Monthly Archives: July 2010

How to Set Up and Share a SPOT Messenger Page

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It’s included in the Track Progress service, so why not?

SPOT Personal TrackerI’ve been using a SPOT Personal Tracker for the past two years. It was recommended to me by a helicopter pilot friend. We both fly in remote areas — the kinds of places that if you go down, rescuers are probably not going to find you before it’s too late.

Think I’m kidding? Check out this Cessna, which was not located for 31 months. I was just one of dozens of local area pilots who looked for this plane whenever I was in the area where it disappeared.

And what pilot can forget the disappearance of Steve Fawcett? Millions of dollars and lots of high-tech search techniques were used to try to find his plane. Over a year passed before a hiker found Fawcett’s ID and the wreckage was eventually found.

I didn’t want to end up like either one of these unfortunate flights. Even if I suffered a fatal crash, I wanted to be found as soon as possible. And if I simply went down and needed help, I wanted help to be able to find me without relying on cell phone signals.

The SPOT Service

So I bought a SPOT Personal Tracker and subscribed to two services:

  • Basic Service enables the SOS (AKA 911), Help, and Check-in/OK features of the unit. That requires a button push to send the message. This service costs $100/year and is required to use the device.
  • Track Progress drops “breadcrumbs” of your location every 10 minutes so others can track you. The track progress feature automatically plots your location signals on a map that’s accessible online. You can create a shared page, give the URL to whoever you want, and let them track you. The benefit of this — as far as I’m concerned as a pilot — is that if I go down suddenly and am incapacitated, people tracking me will not only know where I was within the previous 10 minutes of my mishap, but they’ll likely know which way I was going. Plus, if the unit is intact, it will continue to broadcast my location every 10 minutes. This non-moving signal should help them pinpoint my location — even if I’m dead. This extra service costs $50/year. While I have another pilot friend with a SPOT who doesn’t use it, I think every pilot who uses this device should cough up the extra dough for this service. You can’t always press a button when you need help.

I need to stress here that this is not a device designed for aviation. It’s really designed for “adventure activities” or travel — for hikers and campers and mountain climbers and kayakers. For folks who get out in the wilderness. Of course, pilots who fly in remote areas can benefit from the device and there are plenty of stories of how it may have saved aviator lives. Just keep in mind that it is not an approved FAA tracking device and that flight plans should always be filed and opened for remote area flights. And, if you’re an airplane pilot who flies at altitudes where FSS Flight Following is possible, why not use that service? Unfortunately, Flight Following is not usually available at the altitudes at which I fly my helicopter.

Creating a Shared Page

Of course, having a SPOT Personal Tracker with the Track Progress feature means a Share Page (example shown below) is included with your subscription fee. It makes sense to set up this page and share it’s URL with the folks who need to know where you are. You can also share it with the world at large if you’re like me and don’t care who knows where you are when you’re on the go.

Shared Page
Some recent activity; I did 20-minute helicopter rides the other day.

Setting up a SPOT shared page is easy. Assuming you’ve already set up your account on the SPOT Web site and have activated your device, just follow these steps:

  1. Sign into you account at FindMeSpot.com.
  2. Share TabClick the Share tab near the top of the page.
  3. Under SPOT Shared Pages, click the Create Shared Page link.
  4. Create Page SettingsSet the options in the Create Shared Page window that appears. Be sure to enter a Shared Page Name and select your SPOT device. Under Security, you can specify whether the page is Public or requires a Password to access. Personally, I recommend keeping it Public. You can always limit who you give the URL to. It would be terrible if someone needed to access the information and couldn’t remember the password.
  5. Select one of the options at the bottom of the page to determine how you’ll notify the people you want to share the page with about the page’s URL:
    • If you select Send the shared page myself option (recommended), a message appears, telling you that anyone with the link can view your shared page. Click Create Now to complete the process.
    • If you select Have SPOT send the shared page, a form appears for you to enter up to 50 e-mail addresses and create a custom e-mail message. Be sure to keep the Send a copy to you check box turned on so you get the URL, too. Click Send Now to complete the process.
  6. URL CreatedAt the bottom of the page, a very long URL should appear. Triple-click it to select it and chose Edit > Copy (or press Command-C (Mac) or Control-C (Win)) to copy it to the clipboard. We’ll use it in a moment to test the link and create a short URL.

Shared PagesIf, for some reason, you didn’t get the URL or you need to access it again in the future, click the Shared tab (shown above) and then click the Manage Shared Pages link under SPOT Shared pages. You can click the name of the shared page to display it. You can then copy the link for that page from the Web browser’s address bar.

Creating a Short URL

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0aISLWHRq9KlETLqzcfFGQuD8VboS6R8O is not exactly the kind of URL that’s easy to share with friends. Fortunately, URL shortening services enable you to create a custom URL for any page. Although this step isn’t required, it’s certainly recommended.

Although I originally created my short URL with the TinyURL service, you can use any service you like. Bit.ly makes even shorter URLs, but it requires an account to create a customized one. So in this example, I’ll use TinyURL again.

  1. Point your browser to TinyURL.com.
  2. TinyURLPaste the URL for your shared page in the top text box.
  3. Enter a short word or phrase that’s easy to remember in the bottom text box. In this example, I’ve entered the N-number for my helicopter. My original URL used FindMaria.
  4. New TinyURLClick Make TinyURL!
    A message like the one shown here appears, confirming that the new URL was created. You can now give this much shorter URL to family and friends.

Share Your SPOT Page!

Are you already using a SPOT device? If you’ve got a page set up, share it here. Use the Comments link or form for this post. No need to enter any HTML tags; just enter the complete URL. Once your comment has been approved, your shared page will appear. I’d also love to hear comments about the device — good or bad.

Cherries: From Tree to Truck

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A mini-documentary.

I need to start off by saying that I didn’t do a mini-documentary about the cherry harvest process because I felt the world had a need for such information. I did it as an exercise, as practice using my video camera and Final Cut Pro. I wanted to see if I had the ability to put together a documentary. This 5-minute video is the result.

This was my second summer experiencing the harvest process at one of the orchards I dry. The Schroeders are great people, friendly and a pleasure to work with. I dried their orchard four times this year. Being present for part of the harvest gave me an opportunity to see whether the work I’d done made a difference. It did.

The Schroeders were kind enough to let me walk the orchard and packing shed area with my Sony Handycam for a total of about 8 hours over two days. I also stopped in around sunset one evening to take some of the establishing shots with the soft “golden hour” light. They and their workers explained the process to me. I shot a total of about an hour of video footage. That that was barely enough. I still wish I’d gotten better shots of some parts of the process.

I found the cherry harvest fascinating — and I think you might, too. We’re all spoiled — we go into the supermarket in the summertime and find cherries waiting in the produce section, already bagged and ready to take home. But how many of us consider how the cherries get from the tree to the supermarket? It’s a complex process that requires hundreds of people and specialized equipment. This video shows part of the story, following the cherries from the trees in one orchard as they’re picked, gathered, chilled, and packed into a refrigerator truck. Take a moment to see for yourself:

Done? Not bad for a first serious effort.

From this point, the cherries go to the processing plant in Wenatchee, WA. They’re run through more cold water and lots of custom equipment before they’re picked through by several lines of people who toss out the bad ones. Then they’re sorted by size, run through more clean water, and eventually bagged and boxed up by even more people for shipment. I was fortunate enough to get a tour of that facility (and five more pounds of fresh cherries) a few days after I shot the video for this one. I may do a video of that facility and its process next year.

The amazing part of all this: the cherries are normally ready to ship to stores the same day they are picked.

More amazing stuff: the cherries I saw at the packing facility were headed for Korea and would be there within 18 hours of my tour. Whoa.

The point of all this is that there’s a lot that goes into getting fresh food into stores. Cherries are unlike many fruits — they have a very short shelf life. With proper care, they might last a week. That’s why everything is rushed and why so much effort is put into keeping them cool as soon as they’re picked.

I hope you enjoyed this. Comments are welcome.

The Waiting Game

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Part of my summer job.

It’s coming up on 5 AM. I’m sitting in my RV, parked at the edge of a golf course in Quincy, WA, 1/4 mile away from where my helicopter is parked at an ag strip. I’m nursing a cup of coffee.

I’m waiting.

I’ve been up since 4 AM when I woke naturally, my brain using its built-in alarm clock to put my body on low alert. After all, there was rain in the forecast. If it rained overnight, the calls would start coming before dawn. If I wanted coffee in my body before I flew, I’d have to get up and make it before the calls came.

If they came.

On waking up, the first thing I did was reach for my iPad. (It, with my phone, is always within reach when I’m in bed here.) A few taps and WeatherBug was displaying local radar. The rain echoes were just to the southwest, moving my way. It was almost as if my brain had been watching the weather while I slept and knew the rain was coming.

While coffee brewed, I stepped outside into the predawn light. I could see the horizon in all directions. Low clouds, brightness to the east where the sun would soon rise. Later, back inside, as I sipped my coffee, WeatherBug would indicate that the rain was right on top of me and at least two of my orchards. Occasionally, my vigilance was rewarded with the sound of a few raindrops pattering on the roof of the RV.

I traded my nightshirt for a tank top, which is what I usually wear under my flight suit. I grabbed a pair of socks. Then I settled back into my comfy chair with my coffee.

I brewed a good cup this morning. Part of me hoped I’d get a chance to enjoy every drop in my 18 ounce mug. The other part of me hoped the phone would ring.

I was ready. I was waiting.

Oddly, I played a version of this game yesterday afternoon and evening. More radar echoes, but no rain. Still, it could come at any time. I spent the evening with my iPad, switching between an ebook, WeatherBug, and the National Weather Service Web site while texting back and forth with a pilot friend in the same situation 30 miles south. Had to keep the phone line open. When the sun set at 9 PM, I moved into the bedroom, finished the book I’d been reading, and went to sleep.

Six hours later, I was awake.

The sun is up now, hidden behind thick clouds to the northeast. I see rain falling out toward Moses Lake — no threat to any of my orchards. I’m waiting for the call that will launch me. I can be airborne in 15 minutes or less.

Will the call come? Who knows? That’s part of the game.