Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska SPOT or Sat. Phone?

SPOT was a joke when trying to use on saltwater from SE to Kodiak. I would never bother with that joke Sat phone has worked everywhere i have tried it.

No real experience with InReach.

A little research will tell you there are toys and PLB's.

I went through this last year prepping for a wilderness backpack hunt. I considered the Iridium sat phone, the InReach and the Iridium Go!. Given that it was a backpack hunt, weight and utility were very important. The sat phone gives you voice, but no nav features. The InReach gives you nav features but no voice. Both provide two way texting. The Iridium sat phone requires an adapter to connect it a mini USB charging cable, the InReach does not. The InReach can be recharged from a battery pack or a solar panel directly. If you care about minimizing your kit and can live without voice comms, the InReach is the way to go. The Iridium Go! proved unreliable and the phone app buggy.

Calvin's post above is spot on, which is why we use both. Can't speak to rumors of delayed responses to spot because of so many false alarms, but I do know that there have been a few (false alarms) associated with the Delorme. In the instances I am aware of, the chopper still came. It has been recommended that a piece of duct tape be used to secure the SOS button, so that it cannot be accidentally deployed while bouncing around in a pack. The ACR does not suffer from this design, and takes a meaningful effort to activate.

No way would I go to Africa, AK, or the Canadien hinterlands again without a Sat phone, almost the very least of what you’ll spend on any one of these trips, and a universe in comm-capability above anything else. Anything else is only a bargain when you don’t have a true emergency.

Respect your opinions much George, but don't agree here. Have played the "can you hear me now" or no satellite coverage game with sat phones too many times. For a true emergency I'll take an ACR 406 every time.

Experience is a good teacher - let me add then, as with a GPS, a compass, and a map in rough country for navigation - I would consider a similar approach for comm’s - multiple tools, but with a sat phone as a staple.

That's why I posted this question in the Alaska section. Never heard of PLB's.

Well, options are starting to contradict each other. Will have to monitor and check a variety of manufacturer's claims.

I'm partial to having a handheld VHF airband radio to compliment the Inreach. Pretty unusual to be in an area that doesn't have private and/or commercial air traffic in the general area on a fairly regular basis. If life or limb were in jeopardy, I wouldn't hesitate to get on 121.5 and ask for help. Do a little homework, and you may find that there is an RCO, SFO, RCAG in the area you could reach via VHF. Also handy in communicating with the pilot of your air charter service (if using one). Find out what their "company frequency" is, and store it. In the event of a true full blown rescue, the ability to talk directly to the SAR aircrew, isn't a bad thing. Everyone has their own preferences. The important thing is to learn how to use your emergency gear (be it comms, first aid, or whatever), and have a plan, before you go afield. YMMV

Jeff

In-the-parts-of-Alaska-that-are-sparsely-populated-and-CG/AST-does-not-moniter,VHF-was-once-the-'go-to'-device,and-it-worked-because-every-home-had-a-base-station,on-nearly-all-the-time.With-the-advent-of-cell-phones,VHF-is-a-very-questionable-safety-device-anymore,except,as-you-suggest,for-contacting-planes-flying-overhead.Travel-in-the-rural-places-is-not-as-safe-as-it-was-before-cell-phones-came-on-the-scene.

If I had my choice it would be a sat phone. I've rented one a few times but never have owned one. But saying that I do own and use an Inreach. It's handy and gives loved ones a piece of mind that all is good out in the bush. I haven't had mine very long 1-2yrs but it hasn't failed. I have read reviews of people saying they have failed. But I've read reviews of sat phones failing as well.

more info......

It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a couple of options as mentioned here. I’ve had both an Inreach and a VHF airband radio that didn’t work reliably or at all; conversely, a sat phone two times in the African back-Country worked perfectly without dealing with truncated texts or messages. But, IIRC, one can text with a sat phone also as an option.

In a real bad circumstance, I’d opt for an actual conversation with somebody as a first-line comm.

Many good comments here to mull over with an eye towards a two system option. Technology is constantly changing and can only give us better options in the future.

406, that is interesting that you are seeing good results from SPOT. I wrote them off after the first version failing more often than working, but things change, and sometimes even for the better.

My buddy has an inReach, and it has been decent. Doesn't always get messages out right away, but has always worked eventually. We have had poor enough results with sat phones (Iridium) that I don't have a lot of faith in them either. Several places we just could never get a signal, and more than one time where the call would drop repeatedly after 10-30 seconds.

I've used my SPOT on Kodiak, Afognak, the Peninsula, all over SW AK, and around Denali without complaint, but obviously my experience isn't everyone else's. I had a buddy use one of my bear camps not far from DLG. He had an InReach and was confident he could communicate with us for his pickup, but he had service issues and spent an extra couple days in camp. That's the same location that I've used my SPOT for years, but he couldn't get sufficient signal to contact us for pickup. Similarly, I hunted Afgonak a few seasons ago and had no trouble with the SPOT from inside the tent. To use the satellite phone I had to climb a ridge behind camp to get service and even then it was a consistently poor connection.

Apparently nothing works everywhere. So I must decide what are the two best options?

I spend time in the bush in northern SK. Usually go with my young son and no one else. I rented sat phones for a few years.

Last year we were getting ready to go and was about to order and rent a sat phone again. Talked with a xouple friends that had an inReach and the older version that had just come back from Canada. I bought an inReach and don't regret it at all. It glitched at times linking to my phone and texting directly from the inReach is cumbersome. Otherwise, pretty good.

It was nice when my son and I took off cross country to travel to a couple different lakes to fish. I set the inReach so my wife can follow our trip online. She knows where we are and feels more involved in our travels. And, if something goes wrong, there is a track of our travels.

Be-aware-that-when-you're-in-Ketchikan-you're-about-200-miles-closer-to-Seattle,WA-than-you-are-to-Kotzebue,AK.AK-ain't-exactly-a-small,nor-is-it-a-homogeneous-type-place.

How to blow $1000:

1. Take 2nd-gen SPOT on a 2016 solo backpack rocky mountain elk hunt in thick griz country. SPOT in question had worked without fail from 2010, from Alaska Range to Montana, including canyons and valleys.

2. Successfully ping recipients from near trailhead, confirm receipt with cell phone call

3. Dutifully ping recipients 3x daily for five days

4. Walk out five days later, phone home from cell reception near trailhead to learn nothing went through and wife has summoned a helicopter... Wife contacted friend who lives near elk hunt location; friend is neighbor of local SAR helo driver. He offered to go in by horseback the next day gratis, or fly over in an hour for some $$$.

5. Look up and watch friend and helo fly over access road I'm phoning from. Their eyes are on trailhead parking lots, not on my reasonably distinctive truck below.

6. Contact joyriding friend by text, and agree to meet him and pilot at nearby steakhouse that night.

7. Have very informative conversation with friend and helo driver that night. Be careful out there. Lots of grim backcountry recovery stories.


Fun fact: Helo driver uses mix of Gen 1 and Gen 2 SPOTs to verify miles logged on their helicopters! No reliability issues reported when I asked.

Upshot: Proud owner of new garmin inreach. I didn't buy it to type elaborate love notes to the wife, so iphone stays home. Menu is easy enough to type simple custom message if the 3 or 4 pre-written messages don't suffice. Example pre-written messages (done on inreach website on my login): 1.) "I am still alive and on schedule, Sherie or Sara to text back to confirm receipt", 2.) "Something died, but wasn't me. Will be late coming out. Watch progress on forthcoming pings. Sherie or Sara to confirm recipt", 3.) "I'm hurt, but non-emergency. Will be returning immediately to trailhead. Sherie or Sara to confirm receipt", 4.) "I have summoned SAR. Hunkering down for rescue. Sherie or Sara to confirm receipt and call local SAR contact"

Or something like that. Wife and all-seeing sister-in-law were very good and punctual about pinging back, usually within minutes.

I've used iridium sat phones in AK, and so far like the inreach a bunch better. No more dropped calls.