Spot Satellite Messenger

Brett Angel said:

Krusty,

Have you done this? I broke down deep in the woods this summer and could have really used this option.

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I haven't used it that way, but Delorme used to (before they were purchased by Garmin) display a daily log of emergency calls they received each month...and I was surprised at the number of broken down vehicle SOS's they responded to.

When you send out an SOS a staff member at their 24/7 center responds by asking about the situation. They don't just start sending out search parties.

At a minimum you could just send text and/or email messages to someone to call you a tow truck. The recipient(s) can see exactly where you're at on google earth...and you can carry on a text conversation.

We carry the thing on car and motorcycle trips as well....as you know there are shitloads of places on highways in the western mountain states where cell coverage is unavailable. The device works anywhere outside....via several dozen Iridium communication satellites.

As for the Spot. The reason I choose not to go with that boiled down to two things.

One. Type of help needed.

Two. I read the article about the guy on Kodiak Island. He was hunting by himself. Fell and broke his leg. It took three days for a satellite to receive the signal. Three days laying there with a broken leg. In bear country. Not knowing that his signal hadn't been received.

The problem was the Spot transmitter uses a different satellite network. It has a greatly reduced coverage area the further north you go.

I know, most of us will never need that type of device. But if you do, you had better hope to hell it works.

Being able to text the wife every night means I don't have to face the "I was so worried about you" when I get back. Priceless!

Like a lot of things I think you have to use these types of devices responsibly. 25 years when I worked in the Yukon and EPIRBs first came out, the guys in one of our camps were bored so they activated the thing and 45 minutes later a helicopter was landing in the tent camp.

A guy in my crew went upriver in the boat and broke down. Figuring he'd just float back downstream to camp he started drifting. All good until he got hung up on a cottonwood sweeper. He had an EPIRB but knowing about the response the guys further north received when they activated theirs frivolously and were berated for their stupidity, he decided to wait. About 10 hours he waited. He waited until almost dark, or as dark as it gets on a summer night in that latitude, before activating it. About an hour later SAR were over top of him and soon one of the guys from a neighbouring camp was rounding the bend to help him out. Hoorah! Safe at last.

At the end of the season we dragged the old Smokercraft out of the water and flipped it over for winter storage and there was a noticeable wear mark where he had been hung up and the cottonwood had almost rubbed through the tin.

Right now up here north of Vancouver there's a couple of snowshoers they've been searching for since Christmas night. Carrying a device that costs a few hundred dollars may have helped. Regardless of what I eventually end up with it's a small price to pay to potentially save my life. I spend a lot more than what it costs each year to insure my pickup truck. Why shouldn't I spend comparatively little to potentially insure my life.