Gunshot's Taco Build and Washington Debauchery Log...

Once Elon Musk gets SkyNet deployed, this should all be a mute point. I'm not sure how close we are to that day, but we are getting there.

 

Lol hopefully.

When I was in AK we were kinda in a weird spot where GPS and GLONASS kinda sucked, which is a pretty disconcerting feeling. Navigating by USGS maps from the 1950s was a blast.

We had a satellite phone [Iridium, I think] for emergencies. I think we only paid by the call/minute so that's also an option.

 

Old school maps and compass. Love it!

By the minute would be perfect. The pay as you play plan.

 

LOL, so related story: So my dad went on a big game hunt in Africa last summer. Every animal had a price and different sizes had premiums to it, etc. Most people pick an animal, pay for it, go find one. But the guides got wise that people see a big bull Kudu, etc and they want to upgrade instead of a lesser animal. They had a satellite connected credit card reader in the land cruiser Their guide said it was used "frequently" by their more affluent clients.

 

@H3llRid3r I have a garmin inreach mini and I love it. I use it purely for off grid comms, i.e. being able to text my wife when I'm out of service for a day or two. The peace of mind is extremely worth it. I started with the freedom plan but found I was renewing it damn near every month anyways, so I went with an annual plan. 110% would recommend.

 

Well I figured that if Gaia went unsupported it was only a matter of time before the rest were phased out on Android 4.4.

Dedicated 8" truck tablet was gonna be in the $150 range, so for $50 more for a full tech refresh, it made a lot of sense.

 

Let me know how you like it. I'm looking for a tablet for APRS/mapping. I'm loathe to go samsung but they're kinda the best in the android tablet world.

 

I've been playing with it over my lunch break. Honestly, once you see one samsung tablet, they're pretty much all the same. It's plenty fast for what I do, screen is a lot nicer than the 8" little brother, and this one takes USB-C so I'm now in the 21st Century.

What makes you avoid Samsung? I seem to be lucky with electronics, etc so I'd be curious what your experience is with them.

 

Eh, they lock down the OS super hard and I'm not a fan of that. I usually root/sideload a different OS for longevity/security. I have a google tablet from 2012 that still works because it's running Lineage OS.

Their hardware is always great, just not a fan of their software.

 

Fair enough. I never made a habit of rooting my tablets, so thats a moot point for me.

 

Perfect! I just had a guy in the office tell me about the same model. He says he uses the monthly plan and claimed that if he didn't activate the subscription it would still work and he would get charged for the just the text message he sent. That's what he claimed anyways. He said that he could also pair the mini with his phone via Bluetooth and an app so he could use the phone to text. He was also showing me his onX hunting app, which was cool. At the press of a button he could switch between maps (topo and etc.). It looked cool. It also showed the location of his game cameras, which he could share with others.

The mini sounds like what i should get. Thx for the recommend.

 

Wait, you just did this over the last few hours?

 

The power of the lunch break! BestBuy is right up the street and was cheaper than Amazon.

 

WTF?

 

That’s what I do with my Bluetooth, much easier to use the phone app and text that way. You’ll be happy with it.

 

Install your own (operating system)OS instead of the factory OS. Allows you to mess with a lot more of the settings, but certain manufacturers have gotten smarter about locking down parts of it without significant headache.

 

Like, you wrote your own OS? That's next level (at least in my world). If I had the skills, then...

 

Lol, nah, I just know enough to get in trouble.

There used to be a much bigger community of developers that modified/built OS/other aspects of it but it's kind of dying away with the changes. Initially, a lot of people did it to bypass software locks (I fondly remember having my phone tethered to my computer and downloading, like 30gb over network while driving to the east coast once), some of it is customization, some of it is support for not-natively supported features/apps. I used an OS called Lineage OS to continue using a tablet that mechanically functioned that Google dropped support for (nexus 7) -- it's my entertainment system remote/cast device.

Android is just linux under the hood so if you're familiar with that it makes modifying parts easier.

 

https://expeditionportal.com/is-garmins-overlander-worth-700/

 

Damn! It's tempting. Thanks for the link.