SPOT Satellite Messenger

[Zapf]

update... apprently their emergency service based in houston is really useless.

[mowgli]

update... apprently their emergency service based in houston is really useless.

Among several good reviews I only found one bad writeup here. I've no idea who the writer is or what his motivation might be. The prices he quotes don't equate to any of the advertised hardware or service costs. He went camping with four kids and didn't tell his wife where he was going? My wife knows that there are many more people in the world than me and that if mine goes off then the most likely reason is that I've come across someone else in trouble. His wife "freaked out". The guy's clueless. So on balance I treated it as a one off. Besides I spoke to the SPOT help center with questions before buying and got no hint of a bad feeling.

If you've got other info I'd be keen to read it.

[Zapf]

spoken to a few guys in the private aero clubs and they hav had some issues trust and also technical ones. didn't remember the details.

[mowgli]

spoken to a few guys in the private aero clubs and they hav had some issues trust and also technical ones. didn't remember the details.

That makes sense. SPOT is completely unsuitable as an aviation beacon. No 406MHz. No 121.5 homing. Not picked up by COSPAS-SARSAT. No inertial trigger. Coverage is not worldwide. Probably not certified. Maybe other reasons?

The trouble locating the guy with four kids is entirely consistent with the SPOT being set off (albeit inadvertently) without a GPS signal (shielded somehow or upside down). GPS signals are very weak and easily blocked. The manual says the distress message will still go out but in that case your nominated contacts (his wife and business partner) will be called for information on your location. Eventually if/when the SPOT does get a GPS fix it will transmit the coordinates but the timing of that is entirely dependent on when the fix is achieved. He didn't know it was going off so it was probably a fluke that he moved or bumped the SPOT into a position where it could get a GPS fix. The 45 minutes could just as easily have been hours.

The trust/reliability issue is potentially concerning but I've not seen/heard much on that so far. I've used the messaging functions of SPOT and they worked, as advertised. The online interface is easy to use. I haven't had cause to use the emergency function. With luck I never will.

So far I am entirely satisfied with my SPOT and would recommend to other bikers.