Thread: Inreach Messages not sending due to spam blocking government?

So I've been using an Inreach since I headed to Canada last year. I use it to do drop off pick up trips with undetermined durations while I wasn't employed. This meant I could keep in touch and bail out early if need be and get collected at the nearest road. My last trip I had issues getting a message out. In the end I knew something wasn't right as I wasn't getting a response so I sent a total of 25 messages in an afternoon to 5 different people on 3 different networks. 2 of these messages got through. I finally got a chance to talk to garmin today to berate them for this as it's unacceptable. While I always have a maximum time plan and exit point my partner still worries if I don't check it as often I'm pioneering new routes (for me) and things take longer or don't work out so plans change.

They told me that it's due to the NZ Government blocking the messages as spam when the location part is turned on. This part helps me a lot as I often send points to confirm exact meeting points. They don't want to hear it but I pay a fair bit for the service and I think this is pretty much bullshit. I never had any issues sending the same location based messages from the USA or Canada to NZ Mobiles. Partner and I also almost had S and R called when we decided to extend a trip a day as she had a rostered day of on the Monday and I wasnt working. We sent a message to both of our families and our flat mates that were never received but showed sent to us presumably due to having our location attached. They panicked and luckily my family had the sense to calm everyone reminding them we had 2 plbs and were not working Monday and to wait until Tuesday before panicking.

Sooooo.....
Has anyone had similar issues?
I have this bigger trip coming up and potentially am looking for a heli pickup wherever we end up and need to be able to send out location. Yes I can send it to an email or inreach but that is besides the point.

A friend of mine has used Inreach to talk to his son in the wilds of Canada.

Not sure about the specific causes, but it seems to be dodgy reliability, and sometimes long intervals between messages being sent and recieved.

I have had an inreach mini for 3 years. Used it overseas and a lot here. Only had 1 txt go unanswered that I am aware of.
One of our Thar camps has bugger all visible sky. Steep valley. Sometime messages in and out are delayed by a few minutes. I have a Satt phone as well but hardly use it.
I dont use the location service here because I have set camps etc. It is also easy to turn on and off.

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk

I hired one last week and it wasn't given our location

Originally Posted by R93

I have had an inreach mini for 3 years. Used it overseas and a lot here. Only had 1 txt go unanswered that I am aware of.
One of our Thar camps has bugger all visible sky. Steep valley. Sometime messages in and out are delayed by a few minutes. I have a Satt phone as well but hardly use it.
I dont use the location service here because I have set camps etc. It is also easy to turn on and off.

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk

I used mine all through the US and Canada no issues. Every night checking in with the outfitter as to how we where going if the client was happy etc. Not issues I thought I'd only had to one S and R issue but what happy. This last one shook my faith a bit and the fact they haven't mentioned it to the customers in NZ is pretty shit. I'm on the cheaper unlimited plan as its not cheap. I'm sure the reasoning is sound. I've always had them send maybe a bit slow if your right up against a cliff or under a thick spruce tree but always get it down. I do t mind the delay as usually I check in at night and don't read the reply till the morning. I will try without the location but its not ideal if say I want a heli pickup somewhere other than where it was planned and have to describe the spot which potentially leaves quite a bit of confusion as to finding it on a topo

Originally Posted by Max Headroom

A friend of mine has used Inreach to talk to his son in the wilds of Canada.

Not sure about the specific causes, but it seems to be dodgy reliability, and sometimes long intervals between messages being sent and recieved.

The delay is to be expected as its a message forwarding service. Ie you text garmin then they text the contact. Also the phone number you get the text from garmin on is different for every phone. For example if I text my partner she gets 12345 while if I text my brother he gets a message from 54321(obviously not the real numbers). All inreach to inreach and inreach to email messages I have done have sent and received 100%. I can tel you they are 10x better than the alternative being Spot or a sat phone from my experience. They seem to be able to slip through a message in borderline service whereas our satphone in Canada required you to be in an open space or on a ridge to get good coverage.

Ýou sent the messages via the iridium satellites which are NOT geosynchronous in their orbits (ie they move) so there can be a delay. Inreach keeps sending your message until it gets an acknowledgement that it have been recieved by the Sat/Service provider. Spot on the other hand tries sends it 3 times then gives up. The message is then passed from Land Earth Station into the terrestrial phone network and handled like a normal text. Some info is passed to Garmin as regards tracking the mobiles position etc but mostly its all automatic

Originally Posted by Stocky

I used mine all through the US and Canada no issues. Every night checking in with the outfitter as to how we where going if the client was happy etc. Not issues I thought I'd only had to one S and R issue but what happy. This last one shook my faith a bit and the fact they haven't mentioned it to the customers in NZ is pretty shit. I'm on the cheaper unlimited plan as its not cheap. I'm sure the reasoning is sound. I've always had them send maybe a bit slow if your right up against a cliff or under a thick spruce tree but always get it down. I do t mind the delay as usually I check in at night and don't read the reply till the morning. I will try without the location but its not ideal if say I want a heli pickup somewhere other than where it was planned and have to describe the spot which potentially leaves quite a bit of confusion as to finding it on a topo

I never had to use mine in Canada to talk to my boss as he supplys a satt phone.

Like you say, the satt phone coverage over there is pretty shit. Always dropping out at important times. Mine works more reliably here tho.
Only use the inreach to contact family and friends here at home when over there.
I'm on a Canadian plan as well so not sure if that has much to do with anything as to being more reliable.

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk

Yep had exactly the issue you talked about recently, wont send to a phone but will send emails still. It had always worked faultless till now. It still will send to some phones just not all, an of course it wouldn't send to the pilot I needed it to. Its says sent but they never received it. Luckey before we flew in i tried it standing next to the pilot realised it wasn't working.

Originally Posted by Ham 7mm

Yep had exactly the issue you talked about recently, wont send to a phone but will send emails still. It had always worked faultless till now. It still will send to some phones just not all, an of course it wouldn't send to the pilot I needed it to. Its says sent but they never received it. Luckey before we flew in i tried it standing next to the pilot realised it wasn't working.

this is the problem our pilot was having with his units, Emails would work but sending to his phone it was hit and miss also wouldn't show location. ISSUE has only just started

Originally Posted by bigbear

this is the problem our pilot was having with his units, Emails would work but sending to his phone it was hit and miss also wouldn't show location. ISSUE has only just started

Atleast since Feb 1st for the 25 sent to 2 received and the potential first occurrence was 2 sent non received back in March last year.

I’ll test mine tomorrow as I drive around town. I hope to use it the following week and it’ll be good to know it’s functioning ok.

Originally Posted by mikee

Ýou sent the messages via the iridium satellites which are NOT geosynchronous in their orbits (ie they move) so there can be a delay. Inreach keeps sending your message until it gets an acknowledgement that it have been recieved by the Sat/Service provider. Spot on the other hand tries sends it 3 times then gives up. The message is then passed from Land Earth Station into the terrestrial phone network and handled like a normal text. Some info is passed to Garmin as regards tracking the mobiles position etc but mostly its all automatic

@mikee this looks like it holds the best merit. How do you know which satellites you are sending to? Is there a setting on them that you can chose which you want to send to?
Thanks

Originally Posted by Sideshow

@mikee this looks like it holds the best merit. How do you know which satellites you are sending to? Is there a setting on them that you can chose which you want to send to?
Thanks

nope it uses the first available thats "in view" from memory there are 66 of them. you have no idea which one is being used. Inmarsat (different system) uses 4 in geosyncronus orbit above the equator.

Thanks. Hope this is helpful to you guys.