"Justin C" wrote

hmmm.... not enough profit in the product to afford the hardware and
bandwidth needed when family and friends of their customers want to use
the exact service they're selling?


No, it's a large company with a lot of resources. The tracking is a
non-critical service to let a larger group of people follow your route.
Email OK, Help, and 911 messages, which also have position information, are
still active. I'm not aware of any outages all summer. It was down
Memorial Day weekend, probably for last minute tuning. They then seemed to
wait until the main part of the boating and hiking season was over before
doing more maintenance.

The page is up again and seems to show S&L anchored off the breakwater but I
don't think it's updating yet because my page does not show the sail I took
yesterday.

--
Roger Long

In article , Roger Long wrote:
"Justin C" wrote

hmmm.... not enough profit in the product to afford the hardware and
bandwidth needed when family and friends of their customers want to use
the exact service they're selling?


No, it's a large company with a lot of resources. The tracking is a
non-critical service to let a larger group of people follow your route.
Email OK, Help, and 911 messages, which also have position information, are
still active. I'm not aware of any outages all summer. It was down
Memorial Day weekend, probably for last minute tuning. They then seemed to
wait until the main part of the boating and hiking season was over before
doing more maintenance.

The page is up again and seems to show S&L anchored off the breakwater but I
don't think it's updating yet because my page does not show the sail I took
yesterday.

Fair enough, it was just a guess. I do like the look of the product
though. Saving one the necessity of telephoning a whole bunch of
concerned people each time you touch land. I'm pretty sure I'll get
one... when I get a boat. For now I'll just enjoy the cruising life
through the likes of Skip, Lydia, Zac, and anyone else who's out there.

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.

"Justin C" wrote in message
...
In article , Roger Long wrote:
"Justin C" wrote

hmmm.... not enough profit in the product to afford the hardware and
bandwidth needed when family and friends of their customers want to use
the exact service they're selling?


No, it's a large company with a lot of resources. The tracking is a
non-critical service to let a larger group of people follow your route.
Email OK, Help, and 911 messages, which also have position information,
are
still active. I'm not aware of any outages all summer. It was down
Memorial Day weekend, probably for last minute tuning. They then seemed
to
wait until the main part of the boating and hiking season was over before
doing more maintenance.

The page is up again and seems to show S&L anchored off the breakwater
but I
don't think it's updating yet because my page does not show the sail I
took
yesterday.

Fair enough, it was just a guess. I do like the look of the product
though. Saving one the necessity of telephoning a whole bunch of
concerned people each time you touch land. I'm pretty sure I'll get
one... when I get a boat. For now I'll just enjoy the cruising life
through the likes of Skip, Lydia, Zac, and anyone else who's out there.


Thank you.

Wilbur Hubbard

I think Justin meant vicariously enjoying real cruises. We all know you are
"out there" but I think he meant it in the nautical sense.

--
Roger Long

On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:41:04 -0000, Justin C
wrote:

Fair enough, it was just a guess. I do like the look of the product
though. Saving one the necessity of telephoning a whole bunch of
concerned people each time you touch land. I'm pretty sure I'll get
one... when I get a boat. For now I'll just enjoy the cruising life
through the likes of Skip, Lydia, Zac, and anyone else who's out there.

If you have a SSB radio and Pactor modem you can do the same thing via
Sailmail or Winlink. Winlink requires a ham radio license, Sailmail
does not.

http://tinyurl.com/6jp5qd

Zoom in and point to a red dot for the log entry. I prefer the
satellite view.

"Wayne.B" wrote
If you have a SSB radio and Pactor modem you can do the same thing via
Sailmail or Winlink. Winlink requires a ham radio license, Sailmail
does not.

http://tinyurl.com/6jp5qd

Zoom in and point to a red dot for the log entry. I prefer the
satellite view.


Wayne, is the map in this implementation always so squirrelly? I had to give
up trying to get it to settle down because I was getting a headache watching
it jitter around. The panning doesn't seem to work properly. The SPOT maps
work much better.

No SSB in my plans. I cruise to get away and be out of touch. The thing I
like about the SPOT is that it lets friends and family ashore share in the
adventure somewhat and remain reassured and gives me emergency
communications without the expense, cost, and space of a radio rig which is
more of an issue on my small 32 footer than most cruising craft. Living
aboard, I probably would feel differently but I cruise for short enough
periods that I don't want anyone to be able to contact me.

--
Roger Long

In article , Roger Long wrote:
I think Justin meant vicariously enjoying real cruises. We all know
you are "out there" but I think he meant it in the nautical sense.

Correctly spotted, Roger. I must try and re-read what I type before I
send it, to ensure I am expressing what I am meaning.

Damn, I wish they taught English better in this damn country[1].
.... I wish they better taught English in this damned country... maybe,
I dunno.... I wish they taught better English? Aaaarggghh!!!!

Justin.

1. England.
--
Justin C, by the sea.

In article , Wayne.B wrote:
On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 11:41:04 -0000, Justin C
wrote:

Fair enough, it was just a guess. I do like the look of the product
though. Saving one the necessity of telephoning a whole bunch of
concerned people each time you touch land. I'm pretty sure I'll get
one... when I get a boat. For now I'll just enjoy the cruising life
through the likes of Skip, Lydia, Zac, and anyone else who's out there.

If you have a SSB radio and Pactor modem you can do the same thing via
Sailmail or Winlink. Winlink requires a ham radio license, Sailmail
does not.

http://tinyurl.com/6jp5qd

Zoom in and point to a red dot for the log entry. I prefer the
satellite view.

Like Roger said, that map is enough to give you a headache... until it's
downloaded all the dots (why does it take so long?!).

I looked at Sailmail, looks complicated, and what sort of range do you
get? Major down-side for both Winlink and Sailmail for me a Windows.
Been using it since version 3, and I will not have it installed on
anything I own. Any software has to be either OS X or Linux/BSD
compatible or I'm not interested.

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.

On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 09:57:48 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

I think Justin meant vicariously enjoying real cruises. We all know you are
"out there" but I think he meant it in the nautical sense.

good one.

On Sep 6, 8:37*am, "Roger Long" wrote:
"Wayne.B" wrote

If you have a SSB radio and Pactor modem you can do the same thing via
Sailmail or Winlink. *Winlink requires a ham radio license, Sailmail
does not.

http://tinyurl.com/6jp5qd

Zoom in and point to a red dot for the log entry. *I prefer the
satellite view.

Wayne, is the map in this implementation always so squirrelly? I had to give
up trying to get it to settle down because I was getting a headache watching
it jitter around. *The panning doesn't seem to work properly. *The SPOT maps
work much better.
....

There are a couple of trackers out there for people who are checking
into YOTREPS. You can check in via SSB voice or digital or any kind
of email (a digital sat phone would work). You can see a bit of our
track using AH6QR. Some of the more tech savy folks in my clan follow
us along. But, YOTREPS isn't really a tracking service. Historically
it is a weather reporting service that has developed 'net tracking as
the technology has become available and as volunteers have developed
the apps. Reporting into a net or directly to YOTREPS via email has
some benefits when you are offshore. Apparently Wayne is using it
near shore, too. I can't see any reason not to use it that way, too.
My only concern is that the guy who provides the bandwidth does it for
the wx reporting and I don't know how concerned he is with reports
from places that have fixed wx stations.

The way the map plots the reports is a little goofy with 300 plus
points but once it has finished placing them it seems to work fine for
me even on a slow computer.

-- Tom.