Setting up and Using SpotRetrieve

You'll need

1. a free Twitter account. Get one here.
2. a mobile phone that can send and receive text messages

If you just want to follow another pilot who has a SPOT, this is all you need. Those that want to follow and be followed also need to get:

3. a SPOT Messenger. Here are some cheap places to buy one online.


To Setup:

For those that just want to follow:
4. add your mobile phone to your Twitter account here.
You're done. Skip to the "To Use" section below.

If you also want to be followed:
5. go to www.spotretrieve.com and register your ESN number and your Twitter account info.
6. add incoming@spotretrieve.com to your SPOT Messenger's outbound email distribution for either your "Help" or "OK" message or both. I personally add the email to both so I have a choice of informing people whether I've landed safely or not.
7. add your ESN number anywhere in your SPOT message. For example, "Jim Chu landed. 0-7854462"


To Use:

a. Retrieve drivers or buddies follow you (i.e. turn on receiving your SPOT messages) by sending a SMS text message to 40404 in the US (or 21212 in Canada; see Twitter's help page for other countries).

For example, my twitter account id is "jimchu". A retrieve driver sends the text message "follow jimchu" to 40404 and the driver will get a text message each time I press OK or Help.

b. They can stop getting notifications for jimchu by texting "leave jimchu"

For a full list of twitter mobile text commands, see the Twitter help page.



To modify your spotretrieve registration, go to www.spotretrieve.com and login with the Twitter account info you registered with. Here you can update or delete your registration entirely. If you change SPOT devices or want to associate your SPOT with another Twitter account, click "delete registration" and start again at step (5).

Forgot your password? Reset it at twitter.com. Spotretrieve's username/password system is linked to twitter's and will work with your most recent twitter login. Here's the link to twitter's reset password system: http://twitter.com/account/resend_password


If you have more questions, read the FAQ or leave one in the comments for me to answer and add to the FAQ.
Got comments or other feedback, leave them here
Wanna talk to other people who are using this and share ideas, go to the User Forum