My new SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger

Find me (my last location) here: http://dandiego.whereamiriding.com

Well, I bought a SPOT.
As a guy who gets lost (an awful lot).
This little gadget is what I got.
For the crazy motorcycle rides I plot.

This gizmo tracks the unit's whereabouts on a website or Google Earth almost anywhere (virtually full coverage) in North America, Europe and Australia and covers portions of South America, northern Africa and northeastern Asia, along with thousands of miles of offshore areas. It has messaging and SOS functions to tell others I'm OK, as well as to dispatch emergency responders to my exact location.

Here's some info (from http://www.findmespot.com/en/):

The SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger provides a vital line of communication with friends and family when you want it, and emergency assistance when you need it. Using 100% satellite technology, SPOT works virtually anywhere in the world, even where cell phones don’t – all with the push of a button.

Fifty bucks at Best Buy, I gave it a shot.
For long-distance bike rides, with a group or not.

You say, "What's a SPOT?"
Just a GPS? That's what I thought!

Some cool functions:

SOS: Use this function In the event of a life threatening or other critical emergency to notify emergency services of your GPS location and that you need assistance. The GEOS International Emergency Response Center alerts the appropriate agencies worldwide – for example contacting 9-1-1 responders in North America and 1-1-2 responders in Europe.

How it works: Once activated, SPOT will acquire its exact coordinates from the GPS network, and send that location along with a distress message to the GEOS International Emergency Response Center every five minutes until cancelled or until the batteries are depleted. The Emergency Response Center notifies the appropriate emergency responders based on your GPS location and personal information – which may include local police, highway patrol, the Coast Guard, our country’s embassy or consulate, or other emergency search and rescue teams – as well as notifying your emergency contacts about the receipt of a distress signal.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Even if SPOT cannot acquire its location from the GPS network it will still attempt to send a distress signal – without exact location – to GEOS, which will still notify your contacts of the signal and continue to monitor the network for further messages.

9-1-1 EMERGENCY SERVICES POWERED BY GEOS Search and Rescue

Help: In the event of a non-life threatening emergency, you can use this function to notify your personal contacts that you need assistance. Additional SPOT Assist services can be purchased and programmed to your Help button as well. When activated with SPOT Assist, the Help button will notify professional services either on the land or water. SPOT has partnered with national service providers to offer non-life threatening assistance.

Check-in/OK: This feature allows you to let your friends and family know that all is OK with a pre-programmed message along with your GPS location. With a push of a button a message is sent via email or SMS to up to 10 pre-determined contacts and your waypoint is stored in your SPOT account for later reference. Your stored waypoints can be easily integrated into a SPOT Shared Page or SPOT Adventure account.

Custom Message: This feature allows you to let your friends and family now receive a custom message along with your GPS location with a push of a button. Use this feature as a secondary OK message or transfer your personal help alert to this message function if you are using a SPOT Assist service on your Help button.

The Custom Message functions exactly like your Check-in/OK message You can also have access to your waypoints in your SPOT account so you can review your route at a later date. Or link your SPOT account to SPOT Adventures and save a map of your adventures using your SPOT waypoints, and enhance the story with photos and a blog.

All apologies to my poetic friends who suffered though my pathetic attempts to rhyme with SPOT.