That's exactly what stroke me off.
December 2012.
I'm in Indonesia, North Sulawesi.
In the city of Manado.
Driving around the city in a taxi.
The Yellowbrick tracker and the Spot are placed on the dashboard of a Blue Bird Taxi.
Clear line of sight with the sky, they shouldn't have any kind of issue with locating the GPS and transmitting to their satellites.
Possibly a bit of troubles originating from the trees or the concrete buildings.
We'll see.
Traffic is Manado is quite intense.
Well, then what a great chance to securely test the Yellowbrick and the Spot tracker! I promptly begin to have fun with the Yellowbrick tracker, changing all the settings straight from the gadget.
I can not do this with the Spot, I can only turn it on, press the "boot" and wait for the light to flash green and hopefully not red (bad sign).
With the Yellowbrick I can change all the "record frequency" of the transmission, from 20 minutes down, to 5 minutes, then "constant" and "burst".
I change all the setting for the "burst" too.
I'm enjoying this! While driving around in a taxi, with the Air Conditioner going full blast, I'm quite comfortable and can't wait to see the outcomes of the test.
The Yellowbrick tracker really allows me to double check the test even straight from the device.
Under "Tracking" and "History" it's revealing to me instantaneously all the specifics of each transmission: day, time, lat and long, GPS and Iridium.
I instantly relax and understand that all those positions have actually been sent out, recorded and loaded on the web site.
No idea what is happening with the Spot tracker.
I simply wish that the green light blinking is a good sign for real.
The trip in the taxi carries on and finally we reach my last location.
I had a good time, the taxi driver spoke truly excellent english, was actually patient in the traffic and constantly smiling, what a great man! I can't wait.
I should log in when possible in to both web sites to double check the results of my test...
Wow! The precision of the Yellowbrick tracker is incredible.
I could see all blue dots exactly on top of the route that the taxi took.
And when I zoom into the map I can see clearly the section where the "burst" was activated.
Lots of small dots one after the other.
I log into the Spot tracker web site too and the result of the test are totally different.
I can see just a few positions on the map and I couldn't really zoom deeply in to the chart.
I look through their website and find a FAQ that clarifies to me that you can not adjust the frequency of the transmission that is set to 10 minutes.
You can't change it.
I additionally have no idea how much power is left in the batteries.
It's time to crack a Bintang and commemorate the Yellowbrick as the winner of this Indonesian field test.
I'm stoked, even the colour of the Yellowbrick tracker matches really well with the chilly golden Indonesian draft beer! Gotta love Indonesia! The beauties of the Yellowbrick stands out:
- its precision
- its ruggedness, it's solid as a brick for real
- a long lasting battery and the capacity to check its use
- the ability of checking exactly what's occurring within the transmissions.
If it locked with the GPS or not, if it got the Iridium or not and which kind of signal was sent - the fact you pay for it simply when you use it and you are not roped in to an automated yearly payment to utilise it
The Yellowbrick will certainly come with me and will certainly be my true mate.
I could most likely end up in areas where there's no internet nor smart phone connection.
The Yellowbrick tracker is going to be my only link to the world, to my household and to all my dear friends.
For Christmas my mum wanted to give me as a present a mobile phone, due to the fact that I'm still going around with an old-fashioned Nokia 1200 from 2007, I use it to phone and to text, as it was created for.
Ah right, it has got also a flash light.
Which is pretty awesome.
The real reason my mum, an italian Mamma, wanted to give me a smart phone was to be able to stay in contact with his boy, living on the other side of the planet and often going far-out places.
I informed her "No, thanks.
I've got something much better for you", "Mum, this is the Yellowbrick".