On Jun 16, 3:36*pm, Ramy wrote:
I had a 7 hours flight last Saturday in Nevada, during which my spot
was tracking normally, with the occasional missing transmissions here
and there. However there was a period of one hour with no track
reports. The only thing I can tell which was different from tthe rest
of the flight is that I was flying under solid overcast and OD during
this period, once I got back to the sun the tracking resumed.
Any thoughts if this was just coincidence or the clouds blocked the
transmissions?
In any case, I'f affraid that currently it is not safe to assume that
a glider will be within 10 minutes distance of the last track, can be
much longer.

Ramy

On Jun 1, 5:55*am, "Paul Remde" wrote:

Hi,

Thanks for the link to the SMAK Pak. *It looks very nice.

If pilots want a simpler option for holding theSPOTonly. *I just placed an
order to Para-Phernalia (makers of Softie parachutes) for a batch of their
"Pocket for PLB" (personal locator beacon) pouches - made to match the
dimensions of thespot. *I will stock them in the orange color (to match theSPOT) but I can also get them in colors to match your parachute. *They sell
for $50.

Good Soaring,

Paul Remde
Cumulus Soaring, Inc.http://www.cumulus-soaring.com

"sisu1a" wrote in message

...

On May 31, 9:28 pm, "Paul Remde" wrote:
Hi,

I've been selling a lot ofSPOTunits and I'm very curious about the SMAK
pak from Allen Silver. Can you please send me contact information. *Does
he
have a web site?

Thank you,

Paul Remde

http://www.silverparachutes.com/-Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ramy

Spot uses the Globalstar L-Band simplex links. L-band is relatively
immune to rain attenuation, rain/water droplets suspended in storm
clouds are likely the worse case scenario. A guess for bad rain
attenuation might be something like only a dB or so at L-band. The GPS
signals are in the same frequency bands and will have similar
attenuation. So my first guess is clouds, even storm clouds are not
likely to be the issue.

So the next question is did anybody else flying in the genral area
have the same problem? I was flying in the Mendocinos at the same time
and had no SPOT problems but that is probably far enough away to not
count, except to exclude more systemic problems. The next question is
did the unit have a full view of the sky or are you still mounting it
on your parachute harness? I'm not sure if this is on your shoulder -
in which case your head (hopefully opaque at L-band :-) ), RF opaque
parts of the fuselage/canopy frame area, etc. will be obscuring lots
of the sky, or vertical on your harness in which case far more of the
sky will likely be obscured. Both of these will affect coverage as
Global star satellites fly into and out of the now fairly restricted
sky view or as you turn the direction of the obscured antenna to bring
Globalstar or GPS satellites into view.

I think SPOT is fantastic, fly with one all the time in SPOTcast mode,
but I'm not giving up on my 406MHz PLB on my parachute harness.

Darryl