Thread: Spot satellite messenger, aka findme SPOT

I seem to recall a few comments about these a while ago but I cannot find the threads.

has anyone purchased one of these or trialled one etc.?
I have been offered a good price on the Gen2 model



the annual fee puts me off to be honest and it isn't a replacement for a PLB at all so is it worthwhile or just another object to carry?

Got one and had a few come back with he wrong Co ordinates.... Also says on my end that it sent the message but it hadn't.... Guys in bright orange coats showed up asno one had heard from me for a few days.

Thinking of changing to a sat phone once it's due for renewal

Have used one for the past five years, works good, you can preset the messages online so I have mine to say "Hi, the day day is over and we are safely at camp" and the other one says "Hi, we may be delayed for some reason, do not panic" and the last one you can't preset, its the "we are in the shit" button and goes to emergency services. It also sends a link to whoever you have setup to receive messages so they can see where you are.
I will replace mine when this year's subscription runs out with a inreach as you can actually type any message you want in the field plus have a GPS unit with maps built in.

Spot system is iridium based but the service has no way of knowing whether or not the message has been recieved by the land earth station and passed on. Kind of like yelling at your mate on the other side of the valley. He may or may no hear you. Inreach system will send the message and wait for acknowledgement from the Land Earth station that message is delivered no acknowledgement then it will resend.

Spot is good if you want to track your movements ie switch it on and chuck it in the top of your day pack.

All would depend on how cheap it is

There is currently an in reach for sale on fb for 550

Originally Posted by mikee

Spot system is iridium based but the service has no way of knowing whether or not the message has been recieved by the land earth station and passed on. Kind of like yelling at your mate on the other side of the valley. He may or may no hear you. Inreach system will send the message and wait for acknowledgement from the Land Earth station that message is delivered no acknowledgement then it will resend.

Spot is good if you want to track your movements ie switch it on and chuck it in the top of your day pack.

All would depend on how cheap it is

The Spot does that too, it blinks red until the message has been sent, sometimes it might take a while but it won't change back to green until the message has gone through, so you know it's gone through. I have never had mine not get a message out and it's always been very accurate on pointing out where I am, in fact if you go away hunting with mates you need to remember to take their wife's number off it before you go out to your secret spot on a solo trip or else you send a message out and all your buddies know where spot x is!

Originally Posted by Pengy

There is currently an in reach for sale on fb for 550

Model?? I dont do FB, I'll tell ya if its a good price though

We sometimes have clients put them in the aircraft, I don't rate them that much.
Like you say, they don't replace a proper PLB.
Clear intentions, a solid time at which you are to be considered overdue and a PLB.
I have seen similar situations to 22nuts experience where trying to interpret conflicting position plots can raise unnecessary concern.

Friend I do a few mountain trips with has a spot, quite good in its way for giving updates etc. On an 11 day trip she was doing updates once or twice a day for friends and family to track our progress, apparently they thought it was great. Not as foolproof or quick response as a PLB for emergencies though I think.

Some people don't realise how long they have to wait for the message to send and turn it off before it has gone, heard about a SAR operation in Canada or the US where that happened with an early one - they turned it off (to save batteries for another alert later) before it finished sending, so people got the emergency alert but no coordinates. They went to the coordinates from the previous 'delayed but ok' message but that was on the wrong side of the mountain as they'd carried on after that and got in trouble descending the other side. Think they found them but it took an extra day which could have easily been the difference between life and death. Moral of the story: know the limitations of equipment and how to use it.

Cheers for all the feedback guys, I think I will give them a miss.

Originally Posted by mikee

Model?? I dont do FB, I'll tell ya if its a good price though

Explorer