Great! Chris and I were discussing that at the Club Class Nationals, where I believe he experimented until it worked. Congratulations! I've been using a V1 SPOT for years now, and using tracking since the SPOT shared page was developed 2 years ago. It's good to see how many Australians now fly with one. A few friends in the USA are dropping SPOT because their expectations now go beyond the intended use of the device. They've watched too many of my SPOT tracks while they're at "work" and wanted more frequent reports! They are now using APRS, which is very nice, but has a few things to consider.
> Radio licence required (got that for hang gliding) At least that's the case > for 2m radios in the USA. > The popular Yaesu VX-8R package is still a bit bulky to include on the > parachute harness. > Battery life even with the large pack is one day at best. Keep it charged! Compare to 300 hours on SPOT this year with one set of batteries. > High initial cost. About $600 Australian. > Low (a small donation to the website) annual cost. Total cost at three to four years is about the same as SPOT. > You can set the transmit interval. Five seconds if you like, and are using > external power. > Position, Altitude, speed and heading are transmitted in each message. The new SPOT2 is very small and light. It can be easily mounted on a parachute harness. Of course pay attention to possible interference with parachute deployment. This site has information. http://www.silverparachutes.com/files/Important_Notice_2009-07.pdf My rigger will add a proper attach point to the parachute harness at the next repack. The Soaring Society of America has recently added a SPOT/APRS link depository to the website, so pilots can list their locator's web page. Club or competition staff can easily locate missing pilots whether still flying, outlanded, or unnoticed back at home. With quite a few pilots using SPOT, perhaps GFA could set up a similar site. Jim
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