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Spot Locator

Ditto what MTV said,Spot & Plb w/survival vest too.By the way,have ya'll read about the injured hiker who spent 8 days out in wilderness.And of course the boat sinking off of Florida that claimed the 3 after they capsized their boat.(one survived) Seems to me Spot & the Plb folks should be making a bundle of $$$.Well come to think of it most pilots don't carry these life saving devices either.(sigh) I once showed my Plb to a Baron pilot who frequently goes into Mexico.His response to me was,"why do I need that,I have 2 engines". $500 Plb is cheap insurance.Oh yeah....I forgot...."IT WON'T HAPPEN TO ME".Stay safe all and keep learning.You never know when you'll make headlines.....Herman.
 
what kind of battery life are ya'll seeing with the spot 2?

is the on the ground performance any better with the spot 2? site says it has an improved antenna.

any issues since the recall a year or two ago?

have there been any documented cases where SOS was pressed (and received by SPOT), but sar never showed or was very late?
 
Spot

We could not find a pilot who never came back to the Snohomish Washington airport. Several of us searched the area he was last seen in with no luck. Walking to a resturaunt from the planes, one of the cell phones rang and it was the brother of one of our guys who had a spot in his plane. His brother said, I see you guys stopped for lunch. I ordered a spot right away. The lost pilot was found a year later, the wings folded back and punched a hole through the trees and the trees closed up again.
If he would have had the spot, they would have came right to him within a hour or less. I will not get into my plane without it. The Gov. should give every pilot one free. It would save thousands of dollars and alot of grief for familys. They are accurate within about 10 feet.
If you can not activate a device, or reach your Sat. phone or your dead at least, that little spot is still sending out a location signal.

Bill
 
I bought a live floor trailer in Nebraska, and sent one of my trucks last week to bring it home to Maine. I put my Spot on the dash so I could see where he was. It worked mostly OK, it had a few times where it didnt register anything for a few hours, and it has twice shut itself off. He left last Wed and got home early Mon morning, and the battery still seems to be working.
One neat feature of the tracking feature is the sat view. He had to borrow a hammer from the shop where he got the trailer, and the sat view clearly showed the shop and buildings where he was. I didnt have him send any OK messages, and the track was a bit spotty in areas. Overall I am happy with it.

Jim
 
I only turn it on when I'm solo; no other planes flying along with me. Somestimes I forget to turn it off but my hangar blocks the signal! However, I've never changed the batteries yet after almost 2 years. I have the original SPOT, not the latest smaller one.
 
I was ambivalent towards SPOT until another Cub driver sent me his SPOT page prior to his departure from Montana to the Brooks Range in August. I followed his progress north and during his caribou hunt on Google Earth from my desk computer. I even correctly (as I confirmed later) told my wife: "Dave's making a meat run back to Kotzebue today". He and I were skeptical that it would work well that far north with Globalstar as the communications provider. But it worked fine. He used the SPOT II and told me that in 80 hours of flying he still had the same set of batteries in it.

It impressed me enough that I bought one a couple of weeks later.

Earlier this month an MAF pilot from Mozambique was visiting us while on furlough. We were talking about the eventualities of him going down in his C206. It isn't a pretty scenario. I told him about SPOT. We looked on their website coverage map and wouldn't you know it, Southeast Africa has no coverage. One of the few places on the globe that aren't covered, according to SPOT. It is the Dark Continent. They're looking into Spidertracks.
 
Ive had a Spot 2 since March and it has worked perfect. Way more user friendly than the Spot 1. Changed batteries after about 60 hours but it was still working.

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I have a first generation SPOT, and recently, I've noticed some fairly large gaps in the tracking function. I suspect these may have to do with the orientation of the airplane with reference with the satellite when the SPOT is trying to send it's message.

I have the thing velcro'd to the top of the instrument panel, and it seems to have worked fine there for some time, until recently. In any case, it's still a lot of bang for the buck.

MTV
 
SPOT saved me some money when i called in while flying to ammend my flight pan but the guy never revised it in the system prompting a call out of Search and Rescue and the local sherrif and in addition the Airforce. Lucky enough they called the phone number i filed which was my wife who told them i just registered in on my spot and that she felt i was OK. Spot works even when the gov't employees don't
 
This is an article that appeared in Feb 2010 AOPA Pilot.
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2010/february/feature_spot.html

I fly in Idaho with Art so have talked to him about the accident and the rescue. He has only praise for the SPOT (and the SAR folks), but unfortunately didn't get to enjoy the helicopter ride to Boise since he'd already lost consciousness from his injuries. We've seen many survivable accidents in the Idaho backcountry that were initially survivable but became fatal after 121.5 ELTs weren't picked up or no one knew the planes were even missing.

This article also mentions a SPOT velcro'ed on top of the panel that went out through the broken windshield in the crash. Best bet: keep it in a vest that you are wearing. If it's attached to you, it's survival gear. If it's elsewhere in the airplane, it's camping gear.

I have the original SPOT and have also found the tracking to be sporadic. While using it last summer in the Idaho wilderness I got locations up to 150' from where the SPOT was placed on the ground waiting to send. Probably good enough to be found but I don't like the uncertainty. But it has often placed me exactly in front of where I'm tied down for the night. (Still on original batteries, so that might have something to do with it).
 
I love them too, I watch my son Joe, a pilot for Wildlife Services, almost daily, as he flies all over the Idaho Wilderness. Just a click on the email that I get from his spot, and I can see exactly where he is. Or a click on his spot page, and I can see his track for the day, with a location for each time he pressed ok. Wonderful peace of mind for both of us. He's had it for about 3 years now, and the success rate for each push of the ok button is almost perfect. I get text messages, e-mails and his spot page with either my computer, or my Android phone.
 
I am not 100% sure on how it will work. Too bad they only look to work with Android, I will pass until they get Iphone support :)
 
Best way to go is APRS. the only problem I see is that if you are in remote access like ID or AK, you might not get signals.
 
Best way to go is APRS. the only problem I see is that if you are in remote access like ID or AK, you might not get signals.

If you have a signal this system works really well. My brother went snowshoeing a couple of days ago and I later looked at his track on Google Earth. He had his radio/gps set to send a position every couple of minutes.
 
At the end of every flight, I push the I am okay button on the spot. That sends one ring to my wifes phone, she know's right then and there, that I was out goofing off flying, but I am back and safe. Don't get in the plane with out it. No matter how short the flight might be.

Bill
 
anyone know if there is a way to get the spot II to update more often that every 10 minutes?

Buy 2 or 3 (time your startups). Still cheaper than the SpiderTracks. :)

Good article on the SpiderTracks units in this months' COPA paper (Canuck version of the AOPA). Definitely sounds like a superior system, but you haft'a get by the price(s) issues.
My ol' Spot (1) has always left a perfect trail. I just wish it would auto power off after about 24 hrs, I've found it still on after several days when some bozo forgot to turn it off for me.
 
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