On-Star*

[JJ Sinclair]

Just saw an On-Star commercial, went something like this:

Mrs. Jones, This is your On-Stat advisor. I show an air-bag deployment and
automatic activation of your on-star system, on Route 16, north of Albany, are
you all right?

Mrs. Jones, Nooooooo!

On-Star advisor, I'm calling the State Police and your husband.

Mrs. Jones, Thaaaank Youuuu.

I let this percolate in my fertile mind, over a cup of coffee and came up with
this:

Mr. JJ, I show a sudden stoppage, resulting in a G-switch activation of your
On-Star system, 10 miles south of Callahan. I show no airports in that area.
Are you all right?

No answer.

On-Star advisor, In accordance with your instructions, dated 6/6/03, I am
notifying the Siskiyou County Sheriff, Contest Headquarters and your crew. I
show your location as; 40-53.3 north and 123-05.6 west.
Good luck!

Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would they consider taking on
aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
JJ Sinclair

[Ray Lovinggood]

JJ,

I like the concept, but if On-Star uses the cell-phone
system, won't that render the service useless in areas
without coverage? Or does On-Star use satellite(s)
for communication/data transfer? I guess they use
satellites, thus the name 'On-Star'?? (Or, is it a
combinaton of both: cell phone for voice and satellite
for data?)

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
LS-1d 'W8'

At 18:12 18 November 2003, Jj Sinclair wrote:
>Just saw an On-Star commercial, went something like
>this:
>
>Mrs. Jones, This is your On-Stat advisor. I show an
>air-bag deployment and
>automatic activation of your on-star system, on Route
>16, north of Albany, are
>you all right?
>
>Mrs. Jones, Nooooooo!
>
>On-Star advisor, I'm calling the State Police and your
>husband.
>
>Mrs. Jones, Thaaaank Youuuu.
>
>I let this percolate in my fertile mind, over a cup
>of coffee and came up with
>this:
>
>Mr. JJ, I show a sudden stoppage, resulting in a G-switch
>activation of your
>On-Star system, 10 miles south of Callahan. I show
>no airports in that area.
>Are you all right?
>
>No answer.
>
>On-Star advisor, In accordance with your instructions,
>dated 6/6/03, I am
>notifying the Siskiyou County Sheriff, Contest Headquarters
>and your crew. I
>show your location as; 40-53.3 north and 123-05.6 west.
>Good luck!
>
>Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would
>they consider taking on
>aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
>JJ Sinclair
>

[Lord Struthers]

Would be a nice feature for the GPS mfg's to incorporate into their handhelds.
Just press a button, or sudden stoppage would activate the unit, coordinates
then go to the big screen somewhere.

[Dave Martin]

I looked into the UK system earlier this year and spoke
with a company rep. Several companies offer a similar
service to track commercial vehicles and manage the
fleet.

Briefly as I understand it, the system here works on
a GPS reciever and logger in the vehicle and this transmits
data via ground cell telephone systems back to base.
The cell phone system has numerous 'spare' channels
not used for the 'phone system. The problem is that
trying to use the cell phone in the air, unless low
down on a ridge, or behind a mountain, causes the
cell phone to shut down.

The basic cost was about £700 for the vehicle kit and
then a further load of cash to get kit to manage the
data.

So at present not practical and expensive

[Mike Borgelt]

On 18 Nov 2003 19:35:42 GMT, Dave Martin
> wrote:

>I looked into the UK system earlier this year and spoke
>with a company rep. Several companies offer a similar
>service to track commercial vehicles and manage the
>fleet.
>
>Briefly as I understand it, the system here works on
>a GPS reciever and logger in the vehicle and this transmits
>data via ground cell telephone systems back to base.
> The cell phone system has numerous 'spare' channels
>not used for the 'phone system. The problem is that
>trying to use the cell phone in the air, unless low
>down on a ridge, or behind a mountain, causes the
>cell phone to shut down.
>
>The basic cost was about £700 for the vehicle kit and
>then a further load of cash to get kit to manage the
>data.
>
>So at present not practical and expensive
>
>

CDMA cellphones work great in the air unlike that piece of Eurotrash
GSM system.

Mike Borgelt
>
>

[Aardvark]

link to a U.S. coverage map in pdf format
http://www.onstar.com/us_english/downloadable/gl_coverage_map_us.pdf


Canada map
http://www.onstar.com/us_english/downloadable/gl_coverage_map_can.pdf


Quoted from
http://www.onstar.com/us_english/jsp/faq/not_faq_main.jsp?topPage=not_faq_techhardware.jsp&id=5&title=Technology+%26amp%3B+Hardware

Made shorter link
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R6CC12396

Q. How does OnStar work?
A. OnStar uses existing emergency service providers, cellular telephone
and satellite technologies. It operates alongside the electrical system
in your vehicle and is powered by your vehicle's battery. If your
vehicle's battery is damaged or disconnected, our service will not
function. Onstar currently uses the analog cellular network maintained
by separate cellular companies. This provides the broadest geographic
coverage of any current wireless system in the United States and Canada.

[Eric Greenwell]

JJ Sinclair wrote:

>
> Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would they consider taking on
> aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
> JJ Sinclair

There is a satellite based system developed by Orbcomm (Orbcomm.com)
that has a data link for weather graphics, email, and so forth. For
aviation use, the system is incorporated into products by Avidyne, Echo
Flight, SKytrac, and Garmin. The system can provide automatic flight
following, so that the flight can be followed on a web site. It'd be
great for locating a downed pilot or following contestants during a
conttest, but the unit look big, complicated, and expensive.
--
-----
Replace "SPAM" with "charter" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA

[Liam Finley]

Dave Martin > wrote in message >...

> ... The problem is that
> trying to use the cell phone in the air, unless low
> down on a ridge, or behind a mountain, causes the
> cell phone to shut down.

Not really an issue if you've landed out or crashed, is it?

This system might be usefull in countries where, unlike in the U.S.,
you can reliably get coverage more than 5 miles outside a major city.

[Dave Martin]

At 21:42 18 November 2003, Eric Greenwell wrote:
>JJ Sinclair wrote:
>
>>
>> Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would
>>they consider taking on
>> aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
>> JJ Sinclair
>
>There is a satellite based system developed by Orbcomm
>(Orbcomm.com)
>that has a data link for weather graphics, email, and
>so forth. For
>aviation use, the system is incorporated into products
>by Avidyne, Echo
>Flight, SKytrac, and Garmin. The system can provide
>automatic flight
>following, so that the flight can be followed on a
>web site. It'd be
>great for locating a downed pilot or following contestants
>during a
>conttest, but the unit look big, complicated, and expensive.
>--
>-----
>Replace 'SPAM' with 'charter' to email me directly
>
>Eric Greenwell
>Washington State
>USA


Looks like just the thing from Avidyne!

FlightMax EX500

High resolution 5.4' diagonal display with integrated
datalink, terrain and water base map with man-made
obstacles, curved flight paths when interfaced with
a Garmin 400/500 series GPS, traffic awareness when
interfaced to the Goodrich Skywatch/HP TAS, the Ryan
TCAD 9900B/BX or the Bendix/King KTA-870 TAS, and a
Goodrich WX-500 Stormscope interface.

Retail price $8,995

[BTIZ]

guess you have not seen some of the early Garmin hand helds.. contained a
pre recorded message with your N number and would broadcast your coordinates
on the radio freq.

BT

"Lord Struthers" > wrote in message
...
> Would be a nice feature for the GPS mfg's to incorporate into their
handhelds.
> Just press a button, or sudden stoppage would activate the unit,
coordinates
> then go to the big screen somewhere.

[Jack]

^^^^^^^^^^^^

> Dave Martin > wrote in message
> >

> This system might be usefull in countries where, unlike in the U.S.,
> you can reliably get coverage more than 5 miles outside a major city.

Or in countries where, unlike the US, major cities are rarely more than ten
miles apart.

If you have actually had that sort of trouble in the US, perhaps you are
using the wrong system.



--
Jack


Sent using the Entourage X Test Drive.

[Mark James Boyd]

>>Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would
>>they consider taking on
>>aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
>>JJ Sinclair

What I don't get is why someone doesn't just make
an ELT that speaks the GPS coordinates (and
tail #, etc. entered by the user) over the 121.5
frequency.

No decoding, no satellites, just an ELT that
also has a voice and tells it over the 121.5 freq
every few minutes. Mate a $100 GPS to a
$200 ELT to a text-to-voice device. Doesn't
this seem much simpler?

And talk about easy to find the false transmissions!
Heck, you got the coordinates AND the tail number?
Shouldn't be hard to find THAT guy at the airport
bar...

[Eric Greenwell]

Mark James Boyd wrote:
>>>Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would
>>>they consider taking on
>>>aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
>>>JJ Sinclair
>
>
> What I don't get is why someone doesn't just make
> an ELT that speaks the GPS coordinates (and
> tail #, etc. entered by the user) over the 121.5
> frequency.
>
> No decoding, no satellites, just an ELT that
> also has a voice and tells it over the 121.5 freq
> every few minutes. Mate a $100 GPS to a
> $200 ELT to a text-to-voice device. Doesn't
> this seem much simpler?
>
> And talk about easy to find the false transmissions!
> Heck, you got the coordinates AND the tail number?
> Shouldn't be hard to find THAT guy at the airport
> bar...

A clever pilot could adapt his ELT to this, as long as it was one with
voice input. Buy a pocket pc that has text to speech capability, install
a GPS card in it, connect the headphone output to the ELT's microphone
input and you have the basic system. When you crashed, the ELT would
start transmitting it's signal, and the "voice" from the pc.

OK, there'd be some details:

- you'd want to parse the data stream from the GPS, so only your ID and
the coordinates were spoken
- probably want to have the pc key the microphone and transmit voice
only once a minute
- you'd need power to the PC during normal flight, and maybe a larger
battery for it so it'd last as long as the ELT battery if it lost power
from the glider in the crash
- it would need to be mounted and connected carefully so it would be
likely to work after a crash

It might be easier and cheaper to buy one of personal locators that has
a GPS in it, and figure out how to make a crash activate it.
--
-----
Replace "SPAM" with "charter" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA