I was talking to my dad yesterday about my upcoming Quetico trip. He asked if I was going to have the SPOT with me. I said yes, and he said good - he can now live the trip vicariously through me. The "safety" feature didn't enter into it at all.

My dad is familiar with the limitations of the SPOT. A few years ago we were on a trip together and we capsized in the Russell-Sturgeon narrows when the water was high and moving fast. It took us an hour to get ourselves and stuff out of the water. Afterwards he asked me if I could have used the SPOT if we had needed it. I answered no - it wasn't on me and had been floating around in some pack somewhere. We never told my mom this

Ok, now I want to be laying on bedrock slab watching the occasional satellite go by. Oh and if I happened to have a sat phone available, I'd probably annoy everyone who's phone number I knew by heart.
 

One thing to remember is that a Spot is a Globalstar service and uses the same satellites as their phones. When I turn my Globalstar Phone on it shows me what what quality of a signal I have to the satellite or a message "searching for service." They have gotten better but it is not uncommon to wait 2-10 minutes for a usable satellite connection. On a rarer occasion it may be 20 minutes. The satellites are low orbit which means they are passing overhead and always on the move. Another satellite should be coming by about every 14 minutes but depending on its position in the sky you will have different signal quality.

Solus wrote on Jun 20^th, 2015 at 4:02pm:


Amen. I think this accounts for most reported "failures". Leave it on till it auto offs. It's been perfect since I started that. The blinking led means sending, not sent.

This seems like something that if you have a smartphone and don't mind the expense, would be the ticket for those who feel the need to stay in touch 24/7?

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I watched or maybe read an article about the military's effort to have a way to locate their troops anywhere in the world at anytime. I'm talking individual soldiers here.

One of the things they were looking at is inserting a removable chip like they use on pets that they could track and with a way for the soldier to activate ( crush the chip) which would mean it's life or death, send Seal Team 6 pronto.

I'm guessing that in the next 10 yrs or so they'll have something like that for the civilian market.

You pay a fee, get it inserted/removed and tell them where your going. They follow your every movement and you have a way IF your conscious/able to get help. Your contacts could log in an follow you like they do now.

That would take the human error out of it and maybe the electronic because the military will demand that from the supplier.

Still might not not be able to send daily OK messages, but I think most worried users/families would be comforted to know that in a life threatening situation their loved one has a option that will be as close to 100% reliable as we can make it.

With the Gen II the message is not confirmed sent until the blinking light of the message button you've chosen goes out (and only the power button and the indicator button remain flashing).

I have one of those SPOT's that blinks when the message has been sent.  As far as I know, the message has ALWAYS gotten through.

I have the "tracker" option but I don't always use it (didn't this year).  It's more fun for those back home when you are moving locations frequently vs. base-camping.  Oh, & I generally turn it "OFF" when I approach favorite fishing holes.  Had a buddy back home once tell me he marked his maps where he saw me circling & circling.  Yet another thing to keep in mind when using these devices!

We establish habits on the trail & back home when we use these communication devices.  They set different expectations than in the yester-year of days-before-devices.  About the best we can do, should we prefer to use them, is to soundly educate the folks back home re: their limitations.

Here's a case-in-point.

I did a trip with a next-door-neighbor kid a few years back.  His mom was nervous since it was his first-time-ever camping.  I did everything I could think of to put her mind at ease.  I bought a fancy Katadyn water filter so she could be sure I wouldn't poison her kid.  I promised to use my SPOT every day and I even instructed the kid how to use it, just in case I should become incapacitated.

All those plans nearly went for naught, however.

On Day #1 I was using SPOT's tracking feature & keeping it running so the folks back home could follow us.  However, I was seeing only "red" lights (ie. no signal) when I kept the unit in my life vest pocket.  Eventually, I took it out and placed it on the floor of the canoe in front of me.  Bingo, green lights! 

Then, I simply forgot about it.

A portage later and another couple miles of paddling, we arrived at camp.  The first thing I aimed to do was to send the "OK" message.  Oops, no SPOT Messenger!

Yup, when I flipped the canoe over my head back on that portage, out went the SPOT!

Of course, in my panic, I didn't think of that right away.  Rather, I frantically checked all the packs I might have stuffed it in during the hustle-bustle of portaging.  Hmmm... no luck, just more panic.  The kid's mom would worry and give me hell when I got back.  The kid's father was a lawyer (not sure why, but I was keenly cognizant of that fact, perhaps fearing something else might go wrong).  Anyway, eventually I calmed down & thought it through.  After a quick camp set-up, we hustled back to the portage, looked around, and eventually found my SPOT under 6 inches of water at the other end of the portage.

We got lucky.  It worked just fine.

From that point forward, on every trip since, I've carefully explained the "limitations" of using these devices to all concerned back home.

Something similar has surely happened with Magic Paddler.  I don't think many of us, including his wife, are really very worried.

Nevertheless, there's always that small sun spot of doubt.

Expectations....

Jimbo   

solotripper wrote on Jun 19^th, 2015 at 7:58pm:


I'm completely with you on this, ST, and, yeah, it may be because we're from a different time.  Over the last five years we do carry a SAT phone but that's because my mother-in-law is 94 and if anything happens while we're away my wife, who is my travelling partner, feels she needs to know (although I'm not sure what we could do about it anyway.)  In the five years we've carried it we've never called out and no one has called in.  We check it nightly (mostly) and that's it.  Me, I'm all about getting away from it all, not taking it with me.  Although, judging from the increasing amount of stuff we carry you might not know it.

I've had my old school SPOT for about 10 years.  I finally have trained myself to remember to turn it on when I hit camp, set it out and check it occasionally to see if it has sent its OK.  It has always been reliable.  I also discovered last year that it will send a message from inside my tent if it has a clear shot through the screen toward the open sky.  My family appreciates the contact but last trip son Dan said unless he sees a help or 911 notification he doesn't pay much attention to if I checked in or not.    The OS version has two blinking lights when it is sending and just one blinking light once it has sent the coordinates which makes it easy to know if/when the message has been sent.
I used to have the tracking feature, but never really used it so cancelled that this year.  I do like the map I have on "file" when I return of my check in points and can copy it off the web and put it in with my trip report if I want to.  I do not carry a watch so I am also interested in knowing when I stopped for the night or started in the morning once I am home and can read the details.
I think the usefulness of sending a daily SPOT signal is that should I quit sending a signal and people are worried about me, they will have a general idea of where I last was and would probably begin in that area to try to find me. 
My directions regarding the meaning of "help" is that I am not in mortal danger but I cannot get out on my own and if I was in serious medical trouble I would hit the 911 option.