GPS Locator Advice

With TA's recent incident highlighting the time sensitive nature of our GPS location (SPOT and InReach) I wanted to try to get the word out on how to get the coordinates of your Friend or Family Member's tracker.

I will try to get this information out to the SSA members better but here is a first stab. Frank is certainly correct that the Contest Director, contestants and family members need to know how to find their loved one in the event of a “no return”.

I recommend that everyone make sure their wives and friends “bookmark” the URL for their particular device. SPOT has a pretty good page as does InReach.

We should also be familiar with how to navigate to the URL from the SSA web.. Please hover over “member resources” and the drop down menu will display “Sailplane Locator”. Enter the competition number or last name for the pilot in question. The pilot’s tracker URL will be displayed as a link. Alternatively you could go to our Sailplane Tracker and hover over the pilot’s marker. The coordinates will be displayed in a yellow info box at the top of the page. Please try this in the comfort of your home so you will be familiar with the process.

I regret that the information was not readily available to the rescue services and with Frank’s experience hopefully the system and directions will be made clearer in the future. Hopefully all of the Contest Directors and Retrieve Desks will have the system readily available should such an occurrence happen again. Thank goodness for SPOT and InReach. No doubt Frank would have spend the night on the mountain without a locator.

Hope to see you in Perry next year Frank.

There are some sailplane pilots listed here http://xcfind.paraglide.us/ So I guess we tolerate your kind. Haven't seen the SSA version no idea which is better.