After lots of debate, I decided to just renew my Spot service and add a PLB. http://www.acrartex.com/products/catalog/personal-locator-beacons/resqlink-plb/ There's a coupon I found over on advrider that get's you free tracking on the spot, use TRACKSPOT when you checkout, save $50. Here's a spotwalla map of this weekend's ride, it illustrates why I spent $250 to have a PLB as well. https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=758251ecae697d34a You can see there's several 15-20 mile gaps while I'm in the woods. I figure it's missing multiple tracks. The Spot 3 has an option to track at 2.5 min instead of 10, maybe that would help. Bottom line is I just spend too much time in the trees. It works very reliably in the clear. I had the Spot mounted on the tail during this ride, it's something the rear rack can handle. I've got a ram mount on the way, and will be putting it on the bars. That will likely help.
I've heard reports that the TRACKSPOT promo works if you are adding tracking to existing service. I used it for a complete renewal, so I'm not sure. Worth a try.
I wasn't happy with my quick and dirty Spot mount... I want the space back, and I want the spot up a bit higher. Here it's got no view to the front of the bike at all. So I donated $40 to the folks at Ram to get a holder $10ish, and the other bits, $30ish, to put it up on the bars. We'll have to see if it works any better.
I have the ram mount for the Spot 2 on my other bike mounted on a RAM. It's never going to come out of that enclosure.
