"And except for a few spots a GPS is as good as a paperweight on the AT (long green tunnel remember). You'd be better off carrying a book to read while awaiting rescue than a GPS."

The new high-sensitivity models work even in under a forest canopy and I would be surprised to find a place on the AT where they wouldn't get a position fix.

I think a GPS would be invaluable to someone that was truly lost and who knew how to operate it. I've used one many times to quickly sort things out. (Although I personally didn't carry one on the AT.) They are especially valuable in fog, clouds or darkness. A spare set of fresh batteries should be standard. Naturally, like any device they can fail. I had one fail last summer. I've also had at least two compasses fail during my lifetime (including one where the polarity had somehow gotten reversed so the North end of the needle pointed South!.) I've had maps fail, too, when I lost them!

Hello Devon-

"It was my understanding that the search for Ken started when those not on the trail noticed that he missed a plane trip back to MI."

I believe some news reports confirm my comment. Check the string carefully.

"I maintain that they are unnecessary. They are unreliable in the sense that when the battery goes, it's useless, not that they are inaccurate in their readings."

I think John Shannon and Bruce Nelson have responded to this old canard. Fresh batteries can last 17 hours in use. You need not have your GPS on at all times. You can carry extra Lithium batteries. They work in your SPOT as well. They are better in cold weather too.

"I maintain that you will simply run out of battery power on trips longer than an overnighter if you keep it on. I also think that it's a poor substitute for a locator beacon if that's what you really want."

If your cell phone is out of tower range, turn it off for goodness sake. "Coupled with a GPS, a cell phone takes the search out of SAR"

"Maybe I'm wrong here. Does a good deal of SAR occur at night? Even if it does, it just seems like a superfluous item."

Yes, you are wrong, Devon. But, I suggest you not bother with the little two ounce bike strobe.

Edited by trad_guy on 05/07/2009 23:08:22 MDT.

Hello Jesse-
"It sounds like hiking with you would be as fun as joining the army."

I was an Army Officer and the troops loved me. I have been a popular hiking, backpacking and mountain climbing leader for more than 60 years.

If you were to hike with us, you would have fun and learn some new stuff too.

You seem uninformed on the use of the latest GPS receivers. Read the subsequent posts by John and Bruce.

Hello Roger-
You might want to update Backpacking Light's evaluation of the SPOT. Recent reviews have been much more positive than your group report.

It is clear that the SPOT must be used correctly, often not done in early reviews. Note that even the latest GPS receivers must be used correctly to give maximum results.

Adventure racers have been very successful with the SPOT tracking, although it is the weakest of the four uses.

"You might also like to note that none of the BPL staff who participated in the field test wanted to keep any of the test units for free afterwards. Yep, we turned down free stuff!"

This comment is a little dismissive. There are thousands of happy users.

We like our SPOT units here in Oregon. I don't know about Australia's Outback.

This is your original statement:
"In our testing, in field conditions we believe likely to be encountered backpacking and hiking, the SPOT unit did not "deliver virtually every message," as the SPOT unit's literature claims. As such, we see the SPOT unit as an innovative system with a lot of promise, but with some glitches and room for improvement. We make no claims that the current SPOT unit and its supporting system is or is not dependable enough to deliver messages with sufficient reliability all times in the field conditions encountered by backpacker and hikers. That is a judgment call to be made by each prospective user."

> You might want to update Backpacking Light's evaluation of the SPOT. Recent reviews
> have been much more positive than your group report.
Yes, I have noticed that some organisations have posted glowing reviews of the SPOT. However, in many cases those reviews merely confirm what some of us have always said about 'desk reviews' based on marketing releases.

We stand by our evaluation, but we look forward to the release of a V2 correcting the limitations of V1.

Cheers

Robert,
Regarding SPOT, as recently as November on a Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim run (not by me) only 30 out of 198 tracking signals were successful and only 9 out of 33 OK signals were successful.

This was a BrightAngel/Tonto run, with a fairly large exposure to the sky.

Hi Robert,

Looking at the news reports, they don't specify who actually called for the search and rescue, other than saying it was by "friends." This confirms that it's too early for people who weren't there to make broad assertions about what was or was not the case.

Other than that, I suspect that you and I have intractable differences about personal autonomy and responsibility, and it's fair to leave it at that. It's also clear than we hike in very different ways and have different criteria for the gear we carry.

I wish you the best in your travels.

But who knew that being legally blind was a get out of jail free card? I stand by this. It is reckless and irresponsible for a legally blind person to set off into the wildnerness ALONE and a recipe for disaster. I think he's basically proved my point.

Edited by SowthEfrikan on 05/16/2009 07:39:27 MDT.

Travis - check your math on item 4

2 acres or maybe 4???

Travis, one acre = 43,560 square feet

your math equals four acres, not 2

295 feet on a side = close to 2 acres

Can't help it, I took surveying in college. :)

Thanks for checking my math. Yeah, originally I found the area of a square acre, which is 208 feet on all sides. Then I just doubled that, for a total of 416 squared, which equalls 173,056. D'OH!!! My bad. If I'm correct this time, two acres of land is a square with sides that measure 295 feet. Even smaller!!!

Ah, you beat me to it!

"Coupled with a GPS, a cell phone takes the search out of SAR"

In a lot of mountain ranges, a cell phone is useless more often than not, coupled with a GPS unit or otherwise. Not to be depended on to call in a rescue situation.

Lorraine Pace = [not a nice person]

Sorry for the nasty word, it's just that nothing else fit. I've never made a personal attack here on BPL, but Lorraine's comment is out of line.

I understand if my comment gets censored by the mods (although there has been conversation about using douche to clean stinky bags, so really, it's not too far fetched).

Edited by sharalds on 05/08/2009 19:32:13 MDT.

Ok I didn't know that GPS technology had progressed so much. The last time I used one it didn't work at all unless we had a good line of sight.

But he had a GPS AND a cellphone the batteries were just dead. (dang iphone is just too much fun to play with)

Lorraine please explain your comment. I'm sure it was some sort of typo, right? RIGHT? I'm sure our criminal justice system has better things to do than prosecute people like Ken.

Dan, your comment made me laugh (though its not a funny matter) and you hit it on the head.

Yep, Dan, that about sums it up.

I took out the "nasty word" in Dan's post but I whole-heartedly agree with him.

I, for one, am impressed. Ken took his time, stayed calm, stayed put, got the resources he needed to survive quite a long time (water and firewood). I hope that I would remain that calm and intelligent in the same situation.

And for everyone who disagrees, try walking an AT mile in his shoes!

First of all I would like to say how glad I was to hear that Ken made it out safe and well, and I wish Ken all the best in the future and I hope he does many more walks.

On a thread on the Bushwalk Tasmania forum "Emergency Help Devices - EPIRB/PLB, Sat Phone, SPOT, etc [split]" an incident came to light where a Spot Messenger was used to alert the local authorities to evacuate a bushwalker in a remote part of the state of Tasmania with a broken leg. Considering the reliability of the Spot messenger has been brought up on this thread I thought this incident might be of some interest to this BPL thread, apparently in this incident the spot messenger worked very well.

The thread can be located at this URL http://bushwalk-tasmania.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1709 and the postings that mentions the above incident starts near the end of the first page.

Tony