With all the sports/activities that I tend to do that often leave me isolated from the rest of the world, I thought it might be prudent for me to purchase some sort of rescue beacon just in case I get hurt or lost, or perhaps my ride suffers a mechanical breakdown. When mountain biking or snowboarding, I sometimes find that I am out of range for a cell phone signal. And when 4-wheeling, I'm definitely without a signal! Sometimes I'm with other people, but that's still no guarantee that we'll be able to make communication to find help. I've considered just renting units when I go on trips, but with the prices that the vendors charge, it just makes more sense to buy my own.
For over a year, I've been looking at small satellite communication units like products from Spot and Garmin. After doing the pros/cons and reading the reviews of the SpotX vs. the Garmin inReach Mini, I determined that the Mini was the handheld unit that I wanted to get. So I waited for it to go on sale. And I waited. and waited. That sucker just never goes on sale! Until Black Friday came :)
Fortunately, I had the good sense to check the sale prices on the Mini and it just happened to be on sale on Amazon! Normally selling msrp for $350, Amazon was listing it for $75 off with free shipping through their provided vendors! Of course I jumped at that price!
The unit itself is tiny and can easily be clipped to your backpack practically unnoticed. It is Bluetooth capable, so it can be paired with an Android or iOS cell phone, where you can use the phone to compose text messages. It is possible to text directly from the unit, but there is no keyboard, so you would be pecking out one letter at a time the old way. A satellite subscription plan is required to get the product to work, but the "safety" plan is pretty nominal at $14.95 per month after I paid the annual $24.95 fee that allows me to suspend the plan at any time during the year, if I don't think I'll be using it. If in trouble, the Mini can send out an SOS beacon via satellite to local authorities advertising my precise GPS coordinates. From there, I can 2-way text with them to work on a plan of action, whether it be helping me to rescue myself on my own (find my way back to civilization) or to just sit tight while they gather a rescue effort to evacuate me.
It's just nice knowing that I'll have a lifeline to the outside world should I need it. $15/month is nothing considering the alternative of dying in the middle of nowhere alone, never to be found. There are just so many other better ways to die!
A collection of blurbs stemming from mostly the motorized projects that I do. Some posts mixed in have to do with my experiences in X-ray school. (Some entries are from older blogs that I killed off.) Some of my toys are a Mazdaspeed Miata that I work on and take to the track, a little Harley that I can't stop modding and an old Yamaha RD400 that I've been collecting parts for over the past 15 years. When I'm not wrenching, sometimes I mountain bike, sometimes I snowboard, sometimes I make beer.
