Glider tracking - Spot etc...

[Bill Daniels]

While I don't know much about this product, especially cost, it might be
worth looking onto for someone familiar with the technology. Maybe it could
be taylored for our specific needs.

http://www.daysatphones.com/downloads/simplex.pdf

Bill Daniels

[[email protected]]

What you are looking at is SPOT for grown ups. SPOT is a subsidiary of
Globalstar and like all the Globalstar simplex hardware, the devices
are made by Axonn (http://www.axonn.com) so you can look there for
more information. This other Axonn hardware is too large and unwieldy
for practical use and would require a lot of systems integration work.
Somebody could take thee Axonn modules (the picture on their web site
of the STX2 sat transmitter looks like what is inside SPOT) and build
hardware small enough for our uses for even more work. Service costs
would be significantly higher, they are already higher than SPOT with
only a few messages per day, let alone every 10 minutes. Ultimately
doing anything custom is likely the wrong path and it is much better
to ride the consumer economics curve (even a device built for GA
markets is going to be a lot more expensive).

SPOT as is seems very worthwhile, I've got mine and it works as they
claim. I'd still like to see lots of web site improvements and
opening up of their back-end software but as is it looks like it will
save lots of retrieve hassles, and more importantly has potential to
save lives.


Darryl

On Jan 1, 12:49 pm, "Bill Daniels" <bildan@comcast-dot-net> wrote:
> While I don't know much about this product, especially cost, it might be
> worth looking onto for someone familiar with the technology. Maybe it could
> be taylored for our specific needs.
>
> http://www.daysatphones.com/downloads/simplex.pdf
>
> Bill Daniels

[Dan G]

On Jan 2, 12:36*am, " >
wrote:

> and more importantly has potential to
> save lives.

It's not a PLB, nor can it even mimic the functions of one. It's not a
piece of survival equipment.


Dan

[[email protected]]

On Jan 2, 4:42 pm, Dan G > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:36 am, " >
> wrote:
>
> > and more importantly has potential to
> > save lives.
>
> It's not a PLB, nor can it even mimic the functions of one. It's not a
> piece of survival equipment.
>
> Dan

It is not a PLB by definition, but it surely looks like a piece of
survival equipment to me. A PLB meets specific legal requirements/
approvals, etc. including a good old fashioned 121.5 homing beacon.
But at some level you are playing semantics, instead how about
describing what the issues are you see with SPOT? Do I personally want
a PLB hanging off my parachute harness when in deep crapola, yes, more
so than a SPOT. But especially when flying in remote desolate areas I
want (and have) both a PLB and SPOT for tracking and non-life and
death escalations (land outs, etc.).

Expect to see lots of marketing of survival stories of people saved by
having a SPOT, you can just tell where they are going with this. After
all, it is capable of sending an accurate lat/long position, with
escalating levels of severity and more importantly unlike ELT and PLBs
it is capable of sending pseudo real time position reports so it is
possible to get last know position information without relying on
either a PLB or ELT manual activation or unreliable ELT impact
activation. As for mimicking the function of a PLB, I'd say they aim
to mimic the rapid notification and lat/long fix that SARSAT provide,
and on paper they should be able to do that part pretty well. Now how
well they work in practice, including escalation into the appropriate
authorities, we'll have to see. Probably like you, I dislike any
marketing that blurs the differentiation between the SPOT and an PLB
-- and I wish they would emphasize the tracking feature more (which
allows this to be positioned as a value add over *also* having a PLB).

Darryl

[Ramy]

On Jan 2, 4:42*pm, Dan G > wrote:
> On Jan 2, 12:36*am, " >
> wrote:
>
> > and more importantly has potential to
> > save lives.
>
> It's not a PLB, nor can it even mimic the functions of one. It's not a
> piece of survival equipment.
>
> Dan

For PLB to work, it requires both the pilot and PLB to survive the
crash. Spot will provide a proximate location of the crash even if
none survived.

Ramy

[[email protected]]

On Jan 2, 8:37*pm, Ramy > wrote:
>
> For PLB to work, it requires both the pilot and PLB to survive the
> crash. Spot will provide a proximate location of the crash even if
> none survived.
>
> Ramy

Great point. The other thing is it sends the LAT/LONG reports back to
your crew or contest officials (whomever you designate), so they can
go right to work on locating the pilot rather than waiting for SAR to
swing into action.

Ideally you'd want a device where you could plug it into an aircraft-
mounted accelerometer to send out an automatic 911 in a crash. That
would be an easy mod. Better to have the accelerometer mounted in the
aircraft so the thing doesn't go off when you drop it, etc.

9B