Spot Satellite Messenger

[phiggins]

Just got a flyer from my local Electronics store and one thing really caught my eye. Its called the Spot Satellite Messenger . Its like a a personal EPIRB but a lot cheaper (only $149) and seems to have a lot more functions:

SPOT Satellite Messenger and Tracker - Globalcom

You have to pay for service annually ($99) and Optional: GEOS Rescue Service is $7.95 per year.

[rebel heart]

Huh, that is rather interesting. Service Pricing - SPOT Satellite Messenger

[hellosailor]

Very interesting--although still not available, and I've heard that phrase too many times over the years, with too many years of "next quarter" promises.

It sounds like they are using a very highly integrated GPS and low-power burst mode transceiver, the equivalent of SMS messaging on cell phones but restricted (?) if I read it correctly to essentially sending a short selection of messages, i.e. "OK" "Mayday" and perhaps whatever else fits in a 1-bit sigal flag on their burst?

SMS has been incredibly profitable for the cell phone companies (one data packet on the "empty" signal channel, selling at something like 1000x the price of data packets on the voice channels) maybe this will work out very nicely!