Alaska

Took a training trip to Boston as an opportunity to test some of the GPS devices that I put together for the trip. One is a Sony GPS logger to merge location data into my pictures. The other is the Spot satellite messenger to send “I am OK” messages from anywhere. Or “not OK”.

Both worked fairly well, when used correctly, but no magic happened. Indoors, both gadgets would only comply when put near a window, but refused to get a lock on a satellite when placed somewhere else. The Spot also did not work from under my coat, when taken outside. Not that it was expected to work, but I had to try that.

The Sony GPS gadget actually worked better than expected for an urban jungle. Out of 13 pictures taken, it bricked only once, when I was standing in the middle of some human-built rock formations. The Sony device has a lock-on indicator, which helped a lot. However, I had it attached to my backpack, to do a blind test. Literally. In some shots from earlier I made sure it had a lock, which it did lose quite easily. I had to put it on mailboxes and hydrants, and such, to make it blink the happy lights.

These devices are known to be unreliable when there is no clear line of sight at the skies, as it is the case in larger cities. Fortunately, this will be less of a problem in Alaska, but signal coverage that far up north very well may be.