Twenty sled-mounted GPS units on their way to Nome in test
Starting today, fans will be able to track the progress of 19 mushers and one trailbreaker as the Iditarod runs a live test using leading-edge GPS transmitters with powerful batteries. The Iditarod has floated the idea for about three years to attach a transmitter to every sled in the race, using satellite technology to present each team’s location live at all times as the race moves from Anchorage to Nome.

This year, technology finally caught up to the vision.

A company called IonEarth makes the transmitters, which already are used to track adventure races such as Baja off-road events and ocean sailing competitions; they teamed Iridium Satellite LLC and another company that develops military grade batteries. That’s key: these units are expected to last the entire race with one set of batteries in temperatures down to 40-below Fahrenheit. If the temperature plunges lower than that, which is easily possible, the electronics on some of the transmitters will simply stop working, but the devices should kick back on once it warms up, according to IonEarth.

Not everyone is sold on the concept. There are concerns about mushers being able to get hold of information from the tracking system and use it to their advantage, violating race rules about accepting outside assistance. Race officials say they will limit access to tracking information. And mushers who support the idea say the technology wouldn’t tell them much that they wouldn’t already know simply by observing the competition on the trail.

This year, the 30-ounce units will send a signal every 15 minutes that will tell the speed, temperature and musher’s location along the trail. If it works, the goal would be to put one of these in every sled next year and possibly increase the transmissions to every three minutes, Iditarod director Stan Hooley said.

Besides being helpful to race fans, the technology may a boon to the race. Hooley envisions race checkers using hand-held PDA devices to check in mushers, meaning race results could go live almost real-time through the satellite system. It also might help in situations where mushers get lost, as happened last year when two mushers went missing for many hours in the Alaska Range.

Many of the teams testing the units this year were at the front of the pack in 2007 and are expected to be up there again in 2008. See the IonEath Iditarod tracking site here.