On Mar 9, 6:49*pm, MarkHawke7 wrote:
I'd say the phrase "Location, Location, Location" certainly applies
here. *If you stick it somewhere that it can't see the sky, then it's
not going to be able to transmit the position. *If it can, it does.
So if you happen to be stuck low trying to dig your way out (regular
for me), it's very possible that even with the best location for a
horizontal glider, that it not be as good a position for a 45 degree+
glider. *:-)

As TUNO said though, if I do land out, makes it VERY easy to let
people know where I am and if I'm ok or, god forbid, NOT!!

Later!

-Mark
On Mar 9, 4:32*pm, Tuno wrote:



Correction, Mark: the SPOT analysis is Steve Koerner's. He's too
modest to point people to it, and it's too good of an analysis not to
share.

I've been slightly dismayed with the missed reports problem, but I
remain a big fan of SPOT just for its utility in emergency situations
and landouts. Regardless of the whether you have a routine landout or
a serious mishap, the messenger tells your crew exactly where you are
with the "Ok" message, and whether you need more urgent help via the
"911" message. My crew is VERY happy that I fly with one, and she
watches my shared SPOT page when I fly.

2NO- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

As an update to the issue of SPOT tracking message performance, I have
been the 'on-site organizer' for SPOT-equipped pilots here at the
Seniors, and I have found that pilots need to be reminded to place
their units where they can see the sky. A typical response to my
question about where the unit was installed was "I just put it in a
side pocket".

Another problem was that new SPOT users weren't familiar with the
somewhat clunky procedure for getting SPOT into 'track' mode, and were
simply hitting the OK button every so often. If you are looking at
the Seniors experience as a measure of anticipated performance for
other contests, you should look at the track history for TA (my
ship). I have my SPOT unit attached to my harness in such a way that
it is almost horizontal when the glider is flying straigth & level,
and it is well above the canopy rails for good sky visiblity. I
believe Mark told me that he was seeing about 90-95% success rate for
tracking messages over several days of flying. As we all become more
familiar with SPOT units and their idiosyncracies, I believe overall
tracking performance will slowly approach the 90-95% level that I have
been getting.

Frank (TA)