On Sep 20, 10:55*am, CindyB wrote:
Folks:

Many pilots have Spot tracking systems. There has been conversation
about the awkward access to pilot's flight tracks, antenna
sensitivity
to placement/orintation, drop outs in tracks.

If you would like to see a more mature system, with public display,
real time access, user selection of ID messaging, self selected
reporting intervals, nationwide/worldwide coverage, historial
archiving of
tracking, try APRS on amateur radio bands.

The huge differences between APRS and Spot a
no subscription fees and
public access to tracks and
Altitude readout in track.

The Spot is far from perfect, but it uses satellites, so has better
coverage than APRS, which requires radio contact. If you have radio
contact, you don't _need_ Spot. Similar story with GPRS based
trackers. Works great when there's cell network coverage, sucks when
you need it.

Spot also have the 911 system giving similar functionality to the
cospas sarsat system.

The public display and archiving are easy to arrange. The rest of the
things you mention are not so easy to do with Spot.
--
Philip Plane