I just activated my SPOT. Pretty cool beans! Satellite uplink of your gps coordinates to the wife, or the ambulance! Anywhere on the planet and without cell phone coverage. Home - SPOT Satellite Messenger
Got SPOT?
- Thread starter psreno
- Start date
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that's not a bad little tool.
I got one for Xmas and have been playing with it around town. Works like a charm
. Now to finish up all my other projects so I can test it on the trail.
Now the girlfrend has no reason to worry about me as long as I remember to press the OK button a few times a day.
. Now to finish up all my other projects so I can test it on the trail. Now the girlfrend has no reason to worry about me as long as I remember to press the OK button a few times a day.
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very interesting and cheaper than I thought...
Maybe I'll convince my wife that SHE needs me to get one so she can keep track of me while I'm mountaineering or whatever.
Maybe I'll convince my wife that SHE needs me to get one so she can keep track of me while I'm mountaineering or whatever.
Yeah, 80 series crossing the creek is cool. Did you also notice that the car they show in the "breakdown" scenario is a Wrangler.
I have one, it's pretty cool. I leave it on live tracking mode while i'm driving constantly so people back home can see where I'm going. It's very durable and works great even in South America, through mountains and such.
Only things I'm a little disappointed about that I might warn others:
1. The 'live track' feature does not send back a constant stream of your coordinates, but rather a spot message every 10 minutes. This is understandable due to costs of satellite communication, but they're not very clear about it. I'm satisfied with it, but I was KIND of hoping for a live gps track like my garmin puts out.
2. As far as I can tell, you have to log into your spot account to view the live tracking, select all the recent points, and ask it to show you on a map. There's no live updating map to watch, and if I want to show someone where I am constantly, I have to give them the password to my spot account, giving them access to lots of details and the ability to mess around and change them. Their tech dept tells me in march they will be able to offer me a data feed that I can access for my website, but until then this feature is only just usable... and only for my immediate family.
3. It would be nice if I could plug it into my cigarette lighter and not have to buy lithium batteries all the time.
Only things I'm a little disappointed about that I might warn others:
1. The 'live track' feature does not send back a constant stream of your coordinates, but rather a spot message every 10 minutes. This is understandable due to costs of satellite communication, but they're not very clear about it. I'm satisfied with it, but I was KIND of hoping for a live gps track like my garmin puts out.
2. As far as I can tell, you have to log into your spot account to view the live tracking, select all the recent points, and ask it to show you on a map. There's no live updating map to watch, and if I want to show someone where I am constantly, I have to give them the password to my spot account, giving them access to lots of details and the ability to mess around and change them. Their tech dept tells me in march they will be able to offer me a data feed that I can access for my website, but until then this feature is only just usable... and only for my immediate family.
3. It would be nice if I could plug it into my cigarette lighter and not have to buy lithium batteries all the time.
I don't like people knowing where I am.
Then again, nobody gives a s*** about me anyway.
We care, man....I CARE!
um, do I know you?
My F.I.L. is looking into getting one for his european hiking trek in April. He is hiking the Compostella in Spain and our concern for his health and well being seems to have finally led him to consider one. I hope that after mentioning this thread he will go through with it.
When I bought mine, I ordered the top service package and it came with worldwide search and rescue insurance... so like in theory, where I am in the world if I press the panic button a helicopter will show up and rescue me.... in theory. (like $200 a year... cheap!)
Another thing I'm a little disappointed about with this device though is that they advertise it as a 'find your stolen vehicle if you left your SPOT in it' sort of thing. Well in tracking mode you have to press the button every 24 hours... so if they steal it nearing the end of that, it's pretty useless. For my purposes this was kind of one of my big concerns.
This probably isn't a big deal but SPOT doesn't provide true world wide coverage. The locations not covered may irrelevant to most people, but you should check the coverage map if you're depending on it to work in Africa, SE Asia or India.
also off the southern coast of south america i think