Global Tracker

 My fellow traveler, Al Hawthorne, the Africa Area Director for Wycliffe Associates, has been testing a very cool device on this journey we’re taking together across Africa.  It’s a unit called inReach made by the Delorme company and designed to track and communicate with folks anywhere in the world in case of an emergency.

Using both GPS and satellite communication technology, once you turn it on, it will send a signal every few minutes to a central location giving the precise coordinates of your position.  Then, if necessary, it also allows you to make simple two-way text messaging so you can indicate if you’re OK or in need of some kind of urgent assistance.  All this can happen remotely without the need of any cell phone network or Internet connection.

Just for fun, Al turned the unit on as we were taking our MAF flights across the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Later, he was able to retrieve the location information that had been stored on a website to see exactly where we had been. Here’s an image from that website showing our flights over the past few days. (Isn't it great to see that MAF pilots can still fly in a straight line?!)

For more information about InReach, check out the following website: http://www.inreachdelorme.com