(Read the whole thing, it’s a corker … I won’t spoil it here. It’s about the Backpacker Magazine guy on Denali, in case you’ve seen the coverage on other outdoor blogs.)
Previously: Mulling the SPOT Satellite Messenger.
(Read the whole thing, it’s a corker … I won’t spoil it here. It’s about the Backpacker Magazine guy on Denali, in case you’ve seen the coverage on other outdoor blogs.)
Previously: Mulling the SPOT Satellite Messenger.
Nice field test. There’s always something the designers didn’t think of. If a very experienced mountaineer can cause a false alarm, then others are even more likely.
Now if only we could figure out how to perfect the car alarm, they might actually become a useful device. Hopefully Spot calls will never get the “cry wolf” effect of accidental car alarms. At least Spot doesn’t cause noise polution.
Well, that’s not the good press they were looking for! I’m guessing a SPOT version 2.0 was a topic of discussion at Spot HQ this morning.
Lucky they didn’t have to send out the helicopters and rescue rangers in dangerous weather for a false alarm.
They were just talking about the SPOT at REI last night.
I’ve been looking at the SPOT after having a bail out situation on a backpack where we had zero cell phone reception for 6 days, and only saw people a couple of times. Fortunately, one of the times when we saw someone is when we needed some help.
The response in the article was what I would expect for the 911 button – way more than I would expect from the help from friends button, but on Denali, don’t think your friends could do anything, so a better message for the help would be “I didn’t mean to hit the help button”.
My thought for the help button is that it would mean the hiker is mobile, but has to exit at the closest exit point, which the friend could determine from the gps location, and a bunch of “whatif” conversations before the trip.
That said, I’m actually leaning towards renting a satellite phone if I don’t expect cell coverage within a day’s walk.
Checkout the SPOT accidental activation story that popped up on the hiker hell blog:
http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7969437 Turns out that the SPOT company wouldn’t give search and rescue the SPOT tracking info for 2 1/2 hours due to hiker having password, and spot co not wanting to release it. Unclear on the concept?