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Old December 8th 08, 06:01 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Tim Taylor
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Posts: 751
Default SPOT Possibilities

Now that my SPOT unit has arrived and I got to fly with it yesterday,
I have some thoughts.

1. Do we have any good contacts with the company? I think some
modifications could be very useful for the soaring community. The
recent Australian Gran Prix was nice, but track every 2 to 3 minutes
would have made it much more fun.

The SPOT being "push" technology would be very easy to modify to send
a tracking signal on a shorter interval than the current 10 minute
cycle. With about 25% of the signals missed this would still give a
great way to watch races from the ground.

I think it would be great to work with the SPOT people to allow us to
do this for short periods, like contest and then switch back to 10
minutes when just normally flying xc. I assume the many of the smart
EE's on this list could figure out how to mod a SPOT unit to send more
often. We could also install an external battery supply so that the
two AA's would be only needed outside of the planes.