It’s been exactly one year since we publicly announced the SPOT satellite messenger as a product and SPOT as a company at Outdoor Retailer 2007. We shipped our first messenger in November 2007. Today, we are proud to announce a major milestone — Over 2,500,000 SPOT messages sent so far since January. 

That’s a lot of peace of mind, a lot of adventures shared, a lot of lives saved. Those messages include 38 confirmed SPOT saves, a number we’re particularly proud of. 

In that time, we’ve added coverage in Alaska and South America, launched SPOT shared pages, added Google Earth compatibility, in addition to Google Maps, and showcased SPOT with the amazing Primal Quest adventure race. 

Thank you to all of our distributors, retailers, and most of all, to you — those who choose everyday to trust SPOT to stay in touch. 

Check out the press release. 

Thanks!

Most of the SPOT marketing and sales team will be making our way to Salt Lake City, Utah for Outdoor Retailer 2008 this week. SPOT will be presenting at both the outdoor portion at the Pineview Reservior and inside. 

Of special note will be our press conference and mixer on Friday afternoon. Come by to hear a little bit about SPOT, and meet the team. Best of all, we’ll be presenting together with Primal Quest and will have Dawn Mann and course designer Chris Caul on site to announce big news about the Primal Quest 2009 course! Of course, we’ll also have a little Utah microbrew on hand to celebrate and to help us remember Utah was the site of the 2006 Primal Quest. 

Date: Friday, August 8, 2008 3:00 pm 

Place: Paddle Lounge, Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, Utah, Outdoor Retailer Summer Show  

The rest of the week, come see us at the SPOT booth — booths 188 & 190.

In more EAA AirVenture 2008 news from Oshkosh, Kitplanes magazine has done a good and brief writeup of SPOT. Visit Kitplanes for the whole article. 

Here’s an excerpt: 

“Spot, originally developed for backpackers and back country skiers, is a natural in the airplane. “The first thing I did with it was throw it in my Cherokee 140,” says Wilkenson. “It worked. When I pressed the OK button it sent a message, via text and email, to let people on my list know the lat/long of my departure and that I was OK. There’s also a link to a private Google Maps page where they can track me. Hold that button down again, watch for flashing lights, and I know it has gone to tracking mode,” he says. “Then it issues updates every 10 minutes or so, with my lat/long. When I reach my destination, I hit the OK button once more and it sends a message so people know I’ve landed safely. But that’s just the tracking mode. What makes this little device great are the HELP and 911 buttons. Push HELP and you’ll send out a non-emergency, ‘you need to come get me’ notice. It’s very popular with glider pilots who might land out. Push 911 and we will activate search-and-rescue in your vicinity immediately,” he says. ”

In EAA Airventure 2008 News, AVWeb posted an interesting interview with SPOT PR Manager Derek Moore, recorded in OshKosh. 

http://www.avweb.com/podcast/podcast/EAAAirVenture2008_AudioPodcast_DerekMoore_Spot_198407-1.html

Everyday, we run across someone who has found another use for SPOT. Today we shine the light on TripSailor – a free blogging community for Sailors that uses SPOT shared pages to update Tripsailor sailing blogs. The blogs make it easy to connect with others using photos, videos, maps, and of course, SPOT. Connecting your SPOT with your Tripsailor blog is easy, and a Tripsailor account is free. To use SPOT with Tripsailor, follow their simple directions:  http://help.tripsailor.com/index.php?id=spotmessenger

EAA AirVenture 2008 logo

For the EAA Airventure 2008, the SPOT has outfitted key planes with SPOT satellite messengers for GPS tracking and flight following. Starting immediately, aviation fans can follow along online in real time at the SPOT website.  http://www.findmespot.com/eaa.aspx

Planes to track include:

B-17 Flying Fortress Thunderbird (Lone Star Flight Museum)

Click the title or picture to see the SPOT shared page. The B-17 Flying Fortress was used by the Army Air Corps to fly strategic bombing missions over Europe during World War II. The four-engine, heavy-duty bomber was armed with .50 caliber machine guns and 5,000 pounds of bombs. Over the course of the war, 13,000 B-17s were produced, of which only 13 are still airworthy today.    Thunderbird currently resides at the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, Texas, and is painted in the colors of one of the aircraft from the 303rd bomb group.

Ford Tri-Motor 4AT-A (Greg Herrick/Golden Wings Museum)

Courtesy of Airport Journals Click the title or picture to see the SPOT shared page.  The Ford Tri-motor, nicknamed “The Tin Goose,” was an American three-engine civil transport aircraft first produced in 1925 by Henry Ford. The Ford Tri-motor used an all-metal construction, which was beyond the standard in the 1920s. Its wings were made of aluminum and corrugated for added strength. More than 100 worldwide airlines flew the Ford Tri-motor while it was in production. Before Greg Herrick acquired the 4AT-A, it was flown by Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, and made the first commercial flights from the U.S. to Mexico City and over the Canadian Rockies. After obtaining it in the mid-1980s, Herrick began restoring the tri-motor after years of preservation. As of 2006, the Tri-motor has been in flying condition and restored to its December 1927 appearance. Herrick’s Tri-motor is the oldest flying type example of the 18 remaining aircraft in the world.

Visit http://www.findmespot.com/eaa.aspx for a complete list.

SPOT and Primal Quest will be presenting at Outdoor Retailer.

Date: Friday, August 8, 2008 3:00 pm 

Place: Paddle Lounge, Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, Utah, Outdoor Retailer Summer Show  

After the presentation, come by our booth 188 & 190, in the main hallway outside the main hall. 

We’ve had a lot of great feedback from fans of Primal Quest lately, but the best testimony comes from the Primal Quest Race Operations Director, Greg Vogel: 

“Primal Quest Montana was a 10-day expedition-level adventure race, with 58 teams challenging each other and the Montana mountains over a 548 mile course.  Try to imagine keeping track of 232 world-class athletes spread out over this course, and then reporting their progress to the world at any one time.  PQ was fortunate to partner with SPOT for GPS tracking.  Their motto is “Live to tell about it” – a fit motto for a partner in such a grueling race.

 

In addition to providing a safer race for the participants, the SPOT tracking services made it possible for race officials and spectators, as well as fans on the website, to follow the progress of the entire field moving through the race course.   Their assistance in designing the Leaderboard and Tracking sections of our website gave us results that exceeded our expectations. 

 

The team from SPOT provided outstanding service, and the quality of the product they delivered was far better than we could have imagined. The entire experience was a very good one for us, and we look forward to partnering with them again for next year’s race.”

In addition – Tim Soyars, Medical Director summed up how SPOT helped out his team during Primal Quest: 

“SPOT takes the “Search” out of “Search and Rescue”. “

Here’s one straight out of Mythbusters: Kent Couch used a lawn chair and helium cluster balloons to travel from Bend, OR to Boise Idaho. How to descend? A well-aimed BB gun would take down one balloon at a time. It’s an amazing story that you can read about over at Kent’s site Couch Balloons. How did Kent share the adventure? With SPOT, of course! Kent’s field team used SPOT to track him during the trip to know where he was, and as an alert device if he needed help. 

Kent’s web programmer used SPOT shared pages to post Kent’s travel on his site. The reaction was terrific. In fact, web visitors quickly reached the shared pages “beta” viewing limit of 500 views per 15 minutes. With some quick work from our developers, we worked with Kent’s programmers to allow for more views. Of course, the whole time Kent’s team had complete access to his account through the SPOT web service. 

For the enterprising folks who are integrating SPOT into their own sites, here are quick instructions on how to do it: How To Insert SPOT Shared Data Document 

Oh, and if you anticipate ending up in the national media like Kent did, let us know. We like to work that out beforehand.

SPOT will be at the Outdoor Retailer 2008 show in Salt Lake City this August. We’ll be both at the Pineview Reservior portion, showing off SPOT in its natural environment — outdoors– and at the main convention center, both in the SPOT booth and hosting the Kayak lounge. Hard to believe that it was only last year that we announced SPOT at Outdoor Retailer 2007. This year we will be holding a joint press conference with our friends at Primal Quest presented by SPOT adventure race to share our success at the 2008 race, and possibly make some great announcements about Primal Quest 2009. 

Date: Friday, August 8, 2008 3:00 pm 

Place: Paddle Lounge, Salt Palace, Salt Lake City, Utah, Outdoor Retailer Summer Show