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Covered in Dust

Spot SOS doesn’t work?

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12 minutes ago, paulmbowers said:

Yes, similar to (as I read it) the same coverage as GEOS from SPOT. SameSame. 

 

But! 

 

It’s my understanding that insurance only only covers when the SPOT is used for the emergency call. 

That's my understanding as well.

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A guy on a d37 ride went off the trail and broke his hip. He couldn't move at all to get to the spot that was mounted on his bike that now was some distance away. He laid there for hours. Just by pure luck a ranger just happened to stop to pee and found him. 

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InReach - on my person. I do the least expensive plan and just don't turn on the tracking function. The SOS still works and they know where you are. It will even drop a breadcrumb every hour or so for those watching online. I don't call in for the higher cost plan, just turn the tracking function on and they charge you for that event. About $3-4. Once a week or so and the per event charge added to the base cheap plan is less than the upgrade.

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3 minutes ago, TrophyHunter said:

InReach - on my person. I do the least expensive plan and just don't turn on the tracking function. The SOS still works and they know where you are. It will even drop a breadcrumb every hour or so for those watching online. I don't call in for the higher cost plan, just turn the tracking function on and they charge you for that event. About $3-4. Once a week or so and the per event charge added to the base cheap plan is less than the upgrade.

If you're on the Freedom plans there's no charge to switch plan levels. 

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I'll review my status and current offerings as I have a multi-day this summer. Thx!

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I just turned my inreach back on. I’m on the freedom plan. They make it as hard as possible to try and figure out how to stop and then restart the service. When I went to turn it back on all I saw was regular plans, then after reading the fine print I saw the freedom plans on another page. You would think they could make it easy to use.

 

CiD

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50 minutes ago, Covered in Dust said:

I just turned my inreach back on. I’m on the freedom plan. They make it as hard as possible to try and figure out how to stop and then restart the service. When I went to turn it back on all I saw was regular plans, then after reading the fine print I saw the freedom plans on another page. You would think they could make it easy to use.

 

CiD

Once you're on the Freedom Plan it's easy peezy from your'e Inreach webpage.

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I just got off the phone with Spot.  I ended up cancelling my existing plan.  I found the Spot X on sale for $209 delivered.  When I get it this week I will start there basic flex plan which will work for me.  Initially, to buy the Spot X and start the new plan is about $100 more than if I had done nothing but from here on out its going to be way cheaper to go month to month and I'll have the ability to text.  

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I used SPOT chat today- they have a process through GEOS to arrange a test of my SOS button. I've done the preliminary stuff, they should be contacting me to confirm specific time/date.

I'll let you know how it goes.

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4 minutes ago, paulmbowers said:

I used SPOT chat today- they have a process through GEOS to arrange a test of my SOS button. I've done the preliminary stuff, they should be contacting me to confirm specific time/date.

I'll let you know how it goes.

So far this email:

 

This is the International Emergency Response Coordination Center. We have received your scheduled test request and the date/time has been approved for 3/12/19 at 3 pm. At the time of the test, please make sure the device has a clear view of the sky and then initiate the SOS. Once we receive the activation into our system, we will contact you at the number you provided on the form. When we call you, we will go over all profile information and answer any questions you may have. If you have any questions before then, please let me know. 

 

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Hope all goes well today at 3pm Paul!

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Follow up on the original post- after investigating, it was determined the user had  allowed his subscription to lapse. 🤷‍♂️

Which is an interesting quandary as well- any cell phone without a plan will call 911. But apparently not any SPOT- I understand why, it's the primary function, and if it worked without paying, well, nobody would pay.

So. If you're using SPOT (and I assume InReach), be sure to check on your subscription.

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21 minutes ago, paulmbowers said:

Follow up on the original post- after investigating, it was determined the user has allowed his subscription to lapse. 🤷‍♂️

Which is an interesting quandary as well- any cell phone without a plan will call 911. But apparently not any SPOT- I understand why, it's the primary function, and if it worked without paying, well, nobody would pay.

So. If you're using SPOT (and I assume InReach), be sure to check on your subscription.

Wow. That’s the downside of social media. A lot of damage to Spot’s pr. Did the guy post an apology? Not that it will offset the damage done. Usually I’m skeptical of claims made on the internet believing most of the time there’s more to the story. In this case I have to admit I bit the hook and believed Spot was at fault. Lesson learned.

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Thanks for the update Paul. It’s good to know that there was more to the story. Still interested in how your test goes. 

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So, fake news?  I smashed my Spot device live on social media and sold all my stock for nothing?  

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15 minutes ago, tntmo said:

So, fake news?  I smashed my Spot device live on social media and sold all my stock for nothing?  

🤣🤣🤣

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"So, fake news?  I smashed my Spot device live on social media and sold all my stock for nothing?  "

               Tom, That was Funny! 

 

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Real first hand experience here: I used my Spot 3 this week for my CABDR trip. The deal I have with my wife and kids is that I'll send an "OK" message every evening when I'm done riding for the day. I send the "OK" message each night, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The light on the "OK" button indicated the messages had been sent. I found out when I got home that they only received the "OK" message I sent Sunday. I also checked my email and could not find any "OK" message for Monday or Tuesday. I'm researching now.

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   " Saw this post on Facebook. "

  The Take a Way from this discussion is that there is a battle going on between Social Media and Capitalism.

   This is going to be a long conflict. May the victory go to the people who constantly call my landline!

        Name Withheld     :dirol:

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45 minutes ago, Oracle said:

Real first hand experience here: I used my Spot 3 this week for my CABDR trip. The deal I have with my wife and kids is that I'll send an "OK" message every evening when I'm done riding for the day. I send the "OK" message each night, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The light on the "OK" button indicated the messages had been sent. I found out when I got home that they only received the "OK" message I sent Sunday. I also checked my email and could not find any "OK" message for Monday or Tuesday. I'm researching now.

Dang LB...es no bueno...:crying_anim02:

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7 hours ago, Covered in Dust said:

Still interested in how your test goes. 

Test went flawlessly. I received a phone call within about 2 minutes of the button activation.

They first call the device holder to see if it's a false alarm.
If they can't reach the device holder, they call authorities nearby while calling the numbers associated with the emergency contacts one lists on the account to verify the account holder is in the area from which the SOS message was sent. Which is why I tell my wife to carry her phone into meetings when I'm traveling.

AND.

To avoid unnecessary angst, I remind my emergency contacts that an SOS call does not necessarily mean I'm injured- it could be someone else in my group, or even a random injured stranger.

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On ‎3‎/‎10‎/‎2019 at 1:53 PM, PbdBlue said:

Once you're on the Freedom Plan it's easy peezy from your'e Inreach webpage.

Ordered an InReach through Costco $289.........should have it next week.........all I need to do now is.........RIDE!

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55 minutes ago, Crawdaddy said:

Ordered an InReach through Costco $289.........should have it next week.........all I need to do now is.........RIDE!

👍 Happy belated birthday BTW. I was out of town.

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the inter tube....so this guy had a problem...yes I get it, a potentially life threatening and epirb dependent. he blows it up on the intertube and the sky is falling with all the keyboard fanatics..talking crap about that brand and how their brand is better etc etc etc ..Instead of calling the company in a one on one discussion of the issue to see how they handle it. As common with so many individual failures seen on the intertube from tires to fuel injection 1 or 2 people have a fail one in Canada one in socal and now every FI ECU must be bad......that's the internet. Logic somehow gets thrown to the side. ( Im not denying a fail) But because you are the 1 in a thousand fail victim....there is no trend data to determine a blanket product failure mode... That is my 2 cents...

I hope this issue gets solved, but there are always so many questions..ex. how old is the unit, how old is battery, how many hit cycles or on it (shake and bake), whats the projected life cycle of the unit, has this unit been crashed onto multiple times, so many questions. Also does the unit have a systems test periodic cycle, like any epirb type device. Is it owner responsibility to keep up with tests I can go on and on. And no I don't own one. Its mostly my comments in the general sense concerning specific items that numerically do fail by certain percentages on their own and how the fail victim deals with it.

I found in most intertube instances the fail product has been tampered with by internet  professional crew chiefs/mechanics that should never touch anything mechanical in the first place

 

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On 3/15/2019 at 6:46 AM, paulmbowers said:

Follow up on the original post- after investigating, it was determined the user had  allowed his subscription to lapse. 🤷‍♂️

image.thumb.png.9e082db7e8ceb2bb0e08a5549f1623c4.png

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  • Haha 1

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