Spidertracks
Originally Posted by
RVDT
On failure of the power source and you have not cancelled the Watch it will automatically initiate cascade phone calls, emails, SMS text messages............
And it automatically starts on movement to commence tracking.
This is indeed very cool. It practically takes away the need for a person to attentively watch over your track while mostly nothing is happening. Something that humans are not particularly good at. And the automatic triggering of a Spidertracks alert should be as reliable as, or probably better than, the automatic activation of an ELT upon impact.
I think technically speaking, the server looks for > 10 min of non-communication, and then triggers the alert. This period of non-communication can be indicative of many scenarios, including power failure, but also of a number of accident scenarios where the device is dislodged and/or precluded from successfully transmitting.
A feature maybe that hadn't been advertised that well? I see that recently (in March 2017) an additional support note has been published on Spidertracks Support webpage, explaining quite well the different tracking modes available, and in particular the difference between manual and automated Watch:
https://support.spidertracks.com/hc/...Tracking-Modes
For this to work (the alert based on 10 min period of non-communication) Spidertracks and their platform partner Iridium must be pretty sure that in all generality the Spidertracks transmission is reliably received. In other words, that there shouldn't be any other (e.g., system, weather or terrain related) reasons why a device would 'disappear' for 10 min at a time.
Something the Globalstar (the satellite network behind the SPOT Trace and GEN3 trackers) can't claim. While last year (see my previous post) it seemed OK, currently we again see repeated outages of 5 to 15 min at a time. This makes the device almost unusable for locating a downed aircraft.
SPOT support confirms that they are not aware of any network related problem (and that could be fixed). It could be related to terrain (mountains or valley sides blocking the line of sight). And it could also be related to the lower latitudes that we operate in (the Globalstar network may be optimized for 50 degree North/South latitudes, i.e., North America and Europe).
If these problems persist, then I would say that already for that reason alone SPOT may not suitable for flight following of rotorcraft (not to mention lack of global coverage aside).