Satellite Communicator (Garmin In Reach Mini II) questions.

[Tsuga8]

That's interesting, receped. I wonder how much antenna length is at play with mine - being a little rectangle the antenna must be quite small. I also held it level, ie horizontal. Maybe I should have held it vertical? Or does being connected to a smartphone somehow boost signal? I was treating my issues as two separate problems but perhaps they're related. I suppose I should try downloading the app again - maybe they fixed the issue of not re-connecting to the phone without wifi in the many months since I last tried. For what it's worth, I did try both turning on Bluetooth after hitting airplane mode, and turning off airplane mode, but it still wouldn't reconnect when outside cell data service. I thought the Garmin would work equally well without the app in terms of sending messages (just a pain to type them) but maybe the app/phone also boost signal somehow. Or, it was just tree cover at the times I attempted to transmit. I'll have to probe the issue further when time allows and maybe take it up with Garmin.

 

[Gamma1214]

Tree cover is possible as mine will not work at all indoors so a really heavy canopy might interfere. I also had one instance this past summer where I sent the "all clear" around 10pm and it was delivered around 3:30am. (5 hours after I shut it off for the night).

Sounds like you're on the right track and I hope you get it resolved.

 

[ppine]

In really remote locations, no one is coming looking for you for days, maybe weeks. I have mostly quit going to those kinds of places, like 50 miles into a wilderness area in Wyoming. Now I run rivers that mostly have at least a dirt road somewhere nearby. We have cracked up some boats and sunk them, but managed to get home with duct tape. I have hitch hiked lots of times.

The one time I really got hurt it took a long time for the large group helping me to get a phone signal. There were no helicopters available. I was in a very remote part of eastern Oregon. The group got some sat phones after my accident. They help but there are still no guarantees. The best way to stay safe is to use good judgement and makes sure you don't need help. The more remote the country, the more cautious you need to be.

 

[recped]

Tree cover is possible as mine will not work at all indoors so a really heavy canopy might interfere. I also had one instance this past summer where I sent the "all clear" around 10pm and it was delivered around 3:30am. (5 hours after I shut it off for the night).

Sounds like you're on the right track and I hope you get it resolved.

As far as the delay on your message, I subscribe to the Gamin Service Incident reports, they are very frequent. most are related to activation's and subscriptions but they also report delayed messages on a regular basis. These delays are usually fairly short (1 or 2 hours max) so that could be the reason for your experience. Tree cover is definitely a problem although friends that I paddle with that have the more recent Garmin models (not the brand new ones) that are able to send/receive much faster than I can on my old DeLorme unit.

Another issue is that there are only a limited number of satellites available so there are times when they may not have coverage for your location for reasonably brief periods. Heavy cloud cover can also be a temporary problem. These issue are similar to cell phone coverage, most of the time it's fine but dropped calls still happen although thankfully the "can you hear me now" thing is nowhere near as bad as it was 15+ years ago.

 

[yknpdlr]

I have used SPOT gen1 and gen2 devices. We were required to have and correctly operate them during the Yukon Canoe races. I dscovered an important fact about their operation. If you press the "I am OK" button to send a location signal out, it may take a couple of minutes tor it to actually communicate with a sattellite, if one is or soon becomes available within line of sight. But if you then press the button again beore the first signal is transmitted by the device, the first signal is cancelled and the clock starts again for the second message going out. If you keep pressing the send button, no signal will ever get out until you stop with the button pressing. I beleve that many paddlers missed their required check point messages going out and received race time penalties for not following the rules and understanding how SPOT works with respect to sending required location messages. One team that I know of accumulated as much as 9 hours of time penaltiy on the 1000 mile race.

 

[Black_Fly]

Great information on this thread.