Trust me, I am a techy freak! I tested it and retested it right out of the box! When you first get it, you have to activate it which requires the $99 fee for the year. You then set up your emergency numbers and so on. I sent a regular message and a help message to my wife and it went through within like 30 second. The first message was telling her I was ok and everything was fine, and the second message told her I needed non-emergency help ASAP. Along with the text to her phone was my GPS coordinates. Really, really cool! Worked perfect. I wasn't brave enough to push the 911 button! I also got the $7.95/year $100,000 personal search and rescue insurance. The reason my buddy didn't make it off the mountain last year was because of weather prohibited search and rescue for two days. With the $100,000 insurance, my family can hire teams to look for me and not worry about all the politics of bad weather and local authorities deciding on my life! I also opted for the $49 "unlimited" tracking for the first year for my own personal reasons of being able to come back home and see exactly where we were all day long for mapping reasons. My wife can also look on the internet at anytime and see exactly where I am at on the mountain (be sure to shut it off anywhere else!) on Google Earth. I think for the money it is the best peace of mind a person can have. They work pretty much anywhere in the world and have like a 99.6% success rate! Can't beat that! Along with any messages sent back to town is your exact coordinates to within like 9 feet!! Call for help and stay put! Totally waterproof for 30 minutes in 3 feet of water! Very good construction! Not cheesy at all.
