inReach SE: No tracking points, no messages went through today!

I have a new inReach SE that works, and the old one is heading back to DeLorme for diagnosis.

Thank you to Chip Noble and others at DeLorme for exceptional customer service.

Lesson: If the reliability of your communication device is important for an upcoming trip, test before you go, with enough lead time for plan B.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled flame wars.

— Rex

"Thank you to Chip Noble and others at DeLorme for exceptional customer service."

I just wish that their customer service included replying to inquiries.

I made my last inquiry on July 15 and got the automated response that it had been received. Now is three days later, and I still wait.

–B.G.–

… by phone.
Typical hold times are either very short or none at all. Staff is very patient and polite too.
(Complaints seem to be common though for email turnaround time.)

"That's lawyer talk for "If you should win the Darwin Award we don't have to pay your family a lot of prize money."

Nah, if you win the Darwin award, all you get is your name added to a long list on a stone tablet below a picture of Melvin Kozwnowski.

"Typical hold times are either very short or none at all. Staff is very patient and polite too."

That's nice, except that with a telephone call, there is no record.

–B.G.–

"By contrast, all that a PLB conveys to COSPAS-SARSAT is your location and registration information. Is the PLB owner in need of assistance, or another party? Does someone require immediate medical attention, or just extrication from the backcountry? How timely is the need for assistance?"

Lets see now:

A."Is the PLB owner in need of assistance, or another party?": Who cares, its an emergency for chripes sake, or should be anyway (see item C. below). Won't it be sweet when they "can't process your request because the individual needing assistance is not a member"….Corporate America will haunt you eventually.

B. "Does someone require immediate medical attention, or just extrication from the backcountry?" Again, who cares…you going to call them just because you want a ride home with no life threatening emergency?? The team that shows up is going to be equipped to handle any emergency they encounter, medical or otherwise…

This is the one that kills me…..harharhar…
C. "How timely is the need for assistance?

" Hi emergency response team, this is janeybillybob your user. I was wondering if I could schedule an emergency response sometime later this afternoon? I just got bit by a rattlesnake, but I'm not sick yet, but I understand that it takes a few hours for the venom to kick in. Would 4pm work for you? Just send in a helicopter with the antivenom team and things should work for everyone…..

Give me a break dude….If its not and emergency, what in the h3ll are you doing calling for assistance? This is typical of whats coming…no one needs to think about what they are doing or being prepared. they believe they can just call for help to come save their butts.

This spring on the PCT two nimrods from NY went backpacking got wet and cold and called for help when a few more miles of walking would have them at the trailhead..? Better yet, they forgot their jackets, but instead of turning around and going back to their car, they kept going for several days until they were too wet and cold to continue….yep u guessed it they hauled out their comm link and got a bunch of folks to come "rescue" them…

Where do these people come from. Emergency crews are not your personal taxi service.

I can't help but being a smart a$$ when I read stuff like this….This technology makes everyone think there is an aid station just waiting for their call and nothing could be further from the truth…

My litmus test is that when I fire off my PLB its because I'm expecting that if someone doesn't show up in less than 24hours I am most likely going to be dead, not uncomfortable.

If you got bit by Rattlesnake and venom hadn't kicked in yet, that would be a good case for sending text. No need to send anyone yet but prepare for it.

Although probably might as well wait to determine if you actually got envenomized?

Maybe a knowledgeable person could text back whether to worry about it or not. What symptoms to look for…

Kerry, some of your assumptions here are all wet.

I am reminded of a PLB story from a couple of years ago that I related here. A backpacking group was a few days out from Rock Creek on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, so they had crossed onto the west side. One gal got very sick from altitude, and she tried to keep struggling ahead. Finally she was near collapse, so a camp was made and the group tried to support her. A runner was sent out toward the east side to get help. Meanwhile, a stranger with a Spot device was nearby. The decision was made to push the button. Once that was done, the stranger didn't feel that it was necessary for him to remain on the site, so he took off up the trail. Apparently the signal was received and there was a helicopter dispatched from the Fresno County sheriff's office to go to the transmitted GPS coordinates. However, the sheriff's office saw that the Spot location was moving up the trail. The Spot user didn't realize that once it is activated, it is locked on, and you must remain at the emergency site. When the sheriff's office saw that the Spot was moving, they assumed that it had been a false alarm, so they recalled the helicopter. As a result, no helicopter arrived. Meanwhile, the runner reached a telephone on the east side, and that call got routed to the Fresno office on the west side. They put two and two together and figured out that an emergency was still present, so they dispatched the helicopter again. A small helicopter reached the location and the sick gal was loaded into it. However, due to the size of the aircraft, there was no room for anything except the pilot, the sick gal, no equipment, and no medic.

Strangely and incidentally, the helicopter ride was short. They flew her to VVR and dropped her off with wet clothing and no gear. She had to get a vehicle ride down to Fresno from there. (bizarre!)

Now, if there had been some good two-way communications, the dispatcher could have found out the nature of the emergency and the urgency of it.

So, your comment, "The team that shows up is going to be equipped to handle any emergency they encounter, medical or otherwise…" is just a bunch of crap.

–B.G.–

"Meanwhile, a stranger with a Spot device was nearby. The decision was made to push the button. Once that was done, the stranger didn't feel that it was necessary for him to remain on the site, so he took off up the trail."

Nothing is foolproof in the hands of a fool.

There is always a fool who can overcome a foolproof scheme.

That's why I recommend that for anybody who gets a new piece of technology that they intend to drag out to the wilderness, at least study up on it. Read the user manual and try to understand how it should function during normal operation and also how it should function during an emergency. That way, you can keep the expected result happening.

Just last week I had a situation where I sent a message via inReach SE, but it was not going out. The device stayed busy trying to send. Finally after 10-15 minutes, I realized that I was in a deep canyon with some trees overhead, so I was not sure that the satellites were overhead long enough to get the message. I moved the device about 50 yards to a cleaner location, and then the message was finished rapidly.

I don't like those long waits, because it uses up battery power trying to "hit the bird."

–B.G.–

On the topic of PLB issues, this might be worth a read:
http://blog.oplopanax.ca/2011/08/personal-locator-beacons-from-the-rescuer%E2%80%99s-perspective/

The main benefits I see of the satellite messengers are both the breadcrumb trail (in case you aren’t able to activate the device, and to help ensure the GPS has a decent fix) and the messaging (to resolve any confusion that might happen, because There’s Always Something).

That's a good article.

–B.G.–

“Give me a break dude….I can't help but being a smart a$$ when I read stuff like this….”

Given such excerpts from the post by Kerry Wilson, that doesn't sound like a serious attempt at opening a constructive dialogue on the potential merits of two-way communication when calling in a backcountry emergency, but for anyone else who is potentially interested in the subject:

1. Just read SAR call-outs for an area that has strong cell reception (http://www.stowemountainrescue.org/mission-log) and imagine how much more difficult the mission would have been if the SAR team knew only the device’s registration information and GPS position, and if the SAR team was not able to communicate any advice (e.g., whether a lost party can be guided to the correct trail) or reassurance as to ETA, etc.

2. Imagine how the incident report posted by Jeremy B. would have played out if the party could have described its difficulty and exact position via a two-texting exchange.

3. As for knowing whether the emergency is for the device owner or another party, I can think of many hypothetical examples. But personally, back in March 2013, had I been on my original timeline (delayed for dropping off our little daughter – a frequent source of all sorts of delays!), my itinerary would have put me exactly on schedule (inadvertently of course) to be the one to come across an avalanche fatality in an otherwise deserted ravine. As it happened, another solo traveler arrived there first, and happened to be a physician who legally pronounced the victim dead (and also somehow had cell reception there, although I haven’t before). Had it been me, with only my NSP OEC and WEMT, I’m not sure what I would have done, but triggering the SPOT I had at the time would have entailed hours of worry for my family (with the added irony that they knew I was there scouting out routes for teaching an avalanche safety course for the next couple days). Even aside from that, with inReach I would have been able to communicate exactly where I was (i.e., Huntington Ravine Fan) without worrying about any possible GPS glitch, exactly what entities should be contacted (i.e., USFS Mt W avalanche ctr plus Mtn Rescue Service & Appalach Mtn Club Pinkham Notch Vis Ctr) so that they didn’t first waste time contacting NH F&G (which uniquely hands off SAR responsibilities to the avy ctr during winter & spring for its forecast region), who was in trouble (i.e., avalanched solo climber, possibly already dead), and what resources I had (i.e., none other than my own).

I also think there's a big difference between someone having a heart attack/stroke/head injury vs a person with a broken ankle who has shelter and 6 days of food. One requires some serious hustling on behalf of the SAR, the other could simply be someone sending in a horse or something.

It would be really, really nice to be able to communicate that difference.

One week ago when I was out on the trail, I had some good chats with other backpackers on these topics, one-way versus two way, etc.

One important topic is this. How bad does the emergency need to be before you would hit the button, so to speak?

If you broke your leg and couldn't stand on it at all, then that would probably qualify. What if you had extreme pain from a suspected fracture, but you could slowly walk on it?

If you were a little bit lost, you could set up camp and then scout around to look for your trail. At what point would you give up and hit the button? Maybe when you had only a day's worth of food left?

The sooner that you hit the button, the more time that SAR will have to find you. But that means more time that your next-of-kin will be notified and worried. If you held off, then you might be able to self-rescue and the whole drama is over.

With two-way messaging, you could have a short but rational discussion with the sheriff's dispatcher for advice on what you should do. I think this would be good for a less-experienced hiker.

I submit that if you think these topics over in advance, you are less likely to get into the emergency situation in the first place.

–B.G.–

This is just to add my agreement about the utility of two-way text communication and the utility of the trail of tracking points or other messages up to some emergent situation that may leave the traveler incapacitated. PLBs do neither of these things. Nor do they permit asking for a lower level of help from one's friends and relatives without calling out the cavalry.

My personal practice when setting out into the wild is to send a preset message from the inReach SE to my minders. I may send a number of these because they serve as manual tracking points and cost nothing extra on the Safety Plan. If I put myself into what I think is a risky situation I send a different preset message to warn my minders. When the riskiness is resolved successfully I send another of the initial preset so the minders, if any are paying attention, do not spring into action assuming my disability. They will know my approximate location from the warning message. And upon return to the trailhead (or whatever safe place marks the end of the outing), I send a back from the wild message.

Here is my current set of the three preset messages:

(1) "Into the wild or farther in. A series of this message should be ended with a Back from the Wild message."

(2) "Back from the wild"

(3) "Here I am! Another message should follow this one. If not, maybe you should worry about me."

I leave the SE on continuously when I am out and with a Bluetooth connection to my display device (a 5th gen iPod Touch, which displays position, track, and topo maps or aerial photos). The SE's battery charge declines about one percent per hour used this way. I carry a light weight recharging device, so I don't need to worry about running out of electrons. (Miller ML102 charger with one or more unprotected high capacity 18650 Li-ion cells. Charger weighs 45g, as does each 18650.) For day trips recharge has never been necessary. The iPod has a smaller capacity so needs topping up sooner than the SE, but uses little power.

I hadn't sent or received any messages in month plus; so I thought I'd send one to DeLorme just to assure that messages still came and went. I'd been using the SE's GPS via Bluetooth frequently, and that worked just fine.

After dispatching the test message, I watched the flashing red light of boredom for what seemed the rest of my life. Maybe what it needs is a sync; so I did that, installing a new sync app as requested. The firmware version remains the same, but now the test message to DeLorme flew quickly up to the heavens, and a couple of minutes later DeLorme's response came diving back to earth and was snagged by my SE.

Lesson: Make sure the Ir communication works either by using it or by testing it. If it doesn't, try sync'ing. A reset might work too. That's what I'd try in the field.

Reset: With power off, hold down arrow and x keys for 30 seconds, then power up.

A very long time ago (4 career changes and more years than i'd like to admit) I used to be an engineer. I started out designing networking equipment and later managed a system testing group and later an R&D group. As a young engineer I once wrote a utility program to perform a task I had to repeat several times a day. I knew exactly what I was doing and the program only took around 300 lines of code, but it saved me about an hour or two a day. Other people heard I had written it and asked if they could use it. After a few months the program was up to 1500 lines of code to keep people from screwing it up and eating up my day answering questions. At some point so many people were using it that my boss asked that I make it bullet proof for general use by all the hardware R&D groups in the company. It ended up being around 3000 lines of code to account for making it easy to use, error checking, basically idiot proof. This was something for use by ENGINEERS. A well designed tech product will not require you to be an expert on the product, but there are IMO very few well designed products that are this technical. Engineers are notoriously bad at understanding and anticipating human behavior, and many companies don't want to make the investment that is needed to take a product from functional to usable to user friendly.

On testing of new releases of software… they should always be tested on previous versions of hardware if they are still supported. You always have to check that new code didn't break old function. But…sometimes when there is a rush to get it out (often because it fixes a problem or an important customer wants it) people make stupid judgement calls. Sometimes they skip testing, but more often run too small of a subset of a complete test. Testing is expensive. I remember one time an engineer made a two line code change and decided it wasn't significant enough to require complete regression test. Costs the company several million dollars in recalls and more than that in pissed off customers.(this was back when we had to replace a physical rom to change code). After that we tried to put roadblocks in place to prevent stupid judgement calls.

Thanks for that i put it in my notes on my itouch.Just got the Delorme explorer working very well paired with my itouch so far.

I normally just send a once a day OK message from my inReach SE, a holdover from using my SPOT. For my trip to the Winds last week I decided to bump up my plan to Recreation and send tracking points every 30 minutes. And also use that weather forecast tip that Manfred posted about. I got to camp on the second night and turned off tracking. Went to send an OK message and the device said something like "Your inReach has been damaged. You will not be able to send or receive messages. Contact inReach support." Yikes! I powered it off/on and it worked fine. (I sent custom messages to my wife to make sure she was getting them.) Even though my wife knows that no messages arriving doesn't mean anything, it still would have been pretty annoying not to be able to send them knowing she'd be worried. I might have considered cutting the trip short (but doubt I would actually do so). And since I was solo I probably wouldn't have gone off trail or deviated from my original itinerary. Which I had already done based on talking to people on the trail and hearing their recommendations of places to go. With tracking on, I felt I could just go where ever I wanted without letting my wife know I had changed my plans.

I haven't contacted inReach yet but will do so in the next couple of days to see what they have to say. Before getting the inReach, I had used a SPOT for years with great results. So I'm a little disappointed.

Yours is the second unit to have this error i have seen reported this week.The other guy has sent his in .Did you do a reset or just on off fix?

Reported where?

–B.G.–

On 24 hour campfire under backpack hunting Iridium wifi thread

I just powered it on and off. I was really surprised by the wording of the error message. That it had been damaged, not that it malfunctioned. Like a preemptive "it's your fault, not ours!".