If the cell phone is giving your position to rescuers; stay off the phone!

[Walking Bear]

Did you hear about the guy lost on Mt. Hood? SAR was using the GPS signal from his Cell Phone to find him; till the phone went dead; due to the battery being drained. From the guy making calls to family (Ok, I get the in case I never see you again calls) and posting status updates to Face book! The facebook thing I do not get. Drain the phone give SAR your position; use it to say "I love you to family" just in case. Facebook? I THINK NOT!!

[Wise Old Owl]

Most smart phones with the GPS on will drain a battery in six hours.... even Latitude ... uploads every 12 hours... waste of time.

my post is based on my personal experience.

[hunter63]

"I will give up my smart phone when the pry the cold dead fingers open......"....
I guess thats one way of looking at it.

Hindsight is always 20-20.........Just saying.....

[jfeatherjohn]

Sometimes I think we get in those unusual situations, and we don't think it out.
These can be costly times.

[Delta 5168]

Ok, question here. Would it work if you just turned on your phone for a couple of minutes at the quarter hours or do you have to give out a steady signal?

[kyratshooter]

From what I have been told the phone does not have to be in use, it simply has to be on for them to pull a signal. They can send the signal to your number and it will bounce back as long as the phone is turned on and they have your number to work with.

I think this will be one for the Darwin award ceremony this year.

[canid]

In general, the phone only needs to be powered on for your signal to be recorded at any cell-site it can reach, as the cell peripheral is turned on by default. In many phones, It's baseband processor is integral to the application proccessor and can not be turned off seperately, but the GPS is different. From smart phones the GPS, Bluetooth, Wifi and in many cases these days even the GPRS/GSM/CDMA peripherals are compartmentalized and can be turned on/off at will. All of these radio peripherals can tax the battery signficantly, and the industry realized that users wanted greater standby or idle battery life.

The broadcast signals to the tower can help SAR locate you, but remember that they may only give your location to within a few miles of the tower, though they could also do much better, to within a few hundreds of yards. the GPS is substantially more accurate, but not all GPS recievers include a broadcase beacon. GPS does SAR no good if you're not getting your fix to them one way or another. If I'd been that guy and had a cell signal, I'd have just posted a quick message to facebook, containing my GPS fix, my love/reassurance to my family and a request that they forward those funny little numbers to law enforcement just to make certain, then turned it off to save power and stayed put.

[Cast-Iron]

I'm not familiar with the inner-workings or programming of smart phones, but I've witnessed enough failures with them so as not to stake my survival on one. Many remote areas don't have any/much cell coverage anyway. I'd suggest a Personal Locater Beacon, or PLB. A PLB can be bought for a few hundred dollars and operates on a dedicated frequency of 406 MHz, which is monitored 24/7 around the planet. Each unit contains a unique id encoded in the distress signal which allows monitoring stations to attempt to contact the registered user before dispatching search and rescue resources. This system significantly reduces the number of false alarms and results in faster response times. Additionally, they also incorporate a low frequncy homing beacon at 121.5 MHz, which pinpoints your location once s&r has reached the area. For the occasional "explorer" there are rentals available. Perhaps others will learn from this tragedy.

[Delta 5168]

I'm not familiar with the inner-workings or programming of smart phones, but I've witnessed enough failures with them so as not to stake my survival on one. Many remote areas don't have any/much cell coverage anyway. I'd suggest a Personal Locater Beacon, or PLB. A PLB can be bought for a few hundred dollars and operates on a dedicated frequency of 406 MHz, which is monitored 24/7 around the planet. Each unit contains a unique id encoded in the distress signal which allows monitoring stations to attempt to contact the registered user before dispatching search and rescue resources. This system significantly reduces the number of false alarms and results in faster response times. Additionally, they also incorporate a low frequncy homing beacon at 121.5 MHz, which pinpoints your location once s&r has reached the area. For the occasional "explorer" there are rentals available. Perhaps others will learn from this tragedy.

Where do you rent a PLB?

[Cast-Iron]

There was a place in Anchorage, AK when I lived up there, but I can't recall the name of the store anymore. I believe some national parks like Denali have them available for backcountry visitors too. (I'm not sure if this is a loan or rental program)

FYI, here's a site I found on the web but I've never dealt with them. Looks like they get $45/weekly rental.

http://www.plbrentals.com/

[canid]

You can buy a GPS PLB for around $100 these days.

[Cast-Iron]

You can buy a GPS PLB for around $100 these days.

Thanks for the info, I didn't realize they had gotten so inexpensive. Makes it even easier to include one when traveling in remote backcountry.

[SQWERL]

911 can have your phone pinged as long as you don't use cricket. they can't ping their phones or won't. fcc regs state cell phone companies have 30 seconds to retransmit your signal to 911 every time i push the retransmit button. and then they only have to be accurate up to i believe it is 300-500 feet 95% of the time. to help save battery life turn off all programs that run in the background like facebook. the longer you stay on the phone with 911 the easier it is to find where you are. that is if your cell phone is a phase 2 capable phone. most new phones are. phase one phones will only give the cell tower coords. and the side of the tower that your phone is hitting on and triangulation can be used but is not very accurate.

[1stimestar]

There was a place in Anchorage, AK when I lived up there, but I can't recall the name of the store anymore. I believe some national parks like Denali have them available for backcountry visitors too. (I'm not sure if this is a loan or rental program)

FYI, here's a site I found on the web but I've never dealt with them. Looks like they get $45/weekly rental.

http://www.plbrentals.com/

No, you can bring your own PLB into Denali but they don't provide one. When applying for your back country permit they even make you sign a waiver informing you that if you do not return by the specified date, THEY will not initiate a search. Your stated contact person must call them to initiate the search.

[Cast-Iron]

No, you can bring your own PLB into Denali but they don't provide one. When applying for your back country permit they even make you sign a waiver informing you that if you do not return by the specified date, THEY will not initiate a search. Your stated contact person must call them to initiate the search.

Well it must be CRS catching up with me, but I do remember reading an article recently which said something about a PLB loaner program and I could swear it was Denali mentioned in that story. Thanks for the correction.

If your mobile phone has the capability to help SAR find you, great! Use it sparingly. It's just not the best tool for this particular job. For anyone interested here's a link to a bit more detail about distress radiobeacons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon

[Rick]

If he had a signal why not just call 911 and tell them where he was?

Think of a cell phone, GPS equipped or not, as a 2 way radio. In essence, that's what it is regardless of whether it uses GSM or CDMA technology. Your cell phone transmits an identification signal and each cell tower not only measures the strength of the signal but also something called "angle of approach". So calculating signal strength from tower to tower and angle of approach on each tower the position of a given cell phone can be calculated as well as the direction of travel. Although Canid was correct on tracking to the closest tower you can also calculate distance from that tower based on signal strength, which is not battery dependent. Not exact either. GPS changed all that, obviously. With three or more towers pinging you can, of course, triangulate the signal. All of which takes time. Hence the need for GPS.

[1stimestar]

Well it must be CRS catching up with me, but I do remember reading an article recently which said something about a PLB loaner program and I could swear it was Denali mentioned in that story. Thanks for the correction.

If your mobile phone has the capability to help SAR find you, great! Use it sparingly. It's just not the best tool for this particular job. For anyone interested here's a link to a bit more detail about distress radiobeacons:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_radiobeacon

Heh, maybe they started one. Who knows. I haven't been there in over a year. I was going so often it started to get boring lol.