On Feb 3, 9:11*pm, JS wrote:.
* Does anyone know the battery life of these things in and out of
"Spotcasting" mode?
Jim
I went through a set of batteries to see how long spotcasting would
last and it was more than 2 weeks of nearly continuous operation. A
few times I forgot to restart, so there were a few 6 - 8 hour
downtimes as the car with SPOT on board sat in the garage or parking
lot at work after the 24 hour timer ran out. The power LED started
flashing red to indicate low batteries, but it continued to work for
over 3 days after this. Amazingly, I was getting spotcasts from
inside the garage.
So if used for soaring, I would turn it on and energize spotcasting
right after assembling the glider, then go fly. At the end of the
flight, turn it off. Since 2 weeks is 336 hours, a set of batteries
should last all season with even the heaviest use possible.
As for the later comment about this not being a replacement for ELT,
that is true. But it certainly does augment it, and IMHO, is not a
waste of money. I'm on business in New Jersey and managed to get a
couple of OK messages sent out from the airliner by holding it against
the window for about 5 minutes just to be sure the message got sent,
and also a couple position reports on either end of the Lincoln tunnel
in Manhattan. So perhaps there are some defective units out there,
but so far mine has worked like a champ.
Below is a track history of my drive in to Manhattan. This is a cut
'n paste from the website. I can also select one or more of these,
then display on a map. Notice that the 11:09 track was never
uploaded. I've noticed that it mostly sends a report every 10
minutes, but seems to drop one every few hours. Not sure if this
because of poor coverage at that time (maybe it took 10 minutes to
make a connection for upload?, so it was already time for the next
report?). Also note the nearest location as provided by google maps
is pretty sparse. At home, it typically gives a street name, but not
address or cross street. That is why I've set up an email filter for
the messages and you can see the two OK messages farther down. I have
Kelly Airpark as my "home" and one of the waypoint I set up is Newark
Airport, so my program displays distance to home and the nearest other
waypoint - just about the right amount of info to send in a TXT
message.
Date(GMT) ESN Message Type Latitude Longitude
Nearest Location
Select 02/05/2008 12:24:34 AM 0-7349736 OK 40.7487 -74.0072
Select 02/04/2008 11:29:27 PM 0-7349736 OK 40.7685 -74.0231
Select 02/04/2008 11:19:44 PM 0-7349736 Track 40.7712 -74.0297
Select 02/04/2008 10:59:44 PM 0-7349736 Track 40.7923 -74.2489 I-280,
West Orange, NJ, US
Select 02/04/2008 10:49:52 PM 0-7349736 Track 40.819 -74.329
Select 02/04/2008 10:41:18 PM 0-7349736 Track 40.8094 -74.3802
At 02/04/2008 23:29:27 UTC
Mon Feb 4 16:29:27 2008 MST
40:46.110N 74:1.386W
1594 sm @ 076 From Kelly
9.1 sm @ 055 From Newark Intl
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...UTF8&z=12&om=1
At 02/05/2008 00:24:34 UTC
Mon Feb 4 17:24:34 2008 MST
40:44.922N 74:0.432W
1595 sm @ 076 From Kelly
9.2 sm @ 065 From Newark Intl
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...UTF8&z=12&om=1
-Tom