A few years back I was doing a lot of off shore fishing and I wanted to be able to contact my family or if I had a emergency . I bought a Iriuduim Sat phone and it has worked great all you need is a direct line of site . Iriduiam has the best coverage of them all. as well I also bought a Spot device and its amazing (lot cheaper)and sends txts msg and emails to your friends and family with actual google earth images of your location and also i had a epreb on the boat to . Overkill .

Sat phone new 1400.00 prepaid sim card 500 minutes around 600.00 dollars and expires in one year of purchase date . or get a monthly plan for $35 bucks a month and around a 1.29 a minute .

good luck

 

Yes, it is; I misspoke. But it is not a two-way communication radio such as a cell phone or a sat phone is. And, if it's just one-way, does it allow messages to be drafted on the fly, or just what the owner composed prior to the hike?

The Spot 2 Satellite GPS Messenger

Includes all the same functionality as before—now in a smaller, more feature-rich form ...

Functions:

* SOS / 911: Use this function In the event of a life threatening or other critical emergency to notify emergency services of your GPS location and that you need assistance. The GEOS International Emergency Response Center alerts the appropriate agencies worldwide – for example contacting 9-1-1 responders in North America and 1-1-2 responders in Europe.
* Help: In the event of a non-life threatening emergency, you can use this function to notify your personal contacts that you need assistance. Additional SPOT Assist services can be purchased and programmed to your Help button as well. When activated with SPOT Assist, the Help button will notify professional services either on the land or water. SPOT has partnered with national service providers to offer non-life threatening assistance.

* Check-in/OK: This feature allows you to let your friends and family know that all is OK with a pre-programmed message along with your GPS location. With a push of a button a message is sent via email or SMS to up to 10 pre-determined contacts and your waypoint is stored in your SPOT account for later reference. Your stored waypoints can be easily integrated into a SPOT Shared Page or SPOT Adventure account.

* Custom Message: This feature allows you to let your friends and family know receive a custom message along with your GPS location with a push of a button. Use this feature as a secondary OK message or transfer your personal help alert to this message function if you are using a SPOT Assist service on your Help button.

* Track Progress: This feature allows you to send and save your location and allow contacts to track your progress in near real time using Google Maps. With your SPOT account you have the ability to set up a SPOT Shared Page which allows you to show your SPOT GPS locations to others on a Google Map.


The system tester that I was hiking with described the Custom Message function as something where he could pre-program it before the hike to send a short message. He had his pre-programmed to send "Destination Reached", then sent that when we were done with the hike to let his wife know we were off the trail. There was no way for him to then send her "Meet us at Ann's" since he had not had the foresight to pre-program that.

Having said all of that, here's something that might be of interest ...

http://www.trailspace.com/articles/2010/01/07/send-text-messages-from-almost-anywhere-on-earth.html

 

the shop is the radio shop of the area he is doing mostly commercial. When police need to have telecom in a car he is the installer. So basically he was renting me a enterprise frequency and selling me use handheld configured for the frequency just like any enterprise looking to get radio system. what is stoning me here is the annual fee of the rent, must be a colo or something.

 

I think you answered your own question here. All Spots are two-way systems by definition. They receive GPS signals from satellites, and they can transmit "I'm okay" or distress calls likewise. The system you linked and described here is even more compelling for those who really need custom messages, since you can configure the message on the associated GPS and transmit it via the companion sat transceiver.

All that said, I went through this exact same debate some months back. I went and picked up my extra class ham ticket, partially because I was interested in the theory, but partially because I was thinking it would be viable for emergency comms from the bush.

The conclusion I came to was that the Spot was a lot more practical, cost effective, and reliable than an HF rig capable of similar range. Unless you want to get into ham and HF as a hobby -- which it's an awesome hobby, don't get me wrong -- you're probably better off going the Spot route.

You can buy many, many years of Spot subscription for the cost of a Yaesu 857.

 

Wow, this forum is a wealth of information! Thanks for all the comments. Great ideas. Looks like I have some follow up research to do.

 

Ha.......yeah, you wait around here long enough and you'll hear it all..........lol