Originally Posted by Hot and Hi
There is lots of talk about the requirement of the GPS receiver to have unobstructed view of the sky, etc., but in my experience in the front seats (or even the rear seats in a Robinson style helicopter) this is not an issue. As mentioned before, anything non solid metal, like plastic, leather or seat cushions don't seem to impair the reception of the GPS signal from the sky.
Based on our initial experience with the Globalstar satellite based SPOT Gen3 personal tracker, this
cannot be said for the message uplink! And the SPOT Trace (for asset tracking) shouldn't be any different in this regard. If the device is hidden from sight, or if anything covers it, the message won't be received by the satellite.
Flat on top of the dash always seems to be working fine, but any other position, even if exposed and not covered, needs to be thoroughly tested.
So in the end maybe not the solution for covert tracking of the aircraft, as the operator will always be able to notice the tracker, and could disable it if wanted? Probably better to explicitly advise the operator that the aircraft is tracked, it might keep him/her on the straight and narrow...