My post about SPOT from a year ago...


Message posted by Gregos on September 17, 2009 at 20:37:47 PST:

SPOT is a satellite based personal emergency tracker and locator beacon. It basically works in four different modes:

OK: If you press the "OK" button, SPOT will transmit your GPS coordinates and a custom preset text message (up to 150 characters) to a list of emails set up on your online account. You set your personal message up there as well.

TRACK: If you hold "OK" down for 5 seconds it will go into track mode and spit out your location and same message to your list of emails every 10 minutes until you shut the unit off.

HELP: This is a custom emergency message again preset online that only goes to your email list. Example: "Come get me I'm stuck" or "Bring more beer!"

911: This is the reason you have it. This emergency message goes to Search and Rescue and hopefully the calvary comes big time!

Spot's initial cost is about $160 bucks with a yearly subscription of $160 for the service. Mom always said there was no such thing as a free lunch! Now this is a pretty hefty start up fee especially in this economy but if you have a broken leg and you are by yourself on a mountain is it really? Also I believe I purchased the GEOS SAR insurance for about $10 bucks a year. This is $100,000 of insurance to offset the SAR bills. If you think a ride in an ambulance is expensive, wait to you get that Helicopter Flight for Life bill!

Lastly, I should mention I was not impressed with my purchase at first. The GPS track feature is clunky and will not replace you handheld GPS unit as there is no display or way to indicate when it spits out your location. So you just have to hope it's working (lame)! A "beep" might be nice. You can only edit your messages with internet access. It would be nice to have a USB port on the unit and upload the message there. Then you can change it without the internet as many times as you want basically turning it into a one way text messenger -or at least at the campsite anyway. Maybe on the next generation units. However, once I got the mind frame that this is an emergency beacon only, well, maybe it's not so bad of a purchase after all...

Hope this helps,
Gregos


In Reply to: Re: Spot Satellite Tracker #02523-012 posted by Gregos on September 17, 2009 at 20:27:53 PST:

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