You've really got to admire parents who would let their child do something
like this:

http://www.zacsunderland.com/blog/

Anyone familiar with how the Iridium sat phone system works care to
speculate on how his reported position could be so far off? It's the same
network SPOT uses so I'm interested in that aspect of it. I'll try to keep
my SPOT out of the sink though.

--
Roger Long

Like I've always said, the voyage is ill-conceived in that it's a
sail-by-committee effort with too heavy a reliance on electronics and
technology and the boy at the helm is naive, clueless and out of his league.
I fear for his safety. I view his mom and dad as just another in the mold of
those beauty pageant parents who whore out their young daughters and live
vicariously through them.

Wilbur Hubbard


"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
You've really got to admire parents who would let their child do something
like this:

http://www.zacsunderland.com/blog/

Anyone familiar with how the Iridium sat phone system works care to
speculate on how his reported position could be so far off? It's the same
network SPOT uses so I'm interested in that aspect of it. I'll try to
keep my SPOT out of the sink though.

--
Roger Long

On Sep 8, 3:47*am, "Roger Long" wrote:
....
Anyone familiar with how the Iridium sat phone system works care to
speculate on how his reported position could be so far off? *It's the same
network SPOT uses so I'm interested in that aspect of it. * I'll try to keep
my SPOT out of the sink though. ...

Well, Iridium isn't a position finding system. Are you sure that SPOT
doesn't use GPS for its position and then Iridium to send the info?
I'd also be less than amazed to find that there were transcription
errors. A common problem is that many people are unaware of the
differences between decimal degrees or degrees and decimal minutes and
degrees, minutes and seconds. I hear people having problems with
these concepts all the time over the radio and the resultant errors
are close enough to be plausible but far enough out to be a problem.

I don't want to side with the nay-sayers here but if the kid can't go
24 hours without his folks pulling the panic switch they probably
shouldn't have let him go.

-- Tom.

On Sep 8, 5:40*am, "Wilbur Hubbard"
wrote:

You've really got to admire parents who would let their child do something
like this:
Roger Long


I fear for his safety. I view his mom and dad as just another in the mold of
those beauty pageant parents who whore out their young daughters and live
vicariously through them.
Wilbur Hubbard


After reading the Blog this quote really sent a chill up my spine:

"...It was the opening of the AYSO soccer season yesterday and as a
coach for Jessie's team (U10 ) and assistant coach for Toby's team
(U12) the games provided a good distraction for the family from are
growing concerns..."

Having put a child, now 21, through school and club sports and who is
now on a full ride athletic schorarship at a NCAA school ( NCAA Player
of the week and game starter) I can say I met those kind of parents. I
have spent 10,000s of hours in mini vans and sitting on hard benches
cheering next to them. I know those kind of parents. They can not stay
out of the life of their children and intrude and controll to the
point they dont even let other people coach their child's team. Such
is Zacs dad who must coach both his other kids teams. Zac's dad MUST
have total controll.

The problem is the kid never learns SELF motivation, independence,
self reliance, or develops decission making. For example the constant
parent micro managing of this circumnavigation. The vast majority of
kids of Pagent Parents Ive seen are continually forced into achievment
and when they become adults typically turn into slackers becasue they
have never develped INTRINSIC motivation. Why, cause momy and daddy
have always been there pushing.

Passion and motivation are not qualities whipped into a kid. Passion
comes from within. Normal parent plant the seeds of interest. Some
will never germinate but others will.

Wilbur hit the nail on the head. Zac's dad is a controll freak. I too
fear for Zac and admonish his dad. I live by the words I saw on a T
shirt a coach was waring at some tourney....... "They Play.... You
Cheer..... I Coach....."

Bob
Proud Dad of a sucessfull adult child who still enjoys sports and is
independent and self motivated.

Yes, SPOT uses its GPS for position and then sends the position over the
Iridium network. I'm not familiar with the Sat phones and it never crossed
my mind that they would provide position information. According to Zac's
parents, the Iridium rep told them that they can determine position from the
call records and this information is often used for SAR.

It was the far off course position that put Zac in a dangerous area that
panicked his parents, not just the silence. Possibly a units mix up as you
say but Zac's parents are professional yacht delivery people so it doesn't
seem highly likely. Sound like Iridium indirectly determines position in
some fashion that can be plotted by them but not the user. It would be
consistent for the information to be useful to SAR when no other position
information was available but approximate or error prone enough that it
could show Zac off course in the reefs.

I find the reactions to this voyage quite amusing. On the one hand are the
nay sayers who claim it is irresponsible to have let one so young go out on
the big ocean alone. On the other hand are the ones who say his parents are
exerting too much control and oversight. Where in the middle is the
microslice of appropriate parenting?

--
Roger Long

Bob wrote in news:32445f78-e4dd-4a5d-99f0-4379ff79aac9
@p10g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

Why, cause momy and daddy
have always been there pushing.


My parents were simple country people who never understood anything I did
that included "wires and things" since I was about 8. My dad didn't try
too hard to direct my life as long as I kept his TV running to distract
him. That TV was JOB ONE in my shop.

I diverted his attention away from his unused "shop" in the garage long
enough to move his stuff to a corner and build the ham radio station onto
his cleaned off work bench. It was about 7 months before he needed to use
his workbench for something I've forgotten before he noticed...(c;

I left the keys to his shop on the table the day I was forced to join the
Navy to avoid being drafted for cannon fodder in Vietnam. He was at work
when they wisked me away to be sworn in before the postman brought my
mother my draft notice. I made it.

Once gone, they pretty much dumped all my "wires and things" into the trash
truck. I was furious when I got home on Navy leave....

About the only other thing he said to me was how bad my grades were in the
boring central school system in the town, except for science and to a
lesser extent math. Rote memorization of history dates Mr Scarry was
fascinated with seemed worthless when you had been talking to the
DXpedition on some South Pacific island, on 6 bands, until 3AM, filling out
the QSL cards to send them at breakfast just before school. To all but 3
teachers in high school, once I got there, ham radio or electronics was as
foreign to them as speaking Martian....(c; They expected me to learn THEIR
favorite subject, but were under no pressure, like I was, to learn MINE!

Skip is approaching Lon-gylund on Spot right now. Click up the Hybrid view
and you can see all the SAND BARS on the bottom.....

" wrote in news:ba78ddc3-e84a-4c70-
:

Are you sure that SPOT
doesn't use GPS for its position and then Iridium to send the info?
I'd also be less than amazed to find that there were transcription


Spot has a built-in GPS receiver and uses the GEOS satellite SAR system.
Search and Rescue are handled by the GEOS-SAR teams and monitoring
stations.

On Sep 8, 12:02*pm, "Roger Long" wrote:
Yes, SPOT uses its GPS for position and then sends the position over the
Iridium network. *I'm not familiar with the Sat phones and it never crossed
my mind that they would provide position information. *According to Zac's
parents, the Iridium rep told them that they can determine position from the
call records and this information is often used for SAR.

Sure, they use low Earth orbit sat's so they need to have some kind of
idea of how to pass you from sat to sat as they go overhead. Cell
phones use a similar trick and also know, more or less where you are
at even w/o GPS. Iridium phones do not AFIK use gps for this so the
position is less accurate than a gps pos would be and would not have a
consistent accuracy.


It was the far off course position that put Zac in a dangerous area that
panicked his parents, not just the silence. *Possibly a units mix up as you
say but Zac's parents are professional yacht delivery people so it doesn't
seem highly likely. *

And yet, I hear pros making this mistake a lot. The CG uses dd mm.mm
format and I have heard CG controllers screwing up positions reported
in dd.dd and dd mm ss format. Who knows. I was just throwing it out
as a possibility.

I find the reactions to this voyage quite amusing. *On the one hand are the
nay sayers who claim it is irresponsible to have let one so young go out on
the big ocean alone. *On the other hand are the ones who say his parents are
exerting too much control and oversight. *Where in the middle is the
microslice of appropriate parenting?

Please Roger, 99.9999999...% of parents would not let their kids do
this. We're so far out of the normal bounds of appropriate parenting
that they probably don't provide any useful guidance. I don't feel
that I'm in any position to second guess their decision to send the
boy off. But, having decided to let Zac do this thing they will have
to work with the reality that he will be out of contact from time to
time. As he approaches the Indian Ocean his HF nets will get thinner,
the cruising community smaller and the SAR less available. He will be
out of contact and errors in position will come up. If his folks
can't allow him to be out of contact for long enough for these things
to work themselves out then they are in for a very hard time. If
nothing else, requiring twice a day reports greatly increases Zac's
workload and when he gets tired the priority will be working the boat
and the pos reports will just have to wait.

-- Tom.

In article , Roger Long wrote:
You've really got to admire parents who would let their child do something
like this:

http://www.zacsunderland.com/blog/

Anyone familiar with how the Iridium sat phone system works care to
speculate on how his reported position could be so far off? It's the
same network SPOT uses so I'm interested in that aspect of it. I'll
try to keep my SPOT out of the sink though.

A quote from the blog: "Praise God for modern technology".

It's exactly this technology that has them on the edge of their seats
and unable to live while he's away. If he didn't have it there'd be no
twice daily check-in, and no worry when it didn't happen. If, for some
reason, his batteries drain and he can't charge his 'phone there'll be
a full SAR call out for a (likely) perfectly happy sailor in no
distress, and at huge cost to someone.

If the technology didn't exist they probably wouldn't have let him go.
But if they've faith in his ability and had let him go without the
technology the best they could expect is a call at landfall, and would
mentally allow for a potential delays in his arrival. While I'm sure
they'd still be worried, it is something they'd overcome more easily
due to having to live with it longer.

Yes, the technology is great (certainly no thanks to any deity
though), but it's not to be relied upon... I've seen several Notices
To Mariners where the military are trying out GPS scrambling devices.
Not to mention the fact the the US *will* switch the thing off should
they believe the enemy is using it to co-ordinate an attack.

Justin.

--
Justin C, by the sea.

On Sep 8, 12:02*pm, "Roger Long" wrote:
Yes, SPOT uses its GPS for position and then sends the position over the
Iridium network. *I'm not familiar with the Sat phones and it never crossed
my mind that they would provide position information. *...

Just for the more tech minded here's what the wiki says about Iridium
positions:

Tracking transceiver units

Without an extra GNSS receiver tracking is difficult, but not
impossible as the position of a mobile unit can be determined using a
Doppler shift calculation from the satellite. These readings however
can be inaccurate with errors in the tens of kilometers. [12]Even
without using Doppler shifts a rough indication of a unit's position
can be found by checking the location of the spot-beam being used.

The position readings can be extracted from some transceiver units and
the 9505A handset using the -MSGEO AT command. It returns values as
the number of kilometers from the prime meridian and the equator[24]

-- Tom.