[pct-l] Personal Locator Beacons

[Cari and Pete Tucker]

The previous respondants are correct that bona fide PLBs have more reliable
transmitters than the SPOT, although my personal experience with SPOT on
the PCT in 2010 was pretty good (we used the OK function every night, and
the transmission didn't go through only once or twice the entire 6 months
we were on trail).

There is a second issue, however, that I think is worth considering when
selecting a SPOT/PLB type device, and that is whether two way text
messaging is possible in an emergency.   The following article
describes the S&R effort mounted to aid four young men on a NOLS trip who
were mauled by a bear in Alaska in 2011.  The group in need of assistance
had, and used, a PLB that put out a simple distress signal with location
information only.  I found the comments of the S&R personnel who handled
this case, quite interesting, particularly their comments about how it is
difficult to judge whether any particluar PLB activation is a life
threatening situation:

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/anatomy-alaska-bear-mauling-rescue

Based on that article, if I were to replace my SPOT, I would definitely
seek out a unit that allows the user to supplement the canned distress
signal with a short messasge describing the specific circumstances of the
emergency at hand. The Delorme inReach in particular seems worthy of
consideration for this reason.

If anyone on the list has had experience with the inReach, I'd be
interested in hearing your thoughts about the unit.

-Sheepdog


> Lets just be clear here, in the end, the SPOT is still a decent
> device. It is just not a true distress radio beacon. The Spot was not
> designed from the ground up to be a PLB/DRB, by an internal national
> group of people assembled to design the world wide network for S&R. I
> do not want to put my life into the hands of something that "might"
> work. I do not want to put my life into the hands of something that
> probably will not work in deep forests or deep canyons and mountains,
> which makes up 95% of where I hike at.
>