SPOT Tracking For 2009 Senior Contest at Seminole Lakes, Florida

I'd say the phrase "Location, Location, Location" certainly applies
here. If you stick it somewhere that it can't see the sky, then it's
not going to be able to transmit the position. If it can, it does.
So if you happen to be stuck low trying to dig your way out (regular
for me), it's very possible that even with the best location for a
horizontal glider, that it not be as good a position for a 45 degree+
glider. :-)

As TUNO said though, if I do land out, makes it VERY easy to let
people know where I am and if I'm ok or, god forbid, NOT!!

Later!

-Mark
On Mar 9, 4:32*pm, Tuno wrote:
Correction, Mark: the SPOT analysis is Steve Koerner's. He's too
modest to point people to it, and it's too good of an analysis not to
share.

I've been slightly dismayed with the missed reports problem, but I
remain a big fan of SPOT just for its utility in emergency situations
and landouts. Regardless of the whether you have a routine landout or
a serious mishap, the messenger tells your crew exactly where you are
with the "Ok" message, and whether you need more urgent help via the
"911" message. My crew is VERY happy that I fly with one, and she
watches my shared SPOT page when I fly.

2NO

On Mar 9, 6:49*pm, MarkHawke7 wrote:
I'd say the phrase "Location, Location, Location" certainly applies
here. *If you stick it somewhere that it can't see the sky, then it's
not going to be able to transmit the position. *If it can, it does.
So if you happen to be stuck low trying to dig your way out (regular
for me), it's very possible that even with the best location for a
horizontal glider, that it not be as good a position for a 45 degree+
glider. *:-)

As TUNO said though, if I do land out, makes it VERY easy to let
people know where I am and if I'm ok or, god forbid, NOT!!

Later!

-Mark
On Mar 9, 4:32*pm, Tuno wrote:



Correction, Mark: the SPOT analysis is Steve Koerner's. He's too
modest to point people to it, and it's too good of an analysis not to
share.

I've been slightly dismayed with the missed reports problem, but I
remain a big fan of SPOT just for its utility in emergency situations
and landouts. Regardless of the whether you have a routine landout or
a serious mishap, the messenger tells your crew exactly where you are
with the "Ok" message, and whether you need more urgent help via the
"911" message. My crew is VERY happy that I fly with one, and she
watches my shared SPOT page when I fly.

2NO- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

As an update to the issue of SPOT tracking message performance, I have
been the 'on-site organizer' for SPOT-equipped pilots here at the
Seniors, and I have found that pilots need to be reminded to place
their units where they can see the sky. A typical response to my
question about where the unit was installed was "I just put it in a
side pocket".

Another problem was that new SPOT users weren't familiar with the
somewhat clunky procedure for getting SPOT into 'track' mode, and were
simply hitting the OK button every so often. If you are looking at
the Seniors experience as a measure of anticipated performance for
other contests, you should look at the track history for TA (my
ship). I have my SPOT unit attached to my harness in such a way that
it is almost horizontal when the glider is flying straigth & level,
and it is well above the canopy rails for good sky visiblity. I
believe Mark told me that he was seeing about 90-95% success rate for
tracking messages over several days of flying. As we all become more
familiar with SPOT units and their idiosyncracies, I believe overall
tracking performance will slowly approach the 90-95% level that I have
been getting.

Frank (TA)

One other minor suggestion irregardless of whether we're talking about
the tracking stuff we're doing or if it's just a wife/significant
other/etc watching your normal SPOT shared page. Try to leave the
unit on after you land back at the airfield for 15-30 mins where it
can send another position or two showing that you did make it back
home. That's been a tough one to get people to do as well. Just a
suggestion.

-Mark

Related to this topic, I've been able to enhance my application so
that it can now output KML quite nicely. I put together a small kml
file that contains network links for showing the SPOT trackers,
current task and the other turnpoints. This file can be opened by
Google Earth for viewing. Google Earth is by far the best depiction
of this information as I'm able to rotate the airplane symbols to show
the general direction of travel of each participant. John Leibacher
has graciously agree to host the kml file to allow for easy access.
The link to it is:

http://soaringweb.org/TP/Seminole/se...acking_map.kml

For those whose computers just aren't quite up to the task of running
Google Earth. The original page is still available at:
http://www.soaringpilot.org/snspotmap.htm

The only thing it doesn't show is the rotated icons.

Enjoy!!

-Mark

Mark - Thanks but....I couldn't get it to work with IE 6 (yeah, I
know). I just get a page showing raw HTML code. It does work with
FireFox 3, Safari 3.2.2 and Chrome 1. FYI and hope you can fix the
issue with IE 6 as there is alot of installed base. My $0.02.

Thanks again.

PS - The direct link imbedded in the XML works fine;
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...p; output=kml

- John

Hi John,
Strange. I just tried it with IE version 6.0.3790.1830 and it worked
just fine. You have to have javascript enabled or it definitely won't
work. Is javascript access perhaps turned off with yours? I'll try
it with a couple more IE6's around our lab if I can find any. In
general Javascript is MUCH faster (as in 2 times or more) in Firefox,
Chrome and and probably Safari as well. I would HIGHLY suggest one of
those. Also, thanks for letting me know that it does work Safari. I
don't have access to a Mac to test with.

As for that link, it will only give you the Task.

Later!

-Mark
On Mar 12, 6:32*am, ContestID67 wrote:
Mark - Thanks but....I couldn't get it to work with IE 6 (yeah, I
know). *I just get a page showing raw HTML code. *It does work with
FireFox 3, Safari 3.2.2 and Chrome 1. *FYI and hope you can fix the
issue with IE 6 as there is alot of installed base. * My $0.02.

Thanks again.

PS - The direct link imbedded in the XML works fine;http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...n&oe=UTF8&msa=...

- John

Hi Mark,

I'm looking forward to trying it in Google Earth. I just upgraded to the
latest version of Google Earth today, but I can't seem to get the link below
to work. It simply opens a text file in my browser window. I tried saving
the text into a text file with a .kml extension and double-clicking on it.
Google Earth tries to open it, but it gives an error as follows:

Google Earth Error
Open of file seniors.kml failed: Parse error at line 1, column 2: XML or
text declaration not at start of entity.

I imagine I'm doing something wrong. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Paul Remde

"MarkHawke7" wrote in message
...
Related to this topic, I've been able to enhance my application so
that it can now output KML quite nicely. I put together a small kml
file that contains network links for showing the SPOT trackers,
current task and the other turnpoints. This file can be opened by
Google Earth for viewing. Google Earth is by far the best depiction
of this information as I'm able to rotate the airplane symbols to show
the general direction of travel of each participant. John Leibacher
has graciously agree to host the kml file to allow for easy access.
The link to it is:

http://soaringweb.org/TP/Seminole/se...acking_map.kml

For those whose computers just aren't quite up to the task of running
Google Earth. The original page is still available at:
http://www.soaringpilot.org/snspotmap.htm

The only thing it doesn't show is the rotated icons.

Enjoy!!

-Mark

Hi Paul,
I bet your using IE, right? I asked John L to post it to his
webserver because he has the server mime types set so it "should" open
the "Save" box not just display the contents of the file. In Firefox
and Chrome, it opens the window that allows me to "Save" or let's me
open it google earth. However, you should be able to right click on
the link in the RAS posting and do a Save As. Then you should be able
to double click on the downloaded kml file and it will open in Google
Earth. If that doesn't work for you or anyone else, I can email it,
just let me know. But the save as should work. Saving it in your
browser probably doesn't keep all of the info in the file formatted
correctly.

Related to IE 6 though and previous posting. While it is working, it
is popping up error boxes that none of the other browsers or IE7+ seem
to be having a problem with. I'll look into that.

Later!
-Mark
On Mar 12, 9:39*am, "Paul Remde" wrote:
Hi Mark,

I'm looking forward to trying it in Google Earth. *I just upgraded to the
latest version of Google Earth today, but I can't seem to get the link below
to work. *It simply opens a text file in my browser window. *I tried saving
the text into a text file with a .kml extension and double-clicking on it..
Google Earth tries to open it, but it gives an error as follows:

Google Earth Error
Open of file seniors.kml failed: Parse error at line 1, column 2: *XML or
text declaration not at start of entity.

I imagine I'm doing something wrong. *Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Paul Remde

Mark,

I hope you aren't loosing any soaring time due to all the fettling you
are doing with this program!

Here at work, our computers have IE 6 and NO GOOGLE EARTH! Dang it!
Our employer didn't want to get into a lawsuit with Google over our
use of the "free" version of Google Earth, so they took it off of all
the computers. Sigh.

So, does anyone know if the race is on for today, Thursday, 12 MAR 09?

Ray Lovinggood
Carrboro, North Carolina, USA

Hi,

Thanks to some great help from Mark, I got it working.

I had to right-click on the link and save it to my computer, then change the
file extension to .kml (instead of .xml). Then when I double-click on it is
opens in Google Earth.

It is very, very, very cool!!!

Thanks Mark!!!

Now I just wish my friends Dick Andrews and Ron Clark had a SPOT in their
DG-1000.

Paul Remde

"Paul Remde" wrote in message
...
Hi Mark,

I'm looking forward to trying it in Google Earth. I just upgraded to the
latest version of Google Earth today, but I can't seem to get the link
below to work. It simply opens a text file in my browser window. I tried
saving the text into a text file with a .kml extension and double-clicking
on it. Google Earth tries to open it, but it gives an error as follows:

Google Earth Error
Open of file seniors.kml failed: Parse error at line 1, column 2: XML or
text declaration not at start of entity.

I imagine I'm doing something wrong. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Paul Remde

"MarkHawke7" wrote in message
...
Related to this topic, I've been able to enhance my application so
that it can now output KML quite nicely. I put together a small kml
file that contains network links for showing the SPOT trackers,
current task and the other turnpoints. This file can be opened by
Google Earth for viewing. Google Earth is by far the best depiction
of this information as I'm able to rotate the airplane symbols to show
the general direction of travel of each participant. John Leibacher
has graciously agree to host the kml file to allow for easy access.
The link to it is:

http://soaringweb.org/TP/Seminole/se...acking_map.kml

For those whose computers just aren't quite up to the task of running
Google Earth. The original page is still available at:
http://www.soaringpilot.org/snspotmap.htm

The only thing it doesn't show is the rotated icons.

Enjoy!!

-Mark