Spot tracking consistency

[Bill Daniels]

I've been watching some of the Globalstar SPOT tracks from Region 9 in
Parowan. I'm interested in SPOT and think the concept is really great.

However, Monday the Internet server seemed to be down for most of the day so
no tracks were available until after 5PM. Some of the users were getting
tracking reports every ten minutes, some every 20 minutes and others
suffered many hour long gaps. AFAIK all the tracks ended well short of the
gliders landing at Parowan.

This is not encouraging. It's beginning to look like SPOT is spotty.

Bill D

[Ramy]

On Jun 24, 7:06*am, "Bill Daniels" <bildan@comcast-dot-net> wrote:
> I've been watching some of the Globalstar SPOT tracks from Region 9 in
> Parowan. *I'm interested in SPOT and think the concept is really great.
>
> However, Monday the Internet server seemed to be down for most of the day so
> no tracks were available until after 5PM. *Some of the users were getting
> tracking reports every ten minutes, some every 20 minutes and others
> suffered many hour long gaps. *AFAIK all the tracks ended well short of the
> gliders landing at Parowan.
>
> This is not encouraging. *It's beginning to look like SPOT is spotty.
>
> Bill D

Yes, I think the track functionality is currently a bit spotty, and
can't be completely relied upon. I am sure it will improve. But the OK/
Help/911 functionality is more robust, and justify the small
investment. This would eliminate the need to call Mayday as discussed
in another thread, and will greatly simplify retrieves.

Ramy

[Greg Arnold[_2_]]

Ramy wrote:
> On Jun 24, 7:06 am, "Bill Daniels" <bildan@comcast-dot-net> wrote:
>> I've been watching some of the Globalstar SPOT tracks from Region 9 in
>> Parowan. I'm interested in SPOT and think the concept is really great.
>>
>> However, Monday the Internet server seemed to be down for most of the day so
>> no tracks were available until after 5PM. Some of the users were getting
>> tracking reports every ten minutes, some every 20 minutes and others
>> suffered many hour long gaps. AFAIK all the tracks ended well short of the
>> gliders landing at Parowan.
>>
>> This is not encouraging. It's beginning to look like SPOT is spotty.
>>
>> Bill D
>
> Yes, I think the track functionality is currently a bit spotty, and
> can't be completely relied upon. I am sure it will improve. But the OK/
> Help/911 functionality is more robust, and justify the small
> investment. This would eliminate the need to call Mayday as discussed
> in another thread, and will greatly simplify retrieves.
>
> Ramy
>

I received my SPOT last Thursday, and since then it has had these modes:

1. Everything works fine
2. Webpage doesn't automatically update
3. Get a "script error" message and no points on the webpage
4. Webpage froze computer
5. Webpage not available at all

The good news is that the SPOT unit seems to work fine, and the problems
are with the webpage software. The company is using us as beta testers,
but I suppose that is OK if they end up getting everything working right.

[5Z]

On Jun 24, 3:11*pm, Greg Arnold > wrote:
> The good news is that the SPOT unit seems to work fine, and the problems
> are with the webpage software. *The company is using us as beta testers,
> but I suppose that is OK if they end up getting everything working right.

Kinda like the OLC :-)

You should have seen how limited the web page was back in November.
They've made a LOT of progress.

-Tom