Safety - another tool to use

tony lee wrote:
We had the SPOT but found it had a couple of serious deficiencies. First, due to use of geosynchronous satellites, it often cannot get the signal through - and of course there is no feedback to tell you this. It is one way so of limited use for any unusual circumstances. Poor coverage in higher latitudes.

We use a Delorme SE which uses lower orbiting satellites and so has coverage all over the world and it doesn't matter too much where in a vehicle or on your person the tracker is located. It has two way verification of tracking points and messages sent. Can also send text messages and emails to any phone number or email address in the world and they can reply.
If you do need to send an emergency call, you can clarify the circumstances using the message facility if you want to. Just this feature makes it unique as in most other personal locator beacons and SPOT, first you haven't a clue idf the emergency call is received and then the responding authority has no idea of what the problem is.

More expensive, but the extra features make it worth it.

Not that long ago two young stockmen died of thirst in the outback even though they were only 13 miles from home. SPOT units were sitting back at the homestead but they hadn't bothered to take them.

Ditto the Delorme SE. We invested in a pair of them for our Alaska trip. We trailered our sons NC700x Honda Motor Cycle up to Anchorage and he flew up to meet us. He went out on multiple day excursions as we ventured along, on old mining roads and even did the Canol Road and then from there over to Watson Lake... 400+ miles of dirt and slush. He was on the road for 3 days. We texted periodically and also was able to track him by the messages that also provide Lat Long information. We were running Delorme Topo and downloaded region advanced topo maps. Along the Canol road he got a bit lost and could not waste gas which he was going to get at Ross River. We could see where he was by the lat/long and the topo maps. He had missed the turn to Ross River by 2 mi... The sign was down...
He was running the Delorme app on his S5 Samsung and down loaded maps so he could tell where he was too.... This was not a close call but without the SE's we would have been out of touch and that would not have been much fun for us.

If interested here is our blog from that trip... Bummer that the picture sequence starts at the end of the trip so you have to work your way back....
The page header shows our Delorme tracks from our laptop and the service provided by Delorme map share!

http://northtoalaska2014.tumblr.com

Jim