Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Final verdict on "Spot" please

I went into REI, and they have a rebate offer from SPOT for $50 if Spot is bought before Dec. 31. Is this the deal you are talking about? I didn't see anything about a free SPOT if package is bought. Please let me know if there is a different rebate I should be looking for. Thank you in advance.

I see the same $50 rebate on-line from SPOT.

But the email I got only gave a phone number. If you are interested, call it: 1-866-OK1-SPOT

As a SPOT owner, my fear is the recent SPOT offers and the fact that they've showed up packaged in that 'cut your hand' packaging in Costco means they aren't doing so well.

I used SPOT this past summer and it seems to work well. There was one bad plot point but other than that I was able to send my wife OK messages even during an uninvited snow event at Trail Camp in early September (on Whitney...which is why I got the thing in the first place!!!).

The unit works fantastically if you are in relatively clear skies...just remember to point the button side of the body skyward. If you are hanging the unit off of your backpack with the button side pointing horizontally (due to the nature of the belt clip) your signals aren't that likely to transmit.

I would suggest, as I did, to stop, and send your OK messages while on a break with your button side pointed skyward and in a clear area. The Unit works great doing this.

> my fear is the recent SPOT offers and the fact that they've showed up packaged
> in that 'cut your hand' packaging in Costco means they aren't doing so well.

Don't know about that. What was the Costco price?

I got an email from them some weeks ago inviting me to complete a survey. They were asking questions regarding their second generation unit. It looks like it will be a little more user-friendly, and slightly smaller.

So it looks like they are looking ahead. I like the SPOT, and I hope they succeed.

I saw them for $200.00 in the Bakersfield Costco. I don't plan on buying one. I don't feel the need yet and I will wait for the technology to improve and become more reliable.

Rafael...

A penny under $200, but you get a $50 rebate. It includes a year of service. If you add Tracking, you'll end up paying about $200. It's a little bit better than than the $230 I paid about six months ago.

Best deal, though, if you want one right now, is to ask one of us current owners to purchase the service for you so that you get the unit free.

Hi All,

I was flipping through the Sunday sales ads and saw that the "Spot" was on sale at Big 5 Sporting Goods for $149.00 and then you get a $50.00 mail in rebate so it ends up at $99.00.

Just thought I would pass it on since the Spot has been a topic of discussion lately.

Ron

REI has it also for the same price, in case Big 5 is not close

http://www.rei.com/product/766529

Ken

I was under the opinion that you also needed from the carrier a 1 year subscription to activate/use the SPOT. Thus the price (much like current airline fees) gets more expensive when you buy.

Yes, you have to purchase the tracking service. The unit is worthless without it. Dec 1 is the last day for a special deal -- see Richard's and my posts above.

I bought a SPOT because my wife and I are approaching 70 yrs and we like to continue doing weeklong backpacks trips in the Sierras and other places like we have for the past 50 years with the knowledge that if we have a medical emergency there is hope of rescue. Most of our trips involve at least one or more days of cross country travel where we generally do not see anybody. A satellite telephone is really what I would like but it is too heavy and the care and feeding is very expensive.

I am quite familiarly with the technology since I am a retired digital engineer/software programmer. In reading reviews and rants it appears that the weakest link is the use of the Globalstar constellation for communication. I spent quite a lot of time watching the Globalstar satellite tracks on the web site http://www.n2yo.com/ and noticed that for a lot of times that the closest satellite was low in the sky, that is below 20-30 degrees, which could be a problem in the backcountry.

I decided to do an experiment by putting the SPOT unit on my roof which has a clear view to the horizon in all directions and let it run in the track mode for 15.5 hours. This meant that SPOT unit was sending a message every ten minutes. The results were that 67% of all the messages sent were received which works out to an average of four messages per hour. The weather condition during this time was a cloud free sky here in southern Arizona.

What was interesting were the time gaps between messages. The longest dead time when no messages were received was 70 minutes which only happened once. The next longest period was 40 minutes which also happened once. There was three times when no messages were received for 30 minutes and 17 times when the time between messages was 20 minutes. Finally there were 39 messages received were the time between messages was 10 minutes.

What I would have liked to have been able to do was to capture the Globalstar constellation configuration at the time the message was sent to see if the problem was that the closest satellite was low in the sky, no satellite was visible, or my message was jammed out. It also would have been nice to be able to capture just which satellite received each message.

So far about all I can say is that if I had an emergency, messages would get through, but there could be worst case delay of at least one hour for the first message to get through.

I am thinking about doing further tests where I restrict SPOT’s view of the sky to various narrower cone angles to simulate real life field conditions. Also I would like to do some experiments on cloudy/rainy days. Maybe someone else has done these experiments?

I haven't, but I have made comments on a number of occasion about what you saw in your experiment. Another example: yesterday SPOT was on for just shy of 11 hours. There should have been 60+ messages from the Tracking service, but there were only 25 (and four of those were OKs that I sent out).

Please keep posting results of your experiments. We appreciate it.

Also would be nice to get SPOT to resond to these "complaints."

Certainly a SPOT message can't go any farther wrong than trying to send a Help message out via people you meet on the trail. In 2004, my party of 3 got into desperate trouble and tried to send a written message out to my husband, via a fellow hiker, that we needed help and were trying to come out early. I even gave the idiot hiker the money to pay for a long-distance call so he could read the message to my husband!

But the jerk instead passed our message on verbally to other hikers, and by the time it got to my husband, the message was that we were fine and having a good time (!). It finally reached him only a day before we staggered out.l

Obviously, we did make it out, but no thanks to a written message, fellow hikers, or even word of mouth! So I'd rather rely on a device like a Spot.

Hiya, Hoppy! I finally caved and bought a SPOT last week after waiting and waiting for a new model/design to come out (now, of course, it's inevitable). My main time frame was for winter use, since I am still nervous about conditions and being out there solo in such conditions. As my friend Len put it: "I don't care about the OK part. I want to know when I need to come find you." Today was interesting, looking at my track from Rock Creek. I had the unit mounted on the upper side of my pack (since I don't have anywhere to attach it on the topper... hmmm... excuse for a new pack??). The messages were few and far between, like up to 90 minutes. A few did go through, but not all by any stretch.

So, it's not full-proof. But there is very little out there that is. Frankly, its a more affordable means of location than other PLBs. And it definitely does not replace good sense, letting people know where you are going ahead of time, trying to stick to an itinerary, and calling/checking in when you get home safely.

-L

I got a Spot for Christmas, but I wasn't too impressed with the reliability. In the end I returned it and got a couple C3s to fill in the small end of my rack. One of these days I'll spring for either a sat phone or PLB. Until then I'll just use conservative decision-making when out solo, and always leave an itinerary.

Very interesting, Ralph. Thank you. Capturing the configuration at a given point in time would be quite useful.

What I would like to see is a table showing the angle and direction of the closest satellite every ten minutes throughout the day. Computer programs like that probably exist, but how could we find one?

If we had a chart, it would be interesting to compare the dead times for hikers' units with the table.

...digging a little: I see that Globalstar has an "OSAT" (Optimum Satellite Availability Tool) site that shows windows of time for optimal satellite phone use. It has a slide rule type of display, so you can see days and times.

Ralph, I wonder how your test would match up to their report of availability.

Steve,

Thank you for pointing out Globalstar's OSAT tool. Very much appreciated. I am currently running another all sky test and will post the results. I am also planning some tests where I use a very large piece of cardboard covered with aluminum foil that has a three foot circular hole. By varying the distance behind the hole to the SPOT I can simulate various cones of reception on the sky. Tests like this would eliminate factors like the unit not being level, partially blocked by the user, or by trees as the user is walking through a forested area. For an emergency situation the user is probably going to make sure that the unit is level and in a meadow like environment.

Yes it would be nice to have a computer program that would generate parameters like you suggested. About 30 years ago I wrote programs like that. It was a lot of work and I think that we should bug Globalstar for such a tool since it would be just a minor upgrade to the OSAT program. I bet they already have such a tool in their back room.

By the way I found a very good review of the SPOT on http://www.backpackinglight.com/ (subscription required) which probably has been mentioned by others on this bulletin board. I notice that the review states: “With a perfect view of the sky, our six day kayaking field test produced daily successful message delivery rates of 75% to 83%.” Now this is nowhere near the 99% figure that the vendor mentions. The review has a discussion about this discrepancy. I sure would like to see the detailed calculations on how the vendor arrived at this 99% figure.

Looking forward to the results of the all sky test, as well as your cone testing.

Steve,

It turns out that the Globalstar OSAT tool is only for the two-way voice communication channel. Apparently that channel is experiencing degraded performance and the OSAT tool shows coverage for unaffected satellites. The Simplex channel which SPOT uses is not affected.

See http://www.pivotel.com.au/globalstar_advisory.html

From the advisory:

“The Globalstar constellation is completely stable and fully operational in supporting Globalstar Simplex data satellite products and asset tracking services. Recent monitoring tests indicate that the Simplex data network is currently operating at a successful transmission rate of greater than 99 percent. And because Globalstar's Simplex data products are also designed to work with the second-generation satellite constellation, they are expected to provide customers with years of high quality reliable service well into the next decade and beyond.”

I just love how the 99% figure just keeps a popping up! It sure does not agree with what SPOT users are seeing.

I saw that talk about some satellites being affected. But since their 99% figure is so far from actual experience with SPOT, I was thinking maybe there would be a correlation also with SPOT units and reliability.