SPOT 3 now reporting altitude?

I can confirm that both the XML and JSON feeds from SPOT now contain a (new) altitude field. It reports in meters. I have test flown and verified that it is the accurate GPS altitude.

So far, I see this data filled in only in tracking messages. In messages sent in response to a button push, the field appears to be zero.

I also note quite a few instances of drop-outs -- perhaps as many as 20% or 30% of all messages. I speculate that these may be related to instances where the rapid acquisition GPS engine in the SPOT fails to get enough satellites for a 3D solution. In these cases altitude is reported as zero or negative.

On Monday, May 15, 2017 at 12:07:39 AM UTC-5, 2KA wrote:
I can confirm that both the XML and JSON feeds from SPOT now contain a (new) altitude field. It reports in meters. I have test flown and verified that it is the accurate GPS altitude.

So far, I see this data filled in only in tracking messages. In messages sent in response to a button push, the field appears to be zero.

I also note quite a few instances of drop-outs -- perhaps as many as 20% or 30% of all messages. I speculate that these may be related to instances where the rapid acquisition GPS engine in the SPOT fails to get enough satellites for a 3D solution. In these cases altitude is reported as zero or negative.

Darryl Ramm

May 7

I think you'll find the data you are looking at is the height of the ground where you flew, which Spot has had inits Web UI forever, maybe you never noticed it before. No spot system transmits altitude data, and the current message format used does not have space for such data.

Darryl Ramm? What's your take on that?

Tom BravoMike

On Monday, May 15, 2017 at 8:17:43 AM UTC-7, Tom BravoMike wrote:
On Monday, May 15, 2017 at 12:07:39 AM UTC-5, 2KA wrote:
I can confirm that both the XML and JSON feeds from SPOT now contain a (new) altitude field. It reports in meters. I have test flown and verified that it is the accurate GPS altitude.

So far, I see this data filled in only in tracking messages. In messages sent in response to a button push, the field appears to be zero.

I also note quite a few instances of drop-outs -- perhaps as many as 20% or 30% of all messages. I speculate that these may be related to instances where the rapid acquisition GPS engine in the SPOT fails to get enough satellites for a 3D solution. In these cases altitude is reported as zero or negative.

Darryl Ramm

May 7

I think you'll find the data you are looking at is the height of the ground where you flew, which Spot has had inits Web UI forever, maybe you never noticed it before. No spot system transmits altitude data, and the current message format used does not have space for such data.

Darryl Ramm? What's your take on that?

Tom BravoMike

If they have added this it is an impressive deployment of updating (and supporting now two) over the air data message formats. it will be interesting to see if this feature was hidden in the original Spot 3 or added in a firmware update.

Now looks like they need to solve some performance options. I don't have a Spot 3 so I can't test.

There was indeed a recent firmware update. I didn't test before installing the update, so I can't say for sure if it was added then -- but it seems likely.

Lynn