it was a "Spot". I find them extremely handy and well worth the price. I'm going to start taking mine with me when I travel and I'll probably start taking it when I'm going off roading into areas less traveled as well. You never know. My son and I were crossing from the Pacific side to the Sea of Cortez through the middle of Baja on his CJ-7 when we broke a rear axel. While trying to get him out of the hole we were stuck in the other vehicle had problems when it's battery became loose and fell into the fan. Both vehicles were down and we were right in the middle of one really large desert. We were almost to the point where I would have considered activating one if it were an option at the time. We were hot from working under the Baja sun all day in June, tired from the 8 days of surfing and camping we had been doing and generally pissed off at our really bad luck. We were down to a couple of hot dogs for dinner and getting thin on water. I said "OK, we're done here. We're pitching camp right here and we'll deal with this in the morning. We spent the rest of afternoon resting, drinking the remaining beer and kicking back in the hammocks. The next day all the problem fixes fell into place and it turned out to be a not so bad day. So I guess the question is, would I have activated the spot if I would have had the chance? Who knows, I might have started a rescue operation when we didn't really need it. We were finely able to get ourselves out of the fix we were in. I don't know but I'm going to have the chance next time to find out.