i was lucky enough to have a buddy of mine (GANJ)send me a pocket mail for free but i was wondering what the difference between the old pocket mails and the new ones were. especially the weight factor. the one i have right now is blue the ones on their web site are silver. and i am not that concerned about impressing others with my shiny stuff (maybe a little). if anyone has any info. please let me know. Thanks
WISE OWL
I had the Blue one, got it cheap on Ebay. Then unfortunately I downloaded a virus that corrupted the memory. Another hiker who was done hiking gifted me his silver one. It doesn’t do anthing different except you can use it with cell phones. BTW: It is so hard to get a cell connection using the pocketmail with it is almost impossible. Sue/HH:girl
Hammock Hanger
Yes you subscribe to PocketMail’s service. You get an 800 number to call and one that only works with payphones, 320 prefix, or at least that is the way it was on 2002. I have no experience with using cell phones with it but I had no problems using the service and maintaining my journal here with it. I did an email to my transcriber for each day and they copied and pasted it in. I also posted the email address they gave me as the point of contact here on Trail Journals. I then got emailed all of my guest book entries along with a LOT of supportive email from all over the world. That was a side effect I didn’t expect. As far as use, they have a year contract deal that auto-renews at year end so be careful about that. Also carry a headlamp for use with it to save on the backlight using so much battery. I had to replace batteries maybe once a month to maybe two. Honestly I loved the thing and still have it out of sentimental value along with never knowing what I might do as far as hiking. I did try and not expose the device to a lot of people but there were others with it. I made myself a little sil stuff sack for it and when I left my pack on Clingmans Dome for two weeks following a shoulder dislocation, it survived while everything else was mostly wet. So pocketmail.com should answer your questions. Mine is silver whose model I don’t know since the label is worn off from use. Oh yeah, payphones aren’t around much in the real world but on the AT they seemed to be. I also politely asked a few people like in hostels if I could dial an 800 number and nobody said no.
Two Scoops