View Single Post
  #4  
Old May 8th 18, 06:10 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
WaltWX[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 310
Default Spot or InReach ??

I'd strongly recommend the Garmin InReach (older larger one is just fine... just sew a pocket on your parachute).

InReach's plans are complicated and difficult to price. There is a monthly plan that gives you... I believe.. either 5 or 10 min updates. But, at least for that, you get the ability to display altitudes to the person tracking you and ... most important... outbound text messaging.

The Enterprise plan often used for aviation is the one I use. Go to Paul Remde's Cumulus site to see how the pricing works. You pay by the number of bytes transmitted. I change my monthly rate from ~$20/month winter around 1500 bytes (you can disable the account for ~$7/month). During flying, contest or X-country season I raise it to 8000 bytes at ~$35/month. You can raise it to the next level higher plan anytime, but pay a $25 one time penalty for lowering it. One of the other benefits of the Enterprise plan is that you can change the sampling interval before takeoff to anything between 1 minute and 10 minutes. As I said it's complicated. During contests or long flight into "tiger country" I set it to 2 minute updates.

I estimate it's costing me $400/year for this service as long as I carefully manage the monthly plans for my flying. Not bad for peace of mind...

Walt Rogers WX