Deal on SPOT Services

[The Yeti]

Saw this posted on ADV today (I think I spend entirely too much time online at work....oh, well  ). Hell of a deal with free service AND tracking for a year, if anyone's interested:

I just bought one last week. If you search ebay, you can easily purchase one for half the retail cost (169.99). I've seen them go for as little as $60 for the unit. I also searched for a discount code and found that not only can you get a discount on the unit, but also the services. My first year of both the basic satellite service AND tracking was FREE. I found this through a Yahoo site called Fire Eagle. Some type of online community (?); I registered with them just to get my "unique promo code" (expires Dec 31, 2008). You can use this code to get the unit for $149 (no big discount...buy elsewhere). You can also use this code to get free basic and tracking service for 1 year. Buying the unit and signing up for service are 2 different transactions, so buy anywhere and use the promo code when signing up on SPOT's website for free service.

Check here for promo- when you register on Fire Eagle, you will find it has actually been extended to Dec 31.

As far as a review, I first used this last weekend on a 2-day, 400 mile dual sport ride. I kept it inside the outer pocket of my backpack towards the top. On day 1, it sent out all 5 "OK's" that I sent, but 0 tracks. I believe I did not set it properly to report tracks. On day 2, it sent out all 5 "OK's", and 11 tracks (it's supposed to send out a track every 10 minutes) over 7 hours. Again, part of my problem may have been not getting it into tracking mode correctly. However at least 1/3 of day 2 was under dense tree cover. My "OK's" were all sent with the unit out of my backpack.

Overall, I think the unit is useful for giving the family back home some peace of mind. Hopefully, it will also save the day in an emergency. It does seem to need a good view of the sky to transit the signal, so better positioning should definitely improve its performance (RAM already makes a mount for it). For the money I'm out of pocket, about $90 with free service, it's well worth it.