Spot Satellite GPS Messenger

After that horrible incident in August this year in Winter Harbour involving the Qualicum Rivers Charter boat, it made me think about being out in crappy weather, and the possibility of falling overboard etc...
I thought I would pick up a Spot GPS, as I single hand on my own boat quite a bit. I know you can pack a cell phone and VHF's now have DSC, but sometimes cell phones dont always work, and they are not water proof, and DSC is attached to the boat so it doesn't do you any good if you fall over board. Anyway, West Marine had these on sale a few weeks ago, so I picked one up, but I haven't activated the service that goes along with it yet, as I thought I would wait until I am fishing again.

Just wondering if anybody has one and what their thoughts are on the service packages etc...

Anybody who is not familiar here is a link to the SPOT web-site which tells you the specs of the unit and what it does. FYI, it is about half the size of a cell phone, is water proof and fits in your pocket, of clips onto you.

Cheers
 

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If my wife isn't fishing with me in the spring and summer,she's away backpacking in Strathcona Park.She and her friends take a SPOT with them and keep in touch with me each evening.It's simple for me to find out exactly where they are and if things are okay with them.They just use the most basic package and it's adequate for them.
Dave
 
So with the basic package, can you still track the person online via google maps? I'll have to remember to turn the thing off before I get caught fishing in the 17 mile pub!
 
It is by far the simplest and easiest piece of mind for my wife that I have ever used.

It shows up with the co ordinates out in Winter Harbour or up moose hunting in FSJ or fishing down in Florida. It floats and I clip it to my PFD when I am out fishing.

A buddy accidently pushed the 911 button while out sheep hunting and with-in an hour a helicopter was flying over head. I find the tracking thing useless for me and we have S&R free up here so you do not need to pay for that. We are looking into the roadside assistance as that is pretty cheap.

Best $100/ year I spend

I have the older model.

Cheers

SS
 
They seem pretty darn cool.....Sitka and I have seen a number of stories of guys using them through a hunting forum we are both on.

They seem pretty good and my Dad is getting one this year for Xmas for his fly in hunting trips and trips putting radio collars on animals.
 
I believe when it fires a message it is either an e-mail with a link to google maps which will have your GPS co-ordinates or an SMS text which includes your GPS co-ordinates. As far as working off shore, that shouldn't be an issue, in theory as long as it can see the sky, it uses GPS sattelites to communicate, which is why it should be better than cell phone or VHF. It essentially does the exact same thing as DSC but fires has a few more options with the buttons in that you can just check in, ask for non-emergency help, or fire off an actual may-day/sos. In the event of a may-day/sos it keeps firing of the message to the rescue centers until the batteries die, and it can be submerged in water.

I may be wrong on this point but I believe that handheld VHF radio's with DSC or DSC in general will only give the last known position of the boat;whereas, this thing keeps updating exactly where you are if you have to bail or get into a life raft.

Food for thought
 
Good point on the X-mas thing Pippen. I kind of kick myself for not putting a thread up on this site when I bought this thing. I was going to buy it at the start of next season, but at the end of October I went into West Marine for something else and saw that they had them on sale for $155, and you got a mail in for a special case/carrier for it and a $50 West Marine coupon. I was surprised as West Marine never seems to be the cheapest, but I bought my christmas present then, and told my wife about it.
So I have it, but wasn't planning on activating the service until spring, and that is why I started the thread, to see if anybody had any tips on the service??
I agree with some of the other points on here, great for hunting, and a pretty cheap piece of mind.

I almost fell overboard this year out at the big bank off Bamfield hooking up my easy-steer, scared the **** out of me.
 
A little off topic, but it has been brought up. I'm sure most of you know, but your DSC have to be integrated in to your gps for your radio to automatically send your coordinates. If it is not you need to manually key in your position every time there is significant change in your position.It will hold these coordinates until you enter new ones or activate the switch. A few people I know were not aware of this.
 
Good point Halilogger, my understanding of DSC is the same, but I think some of the more expensive DSC's have GPS built in, but most have to be connected to your GPS/Chartplotter to give current position.
 
SPOT is an excellent investment for keeping in touch while you're outside cell range. I like the tracking feature, but with the Gen 1 model I have it's tough to know when you're tracking and when you're not. The Gen 2 has a separate button / light for tracking mode. The even better model is the Delorme handheld GPS / SPOT combo which lets you send a different message every time instead of just a choice of 1 or 2 different messages. Here's a sample track from my trip two weeks ago.
http://www.spotadventures.com/trip/view?trip_id=233373
I can only email 10 different addresses, but you could probably use email filters to set up one of those to be a relay to a bunch of other addresses, or there is a web page that anyone with the address and password can access if you have 100 friends that want to know where you're fishing.

For falling out safety this wireless kill switch is pretty cool and it doesn't require any wiring, it just hooks up to the existing kill switch.

http://www.autotether.com/at/
 
Good call Halilogger that is a good reminder for everyone. Sounds like this is using Inmarsat to allow you to communicate, looks like a good investment.
 
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