Old Town Near Area 51

a reply to: FosterVS

Cool Beans Bud! I just Suscribed to You at YouTube!
I'll check out some more vidz of Yours later... Thanx... Syx...

a reply to: mysterioustranger

I'll finish by stating that I can see now that you were unable to understand the context of my statement.
Perhaps some study of basic reading comprehension texts could assist you.
Best of luck with that.
Now, since I have been able to point out to you the issue you were having, and offered you a solution to that problem we can return to the main topic.
Many thanks....

Wasn't there a small town nearby KXTA & KTNX that's now a ghost town? I'm forgetting the name of course.
Something like Radcliffe?
Also, no idea when it was abandoned.
Heading into work now, but I'll try to dig through my records when I get home.

a reply to: HomeyKXTA Annnnddd I blew it with my last post. I was thinking of Reville. But after looking through info on this (beautiful) ghost town, that just wouldn't make any sense. Lol. Sorry about that.

a reply to: HomeyKXTA

Reveille

Reveille tracking facility

Reveille is far away from Groom Lake. Most "tourists" don't venture any further north than the Cedar Gate. Reveille is in free territory. If you plan on going there, it is probably best to let somebody know or use a satellite messenger like the Inreach, just in the event you have car problems. It is a place where nobody goes. Most places the "tourists" visit will be observed by security, so you are never really alone. But Reveille is a black hole. There is a sign by the highway, but you can't even see the town from the road. Tom Mahood's joke about discovering a meth lab out there might be reality someday.

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: HomeyKXTA

Reveille

Reveille tracking facility

Reveille is far away from Groom Lake. Most "tourists" don't venture any further north than the Cedar Gate. Reveille is in free territory. If you plan on going there, it is probably best to let somebody know or use a satellite messenger like the Inreach, just in the event you have car problems. It is a place where nobody goes. Most places the "tourists" visit will be observed by security, so you are never really alone. But Reveille is a black hole. There is a sign by the highway, but you can't even see the town from the road. Tom Mahood's joke about discovering a meth lab out there might be reality someday.

Reveille is on my to-do list for next year.

I bought a SPOT last year, just in case.

A nice feature is if I am out of cell range, I push the "I'm OK" button on it, which texts my gf to let her know I am out of cell range, but still alive
findmespot.com...

a reply to: FosterVS

I wish you asked me about the SPOT. I found it very unreliable. The problem with the Spot is it is one-way. Well unless they changed it. So you don't know if the message was received. The Inreach is two way, so you know the message went out. The last trip had the longest "ack", about 8 minutes, but usually the ack is done in a minute.

The fact the message was delayed probably means the satellite was busy. Could have been people around the range with satphones. (The NTS uses them where repeaters don't work.) The Inreach pricing is based on a degraded service (compared to a real sat phone) to keep the monthly price down. The SOS button isn't degraded.

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: FosterVS

I wish you asked me about the SPOT. I found it very unreliable. The problem with the Spot is it is one-way. Well unless they changed it. So you don't know if the message was received. The Inreach is two way, so you know the message went out. The last trip had the longest "ack", about 8 minutes, but usually the ack is done in a minute.

The fact the message was delayed probably means the satellite was busy. Could have been people around the range with satphones. (The NTS uses them where repeaters don't work.) The Inreach pricing is based on a degraded service (compared to a real sat phone) to keep the monthly price down. The SOS button isn't degraded.

SPOT was cheap, got it NIB off eBay. Monthly service is cheap too, and you can get it month by month. That InReach looks nice, pricey though. It's all relative however, I'd rather have something reliable if I am in a jam.

originally posted by: FosterVS

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: FosterVS

I wish you asked me about the SPOT. I found it very unreliable. The problem with the Spot is it is one-way. Well unless they changed it. So you don't know if the message was received. The Inreach is two way, so you know the message went out. The last trip had the longest "ack", about 8 minutes, but usually the ack is done in a minute.

The fact the message was delayed probably means the satellite was busy. Could have been people around the range with satphones. (The NTS uses them where repeaters don't work.) The Inreach pricing is based on a degraded service (compared to a real sat phone) to keep the monthly price down. The SOS button isn't degraded.

SPOT was cheap, got it NIB off eBay. Monthly service is cheap too, and you can get it month by month. That InReach looks nice, pricey though. It's all relative however, I'd rather have something reliable if I am in a jam.

When the Inreach came out, the old SPOTs went on ebay. ;-) I have situations where no messages went out on the SPOT. The Inreach service is the same price. The trick is Delorme stopped selling the cheap smartphone version and only now sells the expensive premium versions. But you can get the old smartphone version on ebay. I'm using the Android version.

The Inreach is on the Iridium network, which is what the feds use. The SPOT is on Globalstar. You can Google the status of each company. Both have been bankrupt at times, though GSTAR is heavily shorted.

a reply to: gariac

Well, looks like you guys have suggested yet another investment this month. Inreach sounds like something both myself and my girlfriend need. Especially when things start warming up around the range and I'm more frequent around Alamo.
With (soon to be) new family living close by, I'm going to be making allllooottt of excuses to go out to the desert and take photos

originally posted by: HomeyKXTA
a reply to: gariac

Well, looks like you guys have suggested yet another investment this month. Inreach sounds like something both myself and my girlfriend need. Especially when things start warming up around the range and I'm more frequent around Alamo.
With (soon to be) new family living close by, I'm going to be making allllooottt of excuses to go out to the desert and take photos

You may want to go on the Delorme Inreach forum and get up to date. I use the model 1.5. It works on Android and supposedly iphone. (The iphone bluetooth stack is weird due to their beacons scheme. You would want to triple check if you plan on using an iPhone with the Inreach.) Delorme sold another version that only worked with their GPS. I would avoid that model.

I don't know what to say about the Inreach pricing. I got mine at REI when it came out. I'm thinking $175, but they had a $50 rebate. I see them on ebay for $300, so WTF. The newer models can send a message directly from the screen, but the screen isn't touch. There is a video on how to enter a message.

It helps to have a phone with a replaceable battery if you use the older Inreach. Since I have no coverage on the peak, I leave the phone off or in airplane mode.

The Delorme app does bluetooth in a manner unlike say a headset. Most bluetooth devices are connected in the bluetooth menu. The Inreach wants to initiate connection via the app. I found myself unpairing and then pairing again to get the device to work until I figured out that once paired, don't try to connect from the bluetooth menu but instead connect from the app.

The hacker community has discovered these satellite messaging devices. I haven't read about the Iridium devices being monitored, but the Globalstar has been hacked to the degree that they are traceable. I would assume that Iridium security is just as bad. Here's the deal. You are sending a tweet essentially. The Globalstar, being a one way device, can't perform Diffie Helman. The Iridium is two way, but the act of performing Diffie Helman would take more data than the actual message. So I assume everything is in the clear. I also assume the base monitors satcom from mountain peaks, when possible. So say hello to them!

wow, reminds me of the X-Files)