]

Well, IIRC, FTL comms are a thing that requires large, expensive installations. So, we can reasonably surmise that distress beacons only use lightspeed communications methods. That would mean, yes, they are minimally useful in the Vast, since it'll only get detected if a ship or station is within your light-cone.

Communications and sensors work in the Drift, so distress beacons should work too. However, they'll only be detected *by* people in the Drift, and since that relies on non-Euclidian astrography. . . yeah, someone would only detect it by pure luck. Don't have an emergency in the Drift.

As for whether a starship has one by default? Here I would invoke the "This would be idiotic" rule, and say that yes, of course every ship has one. Specifying that an escape pod has X, does not imply at all that nothing else ever has X.