Wyoming B.S. Thread

awesome! Looks great! Glad she had a good time. How were the new sleeping bags?

I have to go back to work tomorrow. Sucks. Was a nice long break. part of it will be fun.

 

The new bag was REALLY nice, stayed plenty warm, no problem. She seems to be fully onboards with adventuring and camping which is just amazing.

although, looking at the last photo i posted...looks like i have a gas tank strap falling off... guess ill be dealing with that tomorrow.

 

great to hear! Hopefully get to meet her on an adventure

 

I really hope that comes to fruition. She's heard my stories with you fools plenty

Ran into a shitty thing with the van. The rear tanks strap broke. So that puts the van down till it gets into the shop next week. I had a long list of items I wanted worked on and this I guess forces my hand in getting it all done.

Transmission service.
Diff service.
Idlers and belt replacement.
Rad hose and coolant replacement.
Parking brake adjustment
Shift linkage adjustment.
Check all wheel bearings, u joints, bushings.
Alignment.
Check condition of brakes and replace as necessary.


Not sure what else I should add as a point of maintenance.

 

Thats a big ole list of stuff haha sounds expensive.

Rad need replaced?

And Devin heard about you fools on Date 1 haha

 

I figure it'll be expensive but also worth doing. Unlike you I loath breaking down in the trail.

Rad I think is fine, but the fluid and hoses seem like good idea based on age.

Date 1???

 

Monte's first date with Devin.

Mine said, "Wut? You're going on a 3-week trip with people you've only met on the internet?"

I guess that was sort of a "date 1," but with you guys.

 

I don't think that is what he meant....

And I will say her mom was very nervous about her being off with some strange man in the wilderness. Semi related but the inreach worked great far from cell service. Was able to send and received texts perfectly. Pretty happy to have that little gadget as a backup.

(And since I know you'll ask, it's the inReach mini 2)

 

My first date ever with Devin. Idk what you're talking about. At dinner told her a shortish(maybe short in my head anyways) version of Frankenstein and adventures and friends.


Yeah well thats everyones reaction, you're doing what with who? wtf? haha

 

I figured it was the 2. Nice!

Which plan did you get? I've stuck with the cheapest one and have been happy, but I don't use it for general texting; I just send the 3 pre-programmed messages.

That's why background checks are run on the shadier folks. I guess. Or at least, I know that now...

 

Are these messages you get to pre-program yourself or do they come baked into the machine by Garmin? I'd like to guess what yours are if you got to program yourself.

1. Oh bother (read like whinnie the Pooh)
2. I'm low on Safeway chicken strips
3. I've hidden the money where you'll never find it.

Mine would be
1. Don't come looking for me
2. Seriously don't come looking for me
3. Who even gave you the number to this device anyway?

 

Mine would be:

1)welp, I crash
2)welp, I broke down
3)welp, I died

 

See now the inventor in me thinks that this is a valuable marketing opportunity to integrate a heart monitor

 

You get to program them. I blatantly stole the theory behind mine from DVExile, with only little tweaks. They are:


Message 1: I am with my vehicle or in camp and OK, notify SAR if you don't hear from me in 36 hours.

This is a message that I may send many times each day, and always send when I reach camp at night. Basically, it resets a 36-hour window during which SAR will not be called. The assumption when I send this message is that I am healthy and self-sufficient for an extended period of time - with food, shelter, etc.

Message 2: I am hiking and OK, notify SAR if you don't hear from me by the later of [a] 9pm (my time), two hours after sunset (my time), [c] two hours from now.

This is a message that I send when leaving the truck. Generally, for me this is hiking, but it can be for any number of reasons, and it shortens the window before which SAR will be called.

Message 3: I am hiking and OK but doing something tricky, notify SAR if you don't hear from me within 1 hour.

This message is pretty self-explanatory - it lets folks know that something risky is going on and shortens the SAR window dramatically. The idea is that the risky activity takes only a few minutes, and then Message 2 or Message 1 are sent again (often multiple times in order to ensure delivery) as normal activities are resumed.


- - - - -


In reality, I haven't turned on the device in 12 months, so I'm just wasting money.

Also, the people who were getting the messages (@mrs.turbodb and my dad) quickly just started ignoring them, so they didn't really matter anyway. The lesson for me was that no one cares if we die. Or I die, I guess.

 

I don't know why I read it as Devin heard about mine and Maria's first date... It was late idk why I thought that

I've got the cheapest one. I see it as insurance really, kinda hard to self insure in this case. If I go off and do some back packing I'm sure the three messages would be good, but since I'm based out of the van, and thus have the phone always charged, it's easy to open the app and fire a message off. Still testing it out and trying to make sure I understand its functions and limitations. What i like is that the message I sent also sends the exact location I send it from.

Really it's just a convenience thing to be able to send messages. The real value of the inreach for me is the SOS function for camping adventures and hiking. But I know it has additional capabilities in the Garmin explore app for tracking and such. Like it can broadcast ever 10-30 minutes my position like aprs did, except it's way more reliable since it's using satellite, not repeaters.

 

Yeah, I got it for exactly the same reasons, and was part of the reason I put thought (well, thoughtfully copied) the three-message system for the free messages. I've never used all 10 free messages in a month. I think at most I used like 4-5.

I think all the tracking stuff costs more money, but I'm not sure.

Do you find that it locks on to GPS quickly and sends messages quickly? That's the biggest issue with mine - the GPS takes forever to lock, and it won't send messages when it can't also send the GPS location, but that could be due to the terrain I'm in (often, canyons of DV, etc.) It does always eventually connect though.

 

I'm not sure I understand the ten free messages. The plan I have includes 50 text messages or weather forecasts, I don't see a breakout for the pre-made messages being different than hammering out a custom message.

As far as the timing, it does take a couple minutes to send (I turned on the audio chime for when it does send and receive). When I used it this last weekend as a test I just sent the message in the app and then put the phone and Garmin on the dash of the van and went back to hanging out. A couple minutes later it sent. And about ten minutes later I had a response. In my mind it makes sense for it to take a bit of time to locate a satellite, transmit the data, that data then getting back to earth to the receiver.

 

As a user of Starlink, it should not take that long haha my ping is like 30ms.

 

It's using SMS though, not (total technicality) rich data messaging. So routing after it gets a sat signal takes time too. SMS is less feature rich but way more reliable than rich data messaging (like RCS and iPhones use).

 

Sure. But my point is just because it's Satellite doesn't mean it's slow. regardless of message type.

I'm guessing it's slow because Garmin won't allow it to send unless it has satisfied certain protocols. Signal stregth, probably tests the connection several times, ect. to improve it's reliability vs speed.


I mean if Ben really wanted ease of use and realiable he'd get the mini Starlink and slap it on the roof. lol more expensive, but he could video call someone hahaha


Actually my dad got one....im not totally sure why. But he did.