Spot on!
Our overworked postman delivered a precious parcel from Canada today. Inside are 2 spot devices which are being lent to us by Avantura for our trip to Tierra del Fuego. Aleks Gusev has sent us the original SPOT 1, and the smaller SPOT 2, so we can chose which one we would like to take on our trip. Both are personal trackers which can work out our location and send the GPS co-ordinates to a google map on a website so that people can track our progress while we are away. If all is well, we will use the SPOT every evening to send an ‘OK’ message with our location, to let people know where we are and that we are fine. If things go wrong, we have an emergency SOS button that we can press to alert the GEOS International Emergency Rescue Coordination Centre and other pre-determined people ( and we will also have an EPIRB in case of emergency).
The new SPOT 2 is 30% smaller and can find a GPS signal quicker, but the battery life is shorter. Since we’ll just be using the SPOT once a day then we’ll probably take SPOT 2, but we’ll have a play with them both over the next 2 weeks to get used to them as see which we prefer.
Thanks a lot to Aleks for sponsoring us with the loan of the SPOT devices. If you are interested in hiring or buying one, then please visit his website, Avantura.ca.
Perfect Justine!! …now Tierra del Fuego island!!
Justin, did you check SPOT coverage? http://www.findmespot.eu/en/index.php?cid=109 I considered it to be global tracker, but it seems to have limited to no coverage in some areas, one of them being Tierra del Fuego. May be worth checking directly with service providers.
hi Tomas,
I know that the SPOT coverage map shows that it doesn’t work where we are! But Marcus Demuth & Biff used a SPOT down there last year and it did work. Other people have also told us that they work down there, so we are very hopeful that it will do.
Thanks a lot!
JustinE
Perhaps better to take the original SPOT, if your SPOT2 is affected by this recall. http://www.dailyhiker.com/news/spot-2-messenger-emergency-beacon-recalled/ Safe journey.