Hi,

Planning a trip in Sept. up in the NWT and am wondering if anyone here has any experience using these satellite messengers.

From what i can tell by the reviews on the web, it looks like the SPOT is not all it's cracked up to be. Lots of issues.
DeLorme looks like the way to go.

Wondering if these are fairly easy to use as i am not a techno type of person.

Thanks,
Brett

we have had a spot for a number of years..
Works great.. we are north of 60 degrees.

My wife is out on horseback right now in north east British columbia near the BC alaska Border. She has sent me 4 ok messages each morning. 5 more days of riding then a floatplane ride out..
I can tell where she is and she is ok..

watson Lake

Thanks for the info, i will definitely pick one up.

My wife will have more piece of mind...........especially now with a 5 yr. old and 7 month baby at home.

I see Cabelas has the Spot 2 on sale now for $99.99.

Hi Northman
I have a spot in the airplane with me.I use it every day so my base can track where ever I go and when I land each time.Watson Lake is north of 60 I'm north of 70 and am leaving in a few minutes for north of 72 today.Never had any problems with it at all.
Take care and have fun up north. Bill

I used a Spot on a 350 Km long canoe trip down the Clearwater river from Crean Lake Saskatchewan to Ft. Mcmurray Alberta. Every day we selected a clear site and set up the Spot. Every night it flashed a signal that meant it sent a "we are OK" message successfully. After getting back to civilization 9 days later, we found out only the first and last "OK" message got through. good thing some of my relatives overruled my brother in law who was ready to send in the search and rescue people after a week of no contact. That would have been a very expensive mistake. I will never use a Spot again unless they can guarantee that they actually work!

The Spot works really well up here. I've seen it work nicely as far north as Ulukhaktok (Holman) NT.

I use SPOT for work in northern Alberta and it has worked great for me.

Greg

The forest company I work for has more than a hundred SPOT's out there, throughout BC, with people working in the field checking in twice a day, every day.

I use my personal SPOT frequently wnen out hunting...keeps the wife (and friends' wives) happy to know that we are safe. I have yet to run into a single issue with it.

Right now a buddy of mine is hunting near the BC/Yukon border and is sending me SPOT check-in messages twice a day. Its pretty cool to track his progress, and I'm on pins and needles waiting for the SPOT message that says "Ram down!".

I can't recommend them highly enough.

Longwalker, I had that problem the first couple of times I used the SPOT, I think it's important to turn it on leave it afor a minute or so then after sending your message wait until you're sure the message has sent. You need to pay attention to the way the lights blink so you know it's been sucessful. I usually shut mine off after to save batteries but honestly it would be better to leave it on as it seems to work better like that. Don't give up on it yet once you've got it figured out it's a reliable piece of equipment.

I believe the satellite(s) for spot move across the horizon every 22 or so minutes. Only need to wait and they will send a message..
Robbie

How does one know that the message was sent successfully? From what i've been reading, that's one of the issues. Never know if your contacts receive it. Is the Spot 2 any better?

We are thinking of just renting a satellite phone......we usually only go one one hunt a year where we would need something like this.
Any suggestions on a sat phone?

I have nothing against "spots" they work great.
I own a Sat phone.....if your shopping for them get a iridium.

I recently got the new Delorme that is compatible with the Iphone for two way texting, the spots I looked at only had one way texting. Very pleased with it so far. Also nice that my family can track me on a global map where ever I'm hunting. As well it has the S.O.S. signal for emegancy rescue. Thinking I will leave my sat phone at home from now on.