On-Star*

Just saw an On-Star commercial, went something like this:

Mrs. Jones, This is your On-Stat advisor. I show an air-bag deployment and
automatic activation of your on-star system, on Route 16, north of Albany, are
you all right?

Mrs. Jones, Nooooooo!

On-Star advisor, I'm calling the State Police and your husband.

Mrs. Jones, Thaaaank Youuuu.

I let this percolate in my fertile mind, over a cup of coffee and came up with
this:

Mr. JJ, I show a sudden stoppage, resulting in a G-switch activation of your
On-Star system, 10 miles south of Callahan. I show no airports in that area.
Are you all right?

No answer.

On-Star advisor, In accordance with your instructions, dated 6/6/03, I am
notifying the Siskiyou County Sheriff, Contest Headquarters and your crew. I
show your location as; 40-53.3 north and 123-05.6 west.
Good luck!

Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would they consider taking on
aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
JJ Sinclair

JJ,

I like the concept, but if On-Star uses the cell-phone
system, won't that render the service useless in areas
without coverage? Or does On-Star use satellite(s)
for communication/data transfer? I guess they use
satellites, thus the name 'On-Star'?? (Or, is it a
combinaton of both: cell phone for voice and satellite
for data?)

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA
LS-1d 'W8'

At 18:12 18 November 2003, Jj Sinclair wrote:
Just saw an On-Star commercial, went something like
this:

Mrs. Jones, This is your On-Stat advisor. I show an
air-bag deployment and
automatic activation of your on-star system, on Route
16, north of Albany, are
you all right?

Mrs. Jones, Nooooooo!

On-Star advisor, I'm calling the State Police and your
husband.

Mrs. Jones, Thaaaank Youuuu.

I let this percolate in my fertile mind, over a cup
of coffee and came up with
this:

Mr. JJ, I show a sudden stoppage, resulting in a G-switch
activation of your
On-Star system, 10 miles south of Callahan. I show
no airports in that area.
Are you all right?

No answer.

On-Star advisor, In accordance with your instructions,
dated 6/6/03, I am
notifying the Siskiyou County Sheriff, Contest Headquarters
and your crew. I
show your location as; 40-53.3 north and 123-05.6 west.
Good luck!

Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would
they consider taking on
aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
JJ Sinclair

Would be a nice feature for the GPS mfg's to incorporate into their handhelds.
Just press a button, or sudden stoppage would activate the unit, coordinates
then go to the big screen somewhere.

guess you have not seen some of the early Garmin hand helds.. contained a
pre recorded message with your N number and would broadcast your coordinates
on the radio freq.

BT

"Lord Struthers" wrote in message
...
Would be a nice feature for the GPS mfg's to incorporate into their
handhelds.
Just press a button, or sudden stoppage would activate the unit,
coordinates
then go to the big screen somewhere.

I looked into the UK system earlier this year and spoke
with a company rep. Several companies offer a similar
service to track commercial vehicles and manage the
fleet.

Briefly as I understand it, the system here works on
a GPS reciever and logger in the vehicle and this transmits
data via ground cell telephone systems back to base.
The cell phone system has numerous 'spare' channels
not used for the 'phone system. The problem is that
trying to use the cell phone in the air, unless low
down on a ridge, or behind a mountain, causes the
cell phone to shut down.

The basic cost was about £700 for the vehicle kit and
then a further load of cash to get kit to manage the
data.

So at present not practical and expensive

On 18 Nov 2003 19:35:42 GMT, Dave Martin
wrote:

I looked into the UK system earlier this year and spoke
with a company rep. Several companies offer a similar
service to track commercial vehicles and manage the
fleet.

Briefly as I understand it, the system here works on
a GPS reciever and logger in the vehicle and this transmits
data via ground cell telephone systems back to base.
The cell phone system has numerous 'spare' channels
not used for the 'phone system. The problem is that
trying to use the cell phone in the air, unless low
down on a ridge, or behind a mountain, causes the
cell phone to shut down.

The basic cost was about £700 for the vehicle kit and
then a further load of cash to get kit to manage the
data.

So at present not practical and expensive



CDMA cellphones work great in the air unlike that piece of Eurotrash
GSM system.

Mike Borgelt

link to a U.S. coverage map in pdf format
http://www.onstar.com/us_english/dow...age_map_us.pdf


Canada map
http://www.onstar.com/us_english/dow...ge_map_can.pdf


Quoted from
http://www.onstar.com/us_english/jsp...mp%3B+Hardware

Made shorter link
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R6CC12396

Q. How does OnStar work?
A. OnStar uses existing emergency service providers, cellular telephone
and satellite technologies. It operates alongside the electrical system
in your vehicle and is powered by your vehicle's battery. If your
vehicle's battery is damaged or disconnected, our service will not
function. Onstar currently uses the analog cellular network maintained
by separate cellular companies. This provides the broadest geographic
coverage of any current wireless system in the United States and Canada.

Dave Martin wrote in message ...

... The problem is that
trying to use the cell phone in the air, unless low
down on a ridge, or behind a mountain, causes the
cell phone to shut down.

Not really an issue if you've landed out or crashed, is it?

This system might be usefull in countries where, unlike in the U.S.,
you can reliably get coverage more than 5 miles outside a major city.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Dave Martin wrote in message


This system might be usefull in countries where, unlike in the U.S.,
you can reliably get coverage more than 5 miles outside a major city.

Or in countries where, unlike the US, major cities are rarely more than ten
miles apart.

If you have actually had that sort of trouble in the US, perhaps you are
using the wrong system.



--
Jack


Sent using the Entourage X Test Drive.

Does anybody know how much On-Star costs and would
they consider taking on
aviation customers? It's got to beat ELT.
JJ Sinclair

What I don't get is why someone doesn't just make
an ELT that speaks the GPS coordinates (and
tail #, etc. entered by the user) over the 121.5
frequency.

No decoding, no satellites, just an ELT that
also has a voice and tells it over the 121.5 freq
every few minutes. Mate a $100 GPS to a
$200 ELT to a text-to-voice device. Doesn't
this seem much simpler?

And talk about easy to find the false transmissions!
Heck, you got the coordinates AND the tail number?
Shouldn't be hard to find THAT guy at the airport
bar...