I have an old spot, will be doing some faster long distance traveling.
America, Canada, Alaska
Going to upgrade? Maybe
Which would the users recommend?
Should be above 10,000' most of the time
Thanks

DeLorme InReach are great units. Work well above the arctic circle, can do tracking, and send/receive text to tell someone you are ok or need a new prop. Spot is not that good up North. I was all set to give up my SPOT and Iridium sat phone for one until I was thinking about some of the flying I had done. Texting is fine if you have 24hour support back home that can check cams and make calls but nothing replaces a sat phone for getting the job done anywhere, anytime! A 406 ELT in the plane will do the rest if things go bad. The one thing none of the above do is give you the ability to call Deadhorse Flight service station and get a weather/clearance update when you are low on fuel sitting on a river bank. The new Iridium sat phone will do a Spydertracs type message. But, it is not cheap.
DENNY

InReach and SpiderTracks both use Iridium. That's the network you want. The Spot one (Globalstar) is far less reliable, especially where you're going.

InReach and SpiderTracks both have two way messaging, which is a useless feature most of the time but then you can't imagine living without it once you've needed it a few times. e.g. I was delayed on a trip to Mexico by slow handling as I entered the country. When I started my next leg and knew what the timing was going to be it was great to be able to send a text to my driver and let him know that I'd be a few hours late, but was still coming.

InReach wins the day over SpiderTracks for me because I can also use it hiking and camping.

Another vote for Delorme inReach! They can take a little finagling at first, but overall a great experience.

My satellite comms are 100% Iridium (the best)...

"InReach" for tracking/text and a "9555" for voice. Complete global coverage at a reasonable price/plans.

So maybe if I have my new 406 and my iridium phone with me, my ol spot will be fine? What say you guys?
Thanks

M6RV6 wrote:So maybe if I have my new 406 and my iridium phone with me, my ol spot will be fine? What say you guys?
Thanks

Nothing replaces a personal 406 EPIRB (opinion)...But, please check out InReach. Better coverage/plans!

M6RV6 wrote:So maybe if I have my new 406 and my iridium phone with me, my ol spot will be fine? What say you guys?
Thanks

What purpose would the Spot serve at the point? If any part of your answer includes SAR, then my recommendation is InReach.

M6RV6
That is what I use. Wife feels better if I send her a spot location when I am flying alone.
RW2
The spot is good for people back home to keep track of where you are, InReach is better up here but spot will work just takes a while to send the message. I just spent 36hours flying around the Brooks looking for Bou. Wife was able to track me by my spot reports. I used the Sat phone to call her at night and Deadhorse FSS before I went in due to weather. Being able to call Flight Service is invaluable in this part of the country. The 406 ELT will handle the SAR issue.
DENNY

DENNY wrote:The spot is good for people back home to keep track of where you are

Yeah, that's what I was trying to dig in on. If that's for novelty purposes, then great. Spot is cheaper and mostly works.

If that's to have another set of eyes who can call out the cavalry? Then InReach is a better choice.

rw2 wrote:

DENNY wrote:The spot is good for people back home to keep track of where you are

Yeah, that's what I was trying to dig in on. If that's for novelty purposes, then great. Spot is cheaper and mostly works.

If that's to have another set of eyes who can call out the cavalry? Then InReach is a better choice.

+2
InReach uses the Iridium constellation. Their network topology provides rock solid services, no matter where you are. In fact the further north one goes the more satellites above the horizon (polar orbit). Additionally Iridium sats talk to each other, handing the message from sat to sat until the message is over a ground station.

Spot uses the Globalstar sat constellation. They have many fewer satellites in orbit, and *each* sat requires a ground station under it. The farther north, over (vast) wilderness, or water means no message delivery. This topology is known as "bent pipe", it is cheaper, and faster, as long as the sat can see a ground station. For backcountry flying this is a poor match. These are the reasons the Spot units can take an hour or more to deliver a message, if it is delivered at all.

For me, the final nail in the coffin for Spot is one way com: you will have no idea if the message was delivered.

With two way you will be alerted if the message can't be delivered. For me this piece of mind knowing my family has my current location is key.

Note Globalstar has been planning an improved constellation for years: if they ever complete it this value equation will deserve a review.

This topic has been flogged many times on BCP, for more info search the archives.

-M3X

I definitely vote Inreach. Had spot with 2 way messaging for a few years and then went to Inreach for the last few years. Inreach has far superior coverage and easily flexible price plans. Love the 2 way text for keeping in (nicely limited) touch.

flyingzebra wrote:I definitely vote Inreach. Had spot with 2 way messaging for a few years and then went to Inreach for the last few years. Inreach has far superior coverage and easily flexible price plans. Love the 2 way text for keeping in (nicely limited) touch.

Is there more plans then are offered on the website? The only ones I could find are quite a bit more expensive then my SPOT. I've never had any issues with my spot sending a message here in Canada, and I have complete faith that it will send to SAR if required.

A1Skinner wrote:

flyingzebra wrote:I definitely vote Inreach. Had spot with 2 way messaging for a few years and then went to Inreach for the last few years. Inreach has far superior coverage and easily flexible price plans. Love the 2 way text for keeping in (nicely limited) touch.

Is there more plans then are offered on the website? The only ones I could find are quite a bit more expensive then my SPOT. I've never had any issues with my spot sending a message here in Canada, and I have complete faith that it will send to SAR if required.

Yes, there are more plans. You have to call them to get them. They are the enterprise plans, or aviation plans. These are byte based and very cost effective: http://www.delorme.com/library/hardware ... _Sheet.pdf

Prosaria wrote:

A1Skinner wrote:

flyingzebra wrote:I definitely vote Inreach. Had spot with 2 way messaging for a few years and then went to Inreach for the last few years. Inreach has far superior coverage and easily flexible price plans. Love the 2 way text for keeping in (nicely limited) touch.

Is there more plans then are offered on the website? The only ones I could find are quite a bit more expensive then my SPOT. I've never had any issues with my spot sending a message here in Canada, and I have complete faith that it will send to SAR if required.

Yes, there are more plans. You have to call them to get them. They are the enterprise plans, or aviation plans. These are byte based and very cost effective: http://www.delorme.com/library/hardware ... _Sheet.pdf

Awesome. Thanks for the info. I'll give them a call.

Yup, my options range from the "safety" plan, basically standby at $11.95 a month and you get 10 text messages and pay for tracking etc. From there there are several other plans, the "recreation" at $24.95, "expedition" at $49.95 and "extreme" at $79.95. The various plans give different amounts of tracking, texting etc. The extreme plan is unlimited everything. I have found that switching between them is super easy and the treatment is fair. Also, I used the Globalstar network for both sat phone and Spot and I discovered that they really meant Spot-ty.

InReach (Iridium) is designed for a sphere, SPOT (GlobalStar) is designed as if the World is flat.

Inreach, seriously we are not talking about a lot of money here, spot is just a crappy system, I had it for three years before making the change but would never go back to global star

InReach is the reliable way to go, have had bad experience with Spot up here.

Steve

Happy InReach customer here, too. I'm on the Delorme 2 data plan which costs $25/month. I've gone over a few times during good flying months, but the overages aren't bad. I think the biggest month was $40, and that was a high time month.