gps tracker

What are the costs to register & run each year ?

Hi Nick

I have had my SPOT Get 3 for just under 2 years now and like any Safety Item that I carry, the cost of purchasing the unit and annual subscription do not come into account in the event that my life may depend on it.

I paid $176 for my SPOT Gen 3 that is a once off purchase.

From memory it cost me approx US$168 per year (at the time was about $220 AU) for my annual subscription or on a weekly fee of around $4

The new SPOT unit are very good on battery use, with last year I only had to purchase I pack of 4 AAA Lithium batteries (less that $20 AU) That included many short trips and then using it 24/7 for one month when we headed north.

The unit can run off my 12 Acc if needed to reduce the cost.

For me, I can not put a cost on the safety of Fiona and I when travelling and for less than $4 per week, I get continuous 5 minute real time tracking 24/7 for 365 days.

Some will bitch about the cost of subscription, but for my if anyone can not afford $4 a week, then they can not afford to head bush, that usually cost far for than $4 week to travel.


Safe Travels.



Cheers



Stephen

A good way of looking at that $4 weely cost Stephen, in some places, it's only a litre of fuel, and that only gets you a few Ks down the road !

That's $4.00 a week if you use it each and every week of the year.

If you use it one month a year, it's $220 a month.

Depends which way you look at it.

IMHO having friends being able to see you in 'near real time' is the only decent application for a SPOT.

They are not quite as good as an EPIRB for rescue.
They are quite useless as a high precision tracking device.
If you don't care too much if your friends can't track you till you get to the next phone tower, then EO can do it as part of the annual membership.

It's a 'look at me' device.

"It's a 'look at me' device."

Some families like and take reassurance in that, Tony.

Horses for courses, I reckon.

Cheers

Agreed Frank. That is the one practical use for them IMHO.

What are the costs of running the EPIRB ? &
how do they differ from the spot tracker ? has anyone ever had to use either of these for an emergency??

Hi Nickb

There are no "running costs" associated with an epirb. Once purchased & registered, there is no other outlay. I have a GME MT600 EPIRB that we take when we travel. It has a 10 year battery life, and for about $260 purchase price, that works out to $26 per year, or about 50c per week. If you don't need real time tracking, then this is the best option for emergency response.

Epirbs differ from a Spot Tracker in that they are an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. Once activated, they send out a signal that is picked up by a Satellite & relayed to an Emergency Response Centre. From my understanding, Spot Trackers on the other hand rely on a private tracking system that needs a subscription to access. If an emergency situation arises, you need to rely on whoever the tracking company is to contact the Emergency Response Centre.

Approx. 12 months ago, a couple got seriously bogged on the CSR, they activated their epirb, and were picked up by a helicopter in about 2 hours. They had to wait a few more weeks for the track to dry out before they could recover their vehicle.

Macca.

Macca, I wouldn't have thought that being seriously bogged would have been a good enough reason to activate a PLB. Being on the CSR, they would or at least should have had plenty of food and provisions to see them out for a few week and other travellers moving past. Obviously we don't know the full extent of their circumstances but it hardly sounds life threatening. Michael

NickB wrote:

"From my understanding, Spot Trackers on the other hand rely on a private tracking system that needs a subscription to access. If an emergency situation arises, you need to rely on whoever the tracking company is to contact the Emergency Response Centre."

All of that is correct but there is one important factor missing and that is...
There is a formal agreement between Australia's Emergency Response Centre in Canberra and the Spot emergency people - Geos in Canada, I think, but it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that the agreement stipulates that an emergency signal originating from a Spot in Australia's area of SAR responsibility WILL be handed over to Australian SAR authorities with minimum delay.

When you as a subscriber push the emergency button on a Spot it sends the Spot ID and its current position to the Geos centre. The ID tells Geos who the subscriber is. That info and the position are relayed to Australian SAR. My friend who worked in AUS SAR told me the delay could be around 20 minutes, so it's not as good as an EPIRB or PLB, but I suppose it's better than nothing - certainly if you're on a budget.

In the Spot system, if you subscribe you enter personal details - name, address, medical, next of kin etc - onto your own Spot web page much like the registration of a PLB or EPIRB and that info is passed to AusSAR if the SOS/911 button is activated.

I don't know what happens if a signal is received from a Spot that doesn't have a subscription. I suspect that every activation is acted upon, I think there is international agreement on that, so Geos would advise AusSAR of the activation and position, but there would be no personal information.

Two other things that my old Gen 1 Spot can do that, to my knowledge, EPIRBs/PLBs can't:

One is send a simple, pre-formatted "I'm ok" message to designated addressees. The helps settle the nerves of the worry warts who think that 68 year old adults are delicate and cannot look after themselves after proving time and time again that they are not and they can.

The other is in the event of a non life-threatening situation where you're stuck you can send a pre-formatted message to previously selected addressees advising them of that. You cannot specify the problem, but you can tell them you need non-urgent help. That obviously has limitations, which is why we now have a satphone.

Other devices like the inReach and later Spots can send text and email messages via a connected smartphone.

thanks for those replay's McLaren3030 & Frank P
maybe.... i might feel a little more confident in the epirb only as much as its
a more local and we know they work i.e sea rescue , the one off cost $$$ could be better over many years aswel . The spot obviously has lot more functions !!
Q how does the panic button work on the HF radio's ?? is that going send help ASAP if there's no communication ??

I haven't had much to do with HF's since the mid-90's, Nick, but in those days they had an emergency button that was used on your "local" RFDS base frequency, to alert the base that you did have an emergency.

The signal transmitted was a piercing tone, that would cut through the worst of atmospherics, trip an alarm in the base and alert/wake up the duty officer. I've even used the emergency button one afternoon, when we were presented with an unconscious toddler. The tone guarantees you have the frequency to yourself, to talk to the base.

Don't know what they have these days, but am quite sure the same procedure would be used by the RFDS.

Bob.

Hi guys

Just to clarify the "panic button" is the RFDS Emergency Call Button.

The RFDS red "Emergency Call" button is no longer functioning - (with the exception of the Port Augusta base. (As detailed in the current VKS737 literature).

Contact with RFDS is via the selcall feature of your model radio (only if fitted). Contact via HF radio is dependent on suitable HF atmospheric conditions.

A sound working knowledge of HF radios and atmospheric conditions is needed to operate a HF radio successfully. They are not like a UHF were you just grab the handset and start talking.

In saying that, I still have one fitted to my vehicle, as well as satphone and PLB, and believe they all continue to have a place in remote outback communication.

Cheers

Anthony

Hi Michael, from memory, they had been stuck for several days, almost two weeks from memory, and were running low on water. Two things they did that was not advisable, they travelled during the “off” season, so there weren’t many others on the track at the time, and they travelled “solo”, no one else to help.

Macca.

Macca, I guess thats fair enough if they stuck it out for that length of time, We can't treat the system as a taxi system or it will fail when we need it most. Regards, Michael.

I see now that Garmin has taken over the inReach and that there are new models that may make that unit a better bet than it was for me.

Here's a link to the Garmin's "InReach" device.

It has some better monthly plans as well so u don't have to have a 12mth contract....

Garmin In-Reach

Yes a comparison of the benefits of a Tracker vs a PLB has been done to death on the forum.

However this thread is about Trackers of which the PLB is not - yes if unfortunately the worst happens the item of last resort is the PLB which gives current position but does not give tracking information.

Really for a tracking device there are only one of two options - a Spot style of system with its associated subscription costs but basically works anywhere and provides tracking advice.

The other option are the trackers that receive information from satellites but use the mobile phone network to communicate tracking and position information with the obvious limitation that when outside of the mobile network they do not work - so really outside of cities etc are of not much use.

So for Tracking a Spot style system is really the only way to go.

For a fail safe reporting system in case of emergency well as discussed in the link there are various options but the best is probably a combination of PLB and one of the communications devices - SPOT, SAT Phone, HF etc

Tracker & plb ~ Garmin inReach
Interesting what the outdoor gear lab comments were in regards to spot send .