Bogley

[welsmj64]

Personal Locator Beacons are devices that transmit a distress signal that allows emergency and rescue personnel a means of locating a victim in need of aid. For groups or individuals that travel beyond the limits of cell phone coverage, PLBs provide a critical safety margin. Those back home are more comfortable knowing their love ones have some means of communicating distress in an emergency.

This review was done after several months of field testing in southeastern Utan and in Honduras.

[ExpUt]

A good friend of mine spent half a year touring from Canada to the tip of South America in his Land Cruiser, returning earlier this year. He set up a SPOT dispatch list that would periodically send emails to his usergroup. Click the link and google showed his exact location :cool:

Very worthwhile product IMO!

[welsmj64]

I carry one with me every time I go out just for that extra security. I also have used the tracking feature to track my route so that my family can see where I'm at when they log into my account. They are a really good tool, and as long as you know and understand the limitations, or weaknesses of the unit I too think it is a great tool to have. I can't remember if a person can advertise on the forum or not but I know where you can pick this unit up for $125.99 (NEW) while supplies last.

[Alex]

Ya post the link dude, if it saves us money, of course you can :2thumbs:

I use one religiously now. It's in my emergency bag now. I usually send an OK signal when I launch on my daily excursion and send an OK message when I finish for the day, so my family can sleep without worry.

I love it.

[Alex]

Does anyone have a good pouch for it? And does it work well in a pouch?

The clip that the SPOT comes with is totally worthless in my opinion. My friend adam almost lost his the way Dan lost his camera a while ago (same spot and slot canyon).

[welsmj64]

OTBPMAPS has a sale going on the SPOT for the OTBPMAPS Members in the Members Store for $125.95 while supplies last. The following link will direct you to our Members page that explains our member’s area and what it takes to join. So that there are no surprises there is a small yearly fee.

If a person doesn't want to join the member’s site then they can just contact me direct and if they mention the bogley forum the price will be $140.95 plus S/H. The retail prices on these units vary from $149.95 to $169.95 so it gives you a little savings.

http://www.otbpmaps.com/login.php

[welsmj64]

No there isn't a pouch for it that I know of and from my experience they don't work well in anything. I tried it in a shirt pocket and it didn't work, and I have tried it in vehicles as well. The only sure way I found it to work in a vehicle was to have it on the dash with a clear view of the sky.

I have also not had it send the signal if I don't have it flat in my hand (on occasion), so I would have to say that at this point I wouldn't trust it to work 100% in a case. Now I have attached it to the top of my pack and it worked fine taking readings within a 10 to 20 minute intervals. I have attached it to my gear on my ATV and it worked fine. One thing a person could do is put it in a small camera type case on their belt so it was handy or maybe use a rubber band strap like on military packs to help secure it to your gear along with the clip. One thing I should mention is that performance can vary between units as well. Despite all this I still feel strongly that it is a good tool.

[RedMan]

ATVUtah.com has the only decent pouch I have seen for the SPOT.
I have one and its perfect. Rugged and holds two spare batteries.

He gives you a pouch for free if you buy the SPOT from him.

http://www.atvutah.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=153

I use it inside the pouch at all times and it works just fine in tracking mode.
You have to remove it from the pouch to use the buttons.

Monte: your SPOT must be defective. I use it in the vehicle, in the pouch, and inside my jacket pocket and it works fine.

[welsmj64]

That’s good to hear that there is a pouch available. I’ve worked with my SPOT representative that I have, because I’m a SPOT dealer, concerning my personal unit and as far as SPOT can tell there is nothing wrong with it. The way my unit is functioning fits with the testing that my company and a company I work with in NV did with several different units over a several month period. We found that most of the units had problems sending a signal when not in clear view of the sky. Time delays varied on the delivery of the message the longest time was seven hour from the time the message was sent to the time the message was received and transmitted to our contacts. This length only happened once but it wasn’t uncommon for a 15 to 30 minute delay and on one or two occasions it was nearer to an hour.
I have no idea what makes the difference and the majority of the time it worked within 15 minutes of the time the message was sent. Even in the tracking mode the reading times varied between 10 to 30 minutes in a variety of different conditions, canyons, high ground, good viability, Death Valley, and so on. I can’t explain what caused the differences but there can be dependability differences between units. There are several factors that can come into play when dealing with satellite systems and signals and the Global Star system is an old system. Anyone that has used SAT phones can attest to the difficulties that can arise.
But what it all boils down to is that it is a fairly inexpensive tool that can be used to save your life or let people know you are okay. It’s sure is better than anything else out there right now for the price. Oh ACR Electronics makes a very nice unit that works very well but the price of their units run between $450.00 to $570.00 or more per unit.
It's good to hear that your unit works fine under those conditions. This is a good example of why I encourage everyone that buys a SPOT to run a series of test on their unit so that they will know and understand the limitations if any of their unit. Thanks for the information on the pouch.

[KapitanSparrow]

Is this thing water proof?

[welsmj64]

They are waterproof up to 1 meter for up to 30 minutes. The device also floats.

[Last Child]

Seeing as how most of my mountain biking and skiing are done solo I purchased one of these so that I can let my wife know where I am and that all is well. She really likes the fact that I can and do send her my location several times day. It has brought her, and me too I guess, great piece of mind. I have a tendency to push myself pretty hard sometimes and that may some day prove to be problematic.

The only issues I have with SPOT are that it is very sloooow to get a gps location and you need a pretty clear view of the sky. It does not seem to work very well if you have any tree cover whatsoever. But for the price and piece of mind it is very well worth it.

I would really like to see Trimble or Garmin make something similar to this. GPS technology has really come a long way and has some great things coming in the future. With the new satellites they are sending up we will someday be able to get gps signals under tree cover. That will be so great. The last Trimble seminar I went to I think they said it would be somewhere around the year 2020.

I highly recomend this unit.

[Joe Gardner]

I set up my spot to email our blog when checking in. We had our friends and family subscribe to our blog and they got emails with links to see our location.

It worked great, there were two or three check-ins that did not make it online due to bad campsites under 200' tall pines.

Heres what our blog post looked like: http://joe-and-heather.blogspot.com/2008/08/ok-esn0-7400745_26.html

[tmartenst]

A friend of mine used it as he ran the AT this summer and it worked pretty well. It was spotty (no pun intended) at first and there were a few days it did not transmit but overall it worked well.

http://www.whereskarl.com/

[Jaxx]

Love the SPOT. Question for you SPOT pros. How do you set up the cookie crumb function so my wife can login and see the "crumbs"?