Is anyone having problems with your Spot? Last week, spot did not transmit my messages or track for 2 days. Today, it seems that messages were held up for about 2 hrs, and showing me in the same location during that time period.

Like all of us, my positions are sent to my shared page which is monitored by family and a couple of my BCP friends.

Spot fessed up to problems last week, and I'll be talking to them tomorrow to find out WTF is going on. The Spot has given me a great deal of peace, especially when I forget to check in by phone after landing. But now, it is causing me concern that someone may think there is a problem when there isn't.

I'll keep the site posted about my conversations with Spot.

Rich

I had a problem with my old SPOT two weeks ago. It stopped transmitting my Track mode when I went for a day drive in the northeast Nevada desert. My friend John was almost going to start a search for me because he thought I was stuck somewhere in a canyon with no signal. The following week I received an email from SPOT that they knew of the issues and apologized for the inconvenience.

Hey Rich
Mine worked great last Fri-Sun.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/face ... D263l9HKFb

Didn't use it the week before, but last month in Az. it was fine. So, no problems with mine. Only problem I ever had was when I flew with it to on side of my glare shield. Then it seemed to work fine going one direction and not going in the opposite direction, and that was years ago. Never had any problem once I moved it to the center of the glare shield.
Gary

I had an issue a couple of weeks ago to, but i got an email from them saying they where having technical issues

I also got hit by their problem a few weekends ago where messages were delayed and they sent out that email, but haven't had a problem since then,

I had a problem too! In fact I sent my typical check in when we landed at the Grand canyon at 830AM on a tuesday and the message didn't get sent until 2am the next morning. All my family/friends wondered what the hell I was doing flying at that time of the night!

I stopped by their both at SNF on Wednesday and briefly talked to them about the issue a couple of weekends ago. The reason for the stop was to let them know about that errant lat/lon in the Pacific I had a couple months ago. He wrote it off as a "gateway" issue. Wasn't sure what that meant and didn't have time to dig I to it as I was on a time crunch to see a few things before I left.

I've included myself on my checkin messages so I know that they are sent when I send them. That way I'll at least know if it is working right...assuming I'm in an area with cell service.

for what its worth, i actually got to use my spot in an emergency the other day. i came across a car crash in the middle of no where, people had been there for estimated 3 hours with no one having driven past. passenger was a bloke i know, he wasnt to bad, but having already suffered an injury resulting in brain damage 12 months ago, i thought it was urgent he got medical attention. Also to he was close to loosing consciousness. The driver looked to be in much worse shape, he was unconscious and had a face covered in blood.

it was surprising no one had found him as the accident happened near the entrance to a remote aboriginal correctional facility. that said however the facility is a working farm and people dont drive in and out of it much. though i knew it had police on site aswell as a stationed ambulance. I weighed up my options between leaving the scene to go get help, and setting up my spot. I felt it was only my communication keeping my friend conscious so I set off my spot.

now I had already noted the time exactly so i could make authorities aware of what time i found the accident, so i know for a fact it took exactly 12 minutes from me setting off my spot, to the emergency services group who receive the message to contact NSW police, for NSW police to contact the local police at the correctional facility, and for the police land cruiser to arrive at the scene....

now I dont think there is anything other way of looking at that other than pretty amazing! i was dumbfounded and overly impressed! always had the concern with the spot that i would never get to test its emergency capabilities until my life was at risk. now I can feel comforted that this thing really can save my life

Glad to the SPOT came through. What a relief it must have been to see help arrive.

I hope the gents are recovering well.

Same here I'm glad the response time was quick, hope everybody involved recovers in good order. Maybe if the steering will was on the left-hand side it might've come out better

passenger came out ok, by what i know it looks like the driver may have minor brain damage.

DrifterDriver wrote:passenger came out ok, by what i know it looks like the driver may have minor brain damage.

I'm sorry about that was making lite about right hand down under cars no the guys injuries hope he fares well.

Glidergeek wrote:

DrifterDriver wrote:passenger came out ok, by what i know it looks like the driver may have minor brain damage.

I'm sorry about that was making lite about right hand down under cars no the guys injuries hope he fares well.

Mate nothing to be sorry about! Is what it is. End of the say no one was killed and if we cant try and make some light of situations like this it would be a very depressing world as they are all to common. To add to it they where under the influence and driving much to fast, so it really was self inflicted i guess.

READ THIS IF YOU HAVE A SPOT MESSENGER. Update of problems with Spot Messenger.

I received an automated response from Spot 4 days after making contact with them about the 'no messages' problem. The response wanted to deal with the issue via email, but I chose to call them since they provided a telephone #.

The call began like most customer service calls with ideas like "maybe it was this" or "maybe it was that". I explained how we have protocol about the messaging which could start a search & rescue, and that I was extremely uncomfortable with maybes. At this point the CSR became very responsive and helpful in trying to determine what was going on. He asked good questions trying to eliminate possible reasons for the problem.

At one point he said "Well maybe our Spot simplexing server was down." This is very important since he said server, not servers. The simplexing server is the computer that handles the custom messages and tracking messages. I asked for clarification about the 'server'. As I drilled down on him, I concluded that Spot has a single point of failure with their 'simplexing server'. Evidently messages were coming into Spot, but not going out to our shared pages, emails or text messages.

The CSR was not qualified to determine if I was correct, but included my question in the trouble report, indicating that I needed and answer to the question.

I then drilled down on the equipment that handles Help and SOS messages. It appears there are multiple servers through the Globalstar Satellite system handling these high priority messages, which should preclude a help or SOS message from getting lost.

I don't know, but I am speculating that the messaging server is not part of the satellite network. Also the lost messages eventually showed up, so Spot was receiving them, just not forwarding them in a timely manner.

I'll keep updating this thread until we have a resolution.

Rich

Interesting, but working in IT infrastucture I would not count on any knowledge a CSR has of their backend IT infrastucture. It's also a very virtualized world out there and server may not mean what it used to mean and may not mean a SPOF. But I agree what happened should not have happened and they should fess up when something does happen and explain what they are doing to prevent it from happening.

Spot is a simplex, one way communication - - when it works. That would be most of the time, but certainly not even close to all the time.

Waiting for gliders to make it home, I've seen periods of time with no tracking fixes for almost an hour. No way would I bet my life on it. These four guys did, and it didn't work. Note that they were not, IMO, squeaky clean . . . hard to fix dumb.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... z2yRb2Gelw

InReach is full duplex, two way communications. Using the more reliable, better coverage Iridium system (Spot is on GlobalStar), when you push the InReach button you know when the signal gets through as it is acknowledged, and the rescue people can contact you.

bumper

not trying to debate the technologies.. but which layer does that acknowledgement come from? I'll bet in either system there are a quite a number of layers to make make it through before a message makes it to its final destination.

I used my SPOT during a two day flying trip in SE Utah Monday & Tuesday 4/7-8/2014. All of the "footprint" tracks came thru fine. I have my "Check In" button programed to send the message, "Landed-All OK". These landing messages all came thru fine. I have my "Custom Button" programed to send an "All OK-Taking Off" message. Only two of these custom messages made it thru the system.

Sounds to me as if it works fine when it works, but sometimes it doesn't work. Useful, but best not to bet your life on it, right?

Cary

I'd agree with that... though I've never had an issue until a few weeks ago. Beyond the ELT, I also carry a PLB for a belt and suspenders approach. The spot more for tracking where I am/where I may be going.