Cynical Craig Jungers wrote: > The way I see it is that increased use by the general public (you can buy > SPOT at www.walmart.com right now) will spell the end of the "float plan" > system where a relative or friend alerts SAR if you don't call in after a > specified time. SAR authorities, inundated by telephone calls from > unsophisticated contacts, will not initiate a search until the information > is either corroborated by another source or unless they get a 911 call from > the SPOT "GEOS emergency response center" or some other officially > sanctioned source. > The result is likely to be that if you want to backstop your trip you will > either have to carry SPOT or something similar and pray that your batteries > are ok throughout the trip. Be especially careful to get into trouble only > in places where SPOT can see the satellites. The old "telephone for help if > I don't call you by Thursday" will be greeted by a, "that's nice" response. > I wonder if I'm cynical enough to think that this was part of the plan all > along. I'm not; I just think no one thought about this very deeply. And, few are now. -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Jul 21 2008 - 12:36:29 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:30 PDT