I see that Sport Chalet and West Marine both have a $50 rebate coupon on the Spot Connect black interface unit that connects to an Android phone for satellite emergency messaging (etc) service, and the price comes out to basically $100 after the rebate. REI Coop still has the DeLorme Inreach for $250. I understand there is an additional fee for annual signup and service(at least for the Spot Connect and maybe for the Inreach also) and an additional fee for the service plan you select, but what's the best deal between the Spot and the DeLorme systems? It appears that the DeLorme unit comes with a GPS, but I think the Spot has to be connected to an external GPS (not really sure). I hope somebody can suss out the best deal for me (us). Many thanks in advance.

You are really comparing apples to oranges at this point. SPOT is a one-way (outgoing only) device while the Delorme InReach is a two-way (incoming and outgoing messages)device. You are going to pay more for a two-way device. The InReach is very new and I have not seen any definitive independent reviews at this time. You likely need to determine whether you want the incoming messaging capability and then start narrowing down vendors. The SPOT devices are likely always going to be cheaper because of their limited functionality.

OK, thanks Celler. It wasn't clear to me that the Spot Connect was only 1 way. That's a deal breaker for me.

My In-Reach should arrive tomorrow and I plan to run it through some tests. I tried the SPOT connect, and my home station did not receive consistent notifications that I was sending. I was hiking in the mountains of North Carolina and the SPOT could not maintain a good signal. I have had good luck with it in the desert, but the heavy forest and hills were too much interference. I will go out there again to see how the In-Reach does. I will post about it after I do.

Montanero: I think a lot of folks will be interested in your report. Thanks.

I'm really looking forward to your thoughts.

I've had the same results with the SPOT-2 in the same terrain. If there was much tree cover the SPOT-2 often couldn't get its transmission out. If I had a clear view of the sky it always succeeded.