Personally, this is what I have been looking at. It only serves as a PLB in case of emergencies and has no texting or "broadcast position to spouse" functionality. https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/revie...-rescueme-plb1
Personally, this is what I have been looking at. It only serves as a PLB in case of emergencies and has no texting or "broadcast position to spouse" functionality. https://www.outdoorgearlab.com/revie...-rescueme-plb1
The Mini2 is brand new, so it'll likely have more features and/or better specs. Downside is it'll be more expensive.
PLBs and satellite communicators fulfill distinctly different roles, IMO, and best practice would likely to have both to complement each other.
Originally Posted by jellydonut
1)I like the 'no subscription' part a lot.
2)I had one of the original SPOT beacons for years, and now have one of the Garmins.
I have only thought about sending an SOS once. At the time I had the SPOT which only allows one way send of an SOS or a couple of canned messages, essentially you can send an SOS or canned message1 or message2.
My situation was a knee injury part way through a 100+ mile hike. TBH, I wasn't sure whether it was a life threatening situation or not. There are unpleasant but not life threatening situations, e.g. blisters. I've had blisters bad enough to bleed through my socks, and you just tune out the pain and walk. But my leg was stopping working, as in I'd be there commanding it to move, and it would go on holiday for a couple of minutes. The weather was bad - bad enough there was a nearby hypothermia fatality of a fit hiker (he was on an SAR team, although hiking for fun at the time). I eventually made it back to the car under my own power, but it was a near run thing. I was close enough to the edge that I'm not 100% sure I would have survived if I had to push the SOS button late in the day a few miles from the car. It's not like they were going to fly a chopper into the North Cascades in that weather. I probably would have survived the night; it wasn't my first time dealing with storms. But you could at least see the edge from where I was.
None of that drama would have been necessary with a two way capability - I would have diverted to some intermediate trailhead and contacted my wife for a pickup days before. But when the only option is sending an SOS, causing people to risk their lives to save you, or tough it out, you feel a responsibility to not push the button until you are in extremis. For me, the two way non-SOS comms are really important, not so I can tell my wife how great things are going, but to try and solve problems before it is SOS time.
Another example would be getting advance warning of unexpected storms. For example, a friend and I were on a ten day trip into the Wind River Range in Sept. When we left the forecast was good. We happened to run into a researcher with a radio on day 6, who asked if we had heard of the storm (he was the only other person we saw on the trip). We asked 'what storm'? He said an early winter storm was inbound, the temps were going to drop to -20 and 3 feet of snow was coming. Instead of a leisurely 4 days of sightseeing out, we started a death march to the car. Not much happened on day 7, but we were postholing through 2 feet of snow and a whiteout when we got to the car midday on day 8. Without the miles we put behind us on day 7, that would have been ugly. And again, I dunno if anyone was going to be flying in that. Visibility was 0 to 100 yds, high winds, 10K elevation with 13K peaks.
Others here may know better, but I also wonder if a two way capability helps if you do need to do an SOS. My understanding is that many SOS calls are for ... minor emergencies. If someone is deciding whether to push a chopper through marginal weather for a rescue, it might matter whether they are thinking 'statistically, half our rescues are for blisters' vs. 'we have contact with the party and it is a compound fracture of the femur'. Dunno for sure, just a guess.
I'm a class A skinflint and hate paying the $10 a month or whatever it is, but I spend more than that in gas to get to the trailhead, and I remember what I would have paid for comms when my leg went out, and I cough up the $$. YMMV, of course.
The Mini2 battery life is not useful unless your mobile device has the same longevity. A lot of the functionality from the Mini depends on using your mobile device. I just carried a charging battery. I would stick with the Mini1 for now unless you are really going off the grid for 14 days with limited power resources.
For SPOT vs InReach or any other brand: check to see which satellite network they use. InReach uses Iridium. Spot used to use GlobalStar but I'm not sure if that's still the case. GlobalStar had some serious coverage and reliability problems for a while and this impacted Spot reliability. I haven't followed those issues for a couple of years now and they might well have solved things, but do your homework before buying.
As a SAR guy: we prefer two way comms if we can get it. It greatly helps us tailor the response to the need. It also helps us suggest a good course of action to the caller. Usually that means stay put, but we've talked a few people along a path to better shelter or helped them figure out that they weren't as lost as they thought. It sucks to send a strong response to a beacon activation and find out it's a flat tire instead of a fall off the rim rock. We'd rather miss by sending too much but it's even better to just send what's needed.
Also: a friend fell off a horse and broke his dominant wrist on a guided hunt in the Yukon. The guides all used InReach. By means of two way sat text with his med school son who connected with an ortho guy, they established that this was not a run of the mill fx. He had signs of worsening vascular damage and likely nerve impairment. Guides were updating son on conditions and progress, while son was updating guides on the changing evacuation plan. They ended up riding all night to get to where RCMP could extract him by helicopter, then transfer to a fixed wing aircraft for flight to a hospital with the correct surgeon to fix things quickly. The docs told him he would likely have lost a lot of function had surgery been delayed any longer. Friend and son both said the two way comms were invaluable.
In my case, reassuring my wife so that she doesn't call out the cavalry if I'm late is important. One of my preset messages is something like "I'm ok, just moving slower than expected."
Nothing I can say or do will make her not worry about me. Being able to see that I'm still moving and/or getting a message is worth a lot in peace of mind.
That's actually an important talk we have before I go out. "Remember, I may or may not be in contact. I might be tired, the satcom thingy might be on the fritz, whatever. Under no circumstances do I want you to call for a rescue unless I'm X days overdue".
Those are our ROE. There's nothing wrong with a different set: "if I don't check in nightly, call in my last location".
What is really, really, really important is having both ends on the same page. I know of a couple of instances where PersonA gets the beacon, sends out a contact on day 1 and 2, then doesn't for a few days, because, heck, they never had daily checkins before, because they didn't have satcom before. And now PersonB at home is calling in the clans while PersonA is just enjoying a nice day of fishing. It doesn't matter what you come up with, but everyone needs to be on the same page.
The flip side is that longer battery life on the Mini2 means you can use more of your battery pack to charge your phone. Also, the Mini2 can still be used without a smartphone, it's just much more of a hassle.
My aviation vest has a PLB, Iridium sat phone and an aviation handheld. I also have a Garmin Mini, and it rides in my GR1 or pocket. Being able to do maps with the iPhone and get out messages where cell doesn't work is invaluable, even in the lower 48.
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
I think there is a tremendous untapped market for a smartphone with this capability (with an attachable antenna for better reception) and I really hope someone develops it.
My CAT S61 would be better served having this functionality built in than with the half-ass laser measuring device for about the same space. If I'm going to carry a bulky 'durable' phone it might as well have sat messaging capability.
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