I phoned England where the provider of the 911 is located
asking to test my SPOT,s 911 I was told that there are not willing and able
to
have the system tested ! So if I can not test the 911
like a ELT what is the use, all it provides me with is a false security.
By the way just try the SPOT warranty system, make sure you
have your credit card on hand because you pay for everything
even if it fails when you take it out of the box







"Marc Ramsey" wrote in message
news
5Z wrote:
But there's always hope that a more pilot friendly device can be built
on top of this one by adding a few more buttons or at least changing
the firmware. They will likely charge a bit more for the service as
we'd like to have a better chance of our live track getting received,
so it will need to send more position reports, thus cluttering the
bandwidth, etc...

I looked at implementing a SPOT-like device using this technology years
before SPOT was announced, the main problem (aside from being transmit
only) is that data messages to the Globalstar network contain only a small
number of bits (56?). After one encodes latitude and longitude at a
useful resolution, about all that is left is a few bits to encode "OK",
"HELP", etc. I suspect an upgrade would require more satellites,
something which Globalstar may not be able to afford...

Marc