The northern part of New Hampshire remains a technological wasteland for communication. Two, maybe three, cell towers and they could join the rest of the world in this century, but no, we don’t want the trees to look less pretty. I’m suprised, actually, with the amount of cold weather outdoor activities that go on up there that rescue personnel haven’t pushed for cell towers, but for now, when Stu hits the trail on his snowmobile, it’s as though he’s been sucked into a black hole.
Because most of his friends wuss out on him, he rides alone more often than not and I don’t like it. (Though he’s managed to wrangle one of his favorite cohorts into going along several times this season.) So we did some research, focusing on satellite phones and the SPOT GPS Satellite Messenger. Further googling revealed the sad state of satellite service however, as the things degrade up there in space and the companies don’t have the money to replace them.
In the end we decided to give SPOT a try. It also needs satellites, but at least if it didn’t work it was only $200, not a locked-in for two years satellite phone plan. (There are also personal locator beacons that work on a higher level or something technical like that and are more reliable than SPOT, but cost way more and don’t have the OK function.) We bought the cheaper of the two SPOT units because we didn’t need the customized text messages.
So…for the SPOT unit and one year of service we’re into it for $198. (We also pay the optional $7-something per year for rescue insurance.)
It has three very basic functions. 1) It sends a 911 distress signal and the SPOT company sends in the cavalry. 2) You can request help from your contacts. For instance, if the sled breaks down and he’s facing a twenty-mile walk in zero degrees, he can request non-emergency help. Then I, from two hours south, have to scramble to find somebody up north who can take his latitude and longitude and go pick him up.
3) And the function that sold us on the SPOT (other than the 911, of course), is the OK button. All it does is send a message to my cellphone and email saying “Checking in. Okay.” along with his coordinates. In the email is also a link to his location on Google Maps. This way, when it starts getting late and he realizes I might be starting to worry, he can at least send an OK message to hold me over until he gets to a phone or finds cell coverage.
Once we received it and got it activated, we thought we were doomed to disappointment. Or at least doomed to fighting to get a refund. It didn’t want to send an OK message from our own driveway. With all the tests we tried, it did finally manage to send one OK signal from outside Home Depot.
Then he took it north with him. He sent four OK signals and I received all four. It was rather funny when we went to Google Maps and could zoom in well enough to see he’d sent the signal from a three-way intersection in the Nash Stream area. The Short Kid kept saying “Wave, Daddy!” and I had to explain it wasn’t an actual live picture. (Which would have explained all the grass instead of snow, but he’s nine.)
Hopefully the day will never come when he hits the 911 button. I won’t know if he hit it for himself or if he came upon an accident, but all I’ll be able to do is wait for news.
The verdict: We know there’s a chance he could hit that 911 button and the signal won’t be sent. He’ll be on his own. But he was totally on his own before. At least with the SPOT, for the cost of $99 plus $99 per year, there’s an increased chance he’ll be able to get help if he needs it.
We’re not looking at it as some kind of miracle life-saving device. He’s not going to take a risk he normally wouldn’t just because he has it. It’s merely another tool that increases the chance of his coming home at the end of the day, like Minus33 thermals, good boots and a spare belt stored under the cowling. Since he pays more than $100 per season for the oil he burns, it was worth it.
Edited to add screenshots from Google Maps showing where Stu (the Green Arrow – heh) just OK’d me from (Latitude:44.71543 Longitude:-71.43182):
Posted by atvnnh 
