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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (33922)	8/5/2012 2:45:12 PM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Respond to of 86356

SPOT is really good. But I would make it much cheaper so that hordes of people buy them just to have handy, whether they use it or not, just in case. For anyone who actually has a use for it, it's already cheap enough. Our son bought one and took it to Rarotonga, from where, on the western edge of the island, at sea level [2 metres up, on a balcony at a restaurant over the lagoon] it connected to a satellite and then to Dubbo, which is northwest of Sydney. That was surprising to me as it was way beyond where I thought it would work. The satellites are 1414 km high which means it was a very low angle. But SPOT doesn't move much data, so it works more easily than a voice call. My brother in law is an airline pilot and took it across the Tasman Sea to Sydney [while flying a 737]. We could track him via Gmail and Google maps and see where he was parked at Sydney airport. The tracking function is quite good because even if somebody doesn't send a mayday call, because they are injured and separated or the SPOT got smashed along with their legs and backpack in a rock fall, their most recent position would be recorded and their track so where to go looking for them would be well defined, especially if they were traveling by foot. But even in a light aircraft or boat which has gone missing, 10 minutes is not long so the regularly reported track would give a good guide on where to go looking. But normally, with SPOT, the search in search and rescue becomes obsolete. With a good view of the sky, the GPS locates the device within a few metres. A helicopter could hover, throw a rope down and somebody abseil down and there would be the person to be rescued. Also, unlike a satellite phone, connection is more reliable [very little data is needed] and the battery lasts a long time [because so little energy is used]. Mqurice