darylhunter 1 Posted July 22, 2009 Saw this link today in one of my industry emails. I wonder if they'll offer discount or free upgrades to existing users who renew their service? http://www.satnews.com/cgi-bin/story.cgi?number=1277773833 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
roostingu 0 Posted July 22, 2009 did u buy the replacement insurance? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
darylhunter 1 Posted July 22, 2009 No. I called them and they said that the unit would be out in the fall and that I'd probably receive more info via email or a flier. I asked about whether or not they might have a free unit on service renewal or something like that and they said too early to tell. Also sent an email to one of the guys that I used to work with who works at Globalstar. May get a bit more info, who knows. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
darylhunter 1 Posted July 27, 2009 Those of you who have Spot trackers probably receive the Spot news letter email. In it you'll note the section called Tech Talk with Bob Bennett. He and I used to work together and still see each other occasionally at reunion lunches if we both happen to be in town for one of the satellite trade shows back East. I'd been meaning to call him for a while and ask about the Spot - it's mentioned in the news letter that he invented it. Well, I finally hooked up with Bob this morning and it turns out that he did indeed concieve the idea for the Spot. The parent company, Globalstar already had asset tracking devices, but he came up with the notion of making a compact version for personal use and thus was born the Spot. He's a darn sharp guy and used to run the flight operations group that flew our satellites at my old company. I have many funny Bob stories and memories from the old days and it's great to see one of your engineers come up with something that's not only useful, but saves lives to boot. Thumbs up Bob!! By the way, I may have mentioned doing this before, but this morning I reran an analysis of the elevation look angles to the Globalstar satellite constellation from Carlsbad, California and the minimum look angle I saw was over 23 degrees, with typical angles being much higher. That means if you were in a ravine with 60 ft sides, you'd need to be 141 feet back from the tip if the satellite were directly in the direction of the ravine wall. You usually only need to wait a few minutes however before the elevation angle increases to 60 degrees or more. In that case the distance needed to clear the theoretical ravine wall is reduced to 35 feet. It goes to over 80 degrees in the simulation, in which case you can clear the ravine wall in only 11 ft. So, imagine you fall, break something and can't get out, but can crawl a little. You turn on the Spot, hit the 911 button and set it out in the open and unless you're under brush cover, you're going to see the satellite eventually. Worst case, you have to crawl a bit to get away from being right up against a wall, or out from under a tree or other brush. Anyway, good info to know. I can easily run the simulation for any other interesting location if anyone has a trip planned. Daryl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Strega 0 Posted July 27, 2009 By the way, I may have mentioned doing this before, but this morning I reran an analysis of the elevation look angles to the Globalstar satellite constellation from Carlsbad, California and the minimum look angle I saw was over 23 degrees, with typical angles being much higher. That means if you were in a ravine with 60 ft sides, you'd need to be 141 feet back from the tip if the satellite were directly in the direction of the ravine wall. You usually only need to wait a few minutes however before the elevation angle increases to 60 degrees or more. In that case the distance needed to clear the theoretical ravine wall is reduced to 35 feet. It goes to over 80 degrees in the simulation, in which case you can clear the ravine wall in only 11 ft. I feel really dumb right now cuz all I understood was, "get out from under the tree". Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
darylhunter 1 Posted July 27, 2009 Sorry, just trying to point out how far you ought to be from the side of a given height ravine/canyon/cliff face. An easy way to remember it is that for a 45 deg angle, you'd need to be back by one foot for each foot of height. For 60 deg you only need to be back by roughly 1/2 foot for every foot of height. For a 30 degree angle it's about 1 3/4 foot back per each foot of height. The formula is height / tan(angle) = distance. Here's a handy picture Plus, just because I think it's so funny, there's a drawing of an answer that somebody supposedly turned for their math assignment when asked to find x in a triangle. They circled x and said here it is The correct answer is 5 BTW Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
