Competitor to SPOT?

Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 7/2/2011 8:28 AM, Bill D wrote:
On Jul 2, 7:56 am, Grider wrote:
Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) does this and more.

.....When in range of a repeater.

It's hard to find a place in the US where your NOT in range of a
repeater. And, even if you do, repeaters are only ~$200 to set up.
APRS is a good, solid and cheap solution with 1min fixes and all the
additional data we'd like to see. APRS would really let the folks on
the ground see the real-time "play-by-play" progress of the fleet out
on a task.

Is there a coverage map I can look at? Is there an "APRS in a Box" that
one can buy and plunk into his sailplane in the morning then go flying
with it in the afternoon, or how much more involved than that is it?

In the U.S., APRS requires the user to hold at least a Technician class
amateur radio license. So unless you already have an amateur radio license,
you can't get up running with APRS that quickly.

Since the Morse code requirement is history, all it takes to get a
technician license is taking a 35 question multiple choice test. You need
to answer 26 of those 35 correctly. The entire question bank is publicly
available, as are the answers. (I bought a couple study books from ARRL
that cover the technician and general class licenses and plan to take both
tests in the next month. Seems pretty straight-forward.)

This link appears to have further information, including links to various
maps:

http://www.aprs.org/