Communications

Since Alea and I are planning to be out of sight of one another, for anywhere from a few hours to several hours per day (and in a different place every day), it was clear that we needed a means of staying in touch, in order to lessen our anxiety about each other's safety while we are apart.  Unfortunately, the first leg of our trip - across Washington, Northern Idaho, Montana and most of North Dakota - offers few options for cellular phone coverage.  Verizon would seem to be the only option, and their coverage is mostly along freeway corridors, meaning that even with their service we'll frequently be out of cell coverage.

With such sparse cell phone reception being likely for the first month of our travels, we researched our options.  We eventually narrowed our focused down to two viable solutions, both satellite based.  One was the Delorme InReach and the other was the Spot Gen3.

The Delorme had the advantage of two way communication (via text message) and a choice of annual or monthly payment plans.  But the device seemed complicated enough that we foresaw the likelihood that we'd be prone to making mistakes with it, plus the hardware was more than twice the cost of the Spot.

The Spot is limited to one way communication, and there are only three different messages that it will transmit: A call to 911, a "Help, come get me" message and a short user-customizable message.  It also will continuously transmit a tracking message at intervals as small as every three minutes.  We felt that the latter was pretty much ideal for our situation - a means for the van driver to know where the cyclist was and to see that he/she was continuing to make progress toward arriving at the campground.  In places where cell coverage is bad (which is mainly only during the first month of our inaugural trip) and the cyclist is late, the van driver has the option of driving to find cell coverage in order to determine the cyclist's location.  It's fairly unlikely that the 911 and Help Me messages will ever be utilized, but they are there if we need them.

The Spot works best when it is out in the open with the antenna pointed toward the sky, but we've heard anecdotally that it has worked for others when stored inside a Camp-Inn trailer.  But to hedge our bets that it won't fail us when we need it most, we devised a very simple means of attaching the device to our helmets, using a piece of StrapAll velcro (velcro that can attach to itself) looped through the air vents, allowing the antenna (located under the logo) to always be pointing at the sky:

Our Spot Gen3, mounted atop my bicycle helmet with some StrapAll velcro.

We could also strap in on our handlebar bar, or buy a mount for our handlebars, but there will be enough going on there with bike computers and maps, etc.  And a former co-worker (Glen Smallwood) pointed out that in the event of a crash where you are thrown clear, the bike you may not be able to reach the device to send the emergency message.  With it attached to the helmet you just need to be able to remove it in order to access the emergency messaging functions (provided you didn't also fall down a well and/or break both collarbones).  ;-)

Most of the time we'll be in cell coverage and can call one another to work out what to do when a campground is closed or overbooked, or there is some other wrinkle in our plans for that day.  I wasn't relishing the idea of paying for two cell phone lines, since I rarely use a phone.  But then we learned about the no contract plans offered by Republic Wireless (see the LINKS at right).  Their new WiFi/Cell service is AWESOME and we can each get unlimited cell calling for $10 per month ($20 total)!  And, even better, it is possible to change our calling plan up to two times per month.  So once we've stopped traveling for the winter I can switch back to their $5 per month WiFi-only calling plan, where I can only make calls as long as I can find a WiFi signal (such as at home, a public library, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc).  The potential downside of Republic's service is that it only works with a few phones that are designed to work over both WiFi and cellular networks - not great if you have a particular phone that you don't want to part with.

The $10 Republic Wireless plan doesn't include any cellular data, but it does have unlimited WiFi data (they do offer cell plans with unlimited cell data - currently $25/mo for 3G, $40/mo for 4G).  So by finding a means of providing WiFi on the road, we'll have all the functionality of full featured smartphones without the typically exorbitant cost (though admittedly with a bit less convenience, as the MiFi will need to be turned on).  We'd have liked to have gotten a WalMart pay as you go MiFi, where we could have purchased a certain amount of data that we could use over a two month period, but for some reason the service was unavailable in our zip code (or any other zip code we tried).  So we've opted for a no contract AT&T plan that gives us 5GB for $50 per month.

So with our Mi-Fi running we'll have internet access via our cell phones and our Google Chromebooks.  All for about $30/month less than our current CenturyLink landline and internet and Tracfone cell phone.

ADDENDUM (15 Aug 2015)
We found that putting the SPOT Gen 3 on our helmets to be problematic.  We both added Novara handlebar bags to our bikes, which include a bracket that makes it extremely easy to take the bag on or off the bike.  We added small soft velcro self adhesive tabs to the sides of the bracket, then use the same StrapAll strap that we used with our helmets.  The added velcro on the mounts makes it a very secure installation - pretty much immune to the constant road vibration that we experience.