Slashdot Mirror
Amateur Radio In the Backcountry?
bartle writes "I spend a lot of time hiking in the Colorado Rockies. Cell phone reception is very unreliable and I'm curious if carrying a small amateur radio would make any sense at all. I don't want to add too much weight to my pack; from what I gather, a radio weighing a pound would give me at most 5 to 10 watts of transmitting power. I have no idea if this is enough to be effective in a mountainous region, and I'm hoping some experienced Slashdot hams could give me a clue. I'm only interested in acquiring a radio and license if it is a lot more effective and reliable than the cell phone I already carry. Otherwise I'll just wait for Globalstar to bring back their duplex service and buy a next-generation SPOT messaging device. (I know some Slashdotters will want to suggest a modern SPOT or Personal Locator Beacon; these are suitable for the worst kinds of emergencies, but I'll point out that reliable communication can help prevent small crises from becoming big ones.) Are small amateur radios effective in the field, or are vehicle rigs really the only way to go? Or am I better off just waiting for satellite?"
Most frequently you're going to be talking to a repeater, so it depends somewhat on where you are in relation to the repeater. Having said that 5-10 watts is a lot of power compared to a cell phone.
KA0ZRW - now in WA
and don't work well in the mountains unless you and the other guy are both within line of sight of each other. Repeaters can help work around the LoS problem but there probably aren't many in the area you are considering.
jacking up your power can only help so much. it's not like the higher power blasts through the mountains. Higher antennas can help, but if you're already in mountains, you are probably outgunned in the height department.
Some form of satellite is probably going to be your best bet. Or some lower frequency (LF/HF) that will cover variable ground terrain better.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You might try to find a local ham radio club and ask what their experiences in the area are, and specifically where you're going to be hiking.
Inmarsat. It works in the mountains of Afganistan.
Ham radio is a HOBBY for people interested in communicating by radio, and the technical development of same.
It is not a replacement for your cell phone. It is not a replacement for ship-to-shore-email services. It is not a replacement for wi-fi.
We are not the Police/Fire Reserve. We are not the DHS Auxiliary. We are not the NOAA Field Agents. We are not an emergency communications service.
(We -can- do this stuff as a matter of Last Resort, "When All Else Fails", but that is not our primary purpose! Many people forget this!)
If you are not interested in communication by radio or the technical development involved in doing so, DO NOT waste your time with ham radio.
You will only disappoint yourself.
Short answer is that it depends.
Are you going to learn morse code? It's not required for a license anymore, but a QRP (low power) rig on 40 meters can work hundreds or thousands of miles with a decent antenna if the atmosphere is right. QRP rigs can be extremely small and light, too.
Yaseu has the FT-817 all-mode all-band radio that comes in at about 1.2kg (just more than 2.5lbs) including the antenna and battery. It's about 5"x6"x2" as I recall, with about 5W max output. It definitely gives you options.
Sig??? I don't need no stinkin Sig!
...no.
There's no amateur radio transceiver that weighs in at less than a pound that would give you the kind of power or reliability you're looking for. Also, unless you're willing to put in the effort to obtain at least a general class amateur radio license, you'd pretty much be limited to the VHF/UHF segments of the amateur bands, which are not good in mountainous terrain unless you are certain you'd be in range of one or more repeaters during your trips. If you were willing to learn Morse code, you would have access to a small portion of the 40 meter band with an entry-level (technician) ticket but then you'd have to carry some sort of long wire antenna and be able to get it up into a couple of trees if you want a realistic hope of making any sort contact.
I'd say that either use a vehicle mounted amateur radio rig that can put out 100W or so--there are several neat little units available, but they don't come cheap, around $1000--or just enjoy the outdoors without worrying about communication. Hell, I packed into the Sierra Nevada for years without a cell phone (they hadn't even been invented at the time) or any other sort of link to the outside world. I liked it that way.
73,
de KJ6BSO sk
This ain't rocket surgery.
They're here now, although they are a little expensive.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
I'm involved in wilderness search and rescue in remote areas of Arizona. We have no cell coverage in most of the areas we work in, and only have sheriff's radio repeater coverage in about 50%. Amateur radio repeaters cover most of the rest. My commercial VHF radio is programmed with all the regional ham repeaters in addition to the sheriff's frequencies and every other wilderness public safety frequency used in the region. If I'm going into certain areas with especially bad coverage, I'll also carry a quad-band handheld (VX-7R) and an external 25W VHF amplifier. No matter what gear you have, location matters most. It is often necessary to climb the nearest ridge to make contact with a repeater, since valleys are usually completely dead spots. The only effective way to communicate from a deep, narrow valley is with HF, or at least 6M with over 100W of power. We use low-band VHF at 120W between vehicles and do fine in very rough terrain. So yes, carry radio gear. Know your area's repeaters well, though, and be prepared to seek higher ground in order to communicate. A SPOT locator is a very good idea in addition, though, and serves a completely different purpose from other communications gear.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
So what he needs is a 27MHz Citizen's Band radio? Besides rednecks and freaks, who still uses CB?
Truck drivers. Oh, wait...
(Disclaimer: I am a truck driver, so I'm allowed to make that joke without being modded troll/flamebait.)
This ain't rocket surgery.
Yes, a ham radio can get you much better range and ability to contact the nearest town without much weight. Much better than a cellphone. Cellphones are line of sight around the 2ghz range, they stink without a repeater nearby. Don't bother with a handheld HF rig, unless you know morse code you're not going to get any skywave propogation via phone at 5w. Pick up a 2m monoband handheld transceiver and a portable 2m yagi to go with it. You'll be able to reach an easy 50 miles with FM voice modes and hit the repeater in the nearest big town. This assumes that there is not a mountain in the way, of course.. You're not going to be able to get radio THROUGH a mountain. Ideally you're up on the side of a mountain. I understand that you'll be worried about weight, but it seems to me that being able to contact civilization is pretty important if you run into real trouble. I can recommend this portable 2m yagi: http://www.arrowantennas.com/arrowii/146-3ii.html and really any 2m monoband HT will do you well, don't pay for the bells and whistles. The old HTX-202's work great (if you don't mind paying a pound or 2 for your radio). With regard to getting a technician class amateur radio license, the code requirement is long gone and it should be pretty trivial for most slashdotters to obtain a ham radio license nowadays. One last thought: AO-51. There are low-earth orbit amateur radio satellites that can be worked with handheld transceivers and a good dual-band yagi. The passes are short (15 minutes) and the process takes some practice, but you could definitely get out a distress call that way, no matter what the terrain is.
Each processor would proceed sequentially as if it had been better for them not to rise against Saul.
If you move forward with this, one option is to setup your car as a repeater. You can park your car at the trailhead and turn on the repeater in your car. Then the idea is to hopefully hit your car from your handheld, then your car can hit a repeater. In addition to the additional radio in the car that supports Cross-Band repeating, you will need to add a battery or two to your car, and a fresh one in the trunk.
Like others have all pointed out, the handheld frequencies are all generally line of site. This could mean that in a real emergency, you may need to climb to the top of the nearest peak to actually have line of site to anyone. Then once on the top of the peak you may find that your cell phone works as well!
Amateur radios work great in the backcountry in communicating with your own party in a different campsite or at a base camp while you continue on up to a summit.
The SPOTs as you have already researched works pretty well. I especially like the non-911 "Help" button, which just sends a predefined message to someone. I think this is a great feature, as you may need someone you know to start hiking up to you to help you out, but may not need a full Search and Rescue.
If you get your ham license, a 2 meter handheld might fit the bill. Look at the ARRL (arrl.org) repeater handbook and see if there are 2 meter repeaters in the vicinity of where you hike. Hams like to place repeaters on the highest mountops when they can so you may find there are signals available. Amateur hand helds are very small and light. A technician class amateur license is easy to obain. There are also personal emergency locater beacons (PLB's) similar to the EPIRBS carried by ships and aircraft that are available for hikers. You can't communicate on these devices however, if you get lost or stranded you can activate it the satellite receivers relay the coordinates of your location to air force search and rescue teams.
Modern VHF/UHF handi-talkies are, well, handy if you've got repeaters that you can reach. The other alternative is HF low power rigs that can also be quite small and portable. If you don't mind learning the code, it can be extremely effective. Here's a mountain rescue story that involves just that.. If you take this approach, you can arrange scheduled times and frequencies when someone will listen for you. The great thing about this is that the person can be half way across the country.
I'll second the opinion about the Yaesu FT-817 as a great portable "DC to Daylight" rig that can run SSB and FM voice modes as well as CW (code) on most of the commonly used bands from HF to UHF. It's a little larger, but is extremely capable. The Icom IC703 is another portable rig. See one in use hiking in Colorado here .
I've been a ham for 53 years now and have run the kilowatt rigs with big beam antennas over 100 feet in the air, but I have the most challenging fun with a 4 watt CW rig and a wire or mobile antenna.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
When building our local EmComm van I specked in a CB. The rest of the hams thought I was crazy. I said, "Who do you think will be delivering supplies, maybe a trucker?" They then thought it was a wonderful idea.
The goal isn't to insure that all communications are by ham radio, the goal is to communicate.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Most importantly though, don't rely on technology to get you out of a jam. Avy beacons fail, GPSs die, radios don't reach people on the other end. They are all wonderful, life saving tools but odds are you won't need any of that stuff. Read the Wilderness First Responder medical book, read Freedom of the Hills, etc. Go prepared. A vast majority of the time, you'll be able to get yourself and other people help without 'calling' anyone.
--Let's hack root on 127.0.0.1 --panZ
As I understand, you need the radio for a purely utilitarian purpose - to talk to specific people. You are not a ham yourself (not yet, at least) and likely the people you want to talk to are not hams either (otherwise you'd ask them, not Slashdot.) This means none of you can legally (or effectively) use ham radio. This can be corrected; ham license exams are not complicated, I took three on the same day, from no license to extra, but I have radio background and I'm not new to ham radio (I was first licensed around 1980, I think.) A man from the street will have lots of problems with higher level exams unless he understands things like the theory of linear circuits, complex impedance, and such.
You certainly can go ahead and get a ham radio license for yourself, if that is interesting to you in any way (there is more than one way to enjoy ham radio.) But you probably can't tell your friends, parents, or whoever is on the other end, to go and get a license - that's probably beyond most people's abilities, just like it is for me to learn classical dance :-) People are all different.
However if you only want communication then getting a ham radio and license doesn't make much sense. If I want to fly from SF to Paris I don't want to study for a pilot license; I buy a ticket, and a professional pilot will do all the flying for me. It is cheaper, simpler, safer, and lets me do things that I want to do - not what I have to do.
Technically, ham radio in emergency is the absolute best way to make a contact with another ham. Even satellites are not as reliable. Ham radio depends primarily on equipment that you (and the other guy) have. No need for expensive satellites that may or may not be in the sky or otherwise operational. There are many ham bands, and you can always find a band that works at the time of need. HF bands will work for short range communication pretty much at any time (using the ground wave.) In mountains NVIS makes sense. V/UHF is not likely to work there because distances are large, terrain - rough, and repeaters would be scarce. To be well prepared for an emergency you need to have an HF rig, and if you can do CW (at any speed) it's even better.
An experienced ham would probably take a small transceiver with him into mountains; either HF or HF+VHF. He wouldn't need much of an antenna - any long wire would do fine at his elevation. In good conditions he'd be able to communicate with the whole USA with mere 5W; in bad conditions he'd be able to contact a local ham to report an emergency (and he'd have his GPS coordinates.)
A new ham most likely won't be able to fully utilize the spectrum that he has access to (depends on his license.) He'd bring a UHF HT with him, and he wouldn't be able to hear anything. Also repeaters are tricky sometimes, they require PL tones and you need to know them in advance to elicit a response from a silent repeater. So you must come prepared.
In your situation it would be safer for you if you rely upon commercial methods of communication. They are better supported and they require hardly any experience. If you need the radio only to report an emergency then you can get a beacon for that. If you want to talk to your friends from the top of a mountain then you need a satellite phone (and lots of money to pay for it.)
They fail because of the lack of coverage, the charge in the battery or the fact that no one else will be able to figure it out (if you are the one hurt).
Some simple precautions go a long way: the buddy system, first aid kit, topo map and compass, planning your route, extra food and water, notify friends of your departure and return. These do not cost as much and will do a lot more.
I used to carry a 2 meter rig when I went backpacking with the scouts. I found there was no coverage - except near cities.
The back country is a great place. But, it is terribly unforgiving for any lack of preparedness.
Original poster indicated that his primary area of focus is coverage in the Colorado mountains. I do not have specific first-hand knowledge of the coverage area for amateur VHF/UHF in Colorado, but this repeater map could be a good reference, though it is dated 2006. It's authors indicate that a 2009 version is for sale in print.
A preliminary skimming indicates coverage in several mountain cities. I'm no radio engineer, but I would imagine that the Estes Park repeater would probably do him pretty good in Rocky Mountain National Park -- at least in the highlands...
FWIW I live in Colorado.
Most responders seem to assume some sort of VHF but, as a few people point out, that's not really a great idea because there are big gaps in repeater coverage in the mountains.
However, 5W (or less) on HF CW would be ample for emergency communications, and you wouldn't have to worry about whether there's a repeater nearby. There are lots of designs for lightweight QRP (i.e., low power) single-frequency (or limited-frequency) rigs that would be suitable. I'd probably go for one that transmitted on 40m, just because there's more CW activity there, so you're more likely to be heard quickly than on, say, 80m.
I don't hike in the mountains, but if I did I would definitely carry such a rig with me. It only needs to save your life once.
So glad to see some people thinking about that. I hate how often the ham community shuns CB and the mere mention of it. Yes, it certainly has it's own problems, but nearly EVERY truck and a good amount of touring motorcycles are equipped with CB. Considering how many charity bike rides that ARS covers that make use of motorcycles, this also seems overlooked. I've never thought of it from the delivery, but I'll certainly keep that in mind in the future.
[citation needed]
This ain't rocket surgery.
The antenna issue can be dealt with but how would he know how to find the satellite out in the backcountry? He'd have to lug a laptop with sat tracking software installed along with him. Besides, working satellites can be pretty tricky. Not only do you have to track the moving bird with your antenna, you have to continually adjust your frequencies to compensate for the Doppler Effect. The OP doesn't even have his ticket yet; it might be a little much to expect an inexperienced operator to make a satellite contact.
This ain't rocket surgery.
I've got a ham station, and it includes an AM/LSB/USB base CB radio (top center in that image) and associated dedicated antenna. If the goal is being able to communicate in an emergency (and that is one of my goals as a ham), ignoring one of the most widespread tools out there is not the best idea.
It's also not fair to just say "rednecks and freaks"; there are a lot of folks in this area, ranchers and so forth, not "rednecks" by any definition other than perhaps suntan, who use CB as a practical (and free) means to keep in touch. I know some that are a good deal more sophisticated in both outlook and education than some of the characters I've run into here on slashdot.
For that matter, ham radio is no exclusive preserve of reason, manners, and intelligence, either. So let's keep the "redneck" comments down to a dull roar, shall we?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I have them chop off three of my limbs, have a Bothrops asper bite me on the remaining one a couple of times, encase me in several feet of ice, and drop me in a deep, 33f mountain lake attached to a 40-ton anchor on a short chain.
You kids just don't know the meaning of challenge anymore. You probably still wear shoes in your own house. Weenies.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"Don't do it." FUCK you, chief. Who are you to discourage a potential future Ham based on what YOU say the Amateur service is "for?" People become Hams for all sorts of reasons. The FCC specifies what we may NOT do on amateur bands, and gives reasons for establishing them in the first place, but EVERY use permissible is entirely valid and should be encouraged to further the hobby.
So this guy starts out with a backpack HF rig to make sure he has a way to get messages out of the wild, and then what? You should know how this goes if you've been in the hobby as long as you say you have. You start out with a specific purpose, and then one thing or another starts interesting you, and before you know it you're watching the waterfall for PSK31 on HF and trying to DX with Zimbabwe a couple months later.
I became a Ham BECAUSE of the service's emergency provisions. I watched a plane fly into the North Tower of the WTC and kill my cousin and her coworkers in Cantor-Fitzgerald, and then heard about ARES and RACES volunteers stitching Manhattan's emergency services together so they could communicate in the wake of having their repeaters turned to ash. I heard those stories and said "I want to be on that team. THAT'S how I'm going to contribute." So I got a license, and got elmered by some of the guys who volunteered on Wall Street, and eventually started learning about how huge the hobby is and how much you can do with it. I found out about MARS and Skywarn and EchoLink and IRLP, and all the incredible things you can do with just a little dual-band HT, and I was hooked. Now my friends and I talk on a number of the local repeaters in town (I've since moved) on a regular basis.
But according to you, I never should have started, because emergency services are not the "primary purpose" of the Amateur Service. Kill yourself. I can't stand curmudgeonly old fucks like you who think if you didn't start on CW on 10m you're somehow illegitimate. Get over yourself.
+++ATH0
I find it distressing that so many posters here have talked about VHF/UHF only, and in relation to repeaters. There's more to ham radio than that, there's more to portable ham radio than that. The satellite option was at least interesting. The antennas don't have to be large (look up arrow antenna), the problem is calculating where the satellite will be and when, and then getting through the massive amounts of traffic on said satellite.
Repeaters are great, but they only work when you're in range. If you're going to be in the rockies, there will be a lot of times when mountains will block reception. When on hilltops, you may get TOO MUCH reception, from far away, that makes it difficult to use the one repeater you're trying to.
If you buy a more expensive HF rig, you can get communication even from down in a ditch. Usually, HF communication uses large antennas and the curvature of the earth makes the signal bounce off a layer of the ionosphere far away, and because of the angle, land even farther than that, sometimes bouncing off the earth back to the atmosphere, etc. But the problem with this is it tends to be unpredictable. There are predictions that can be made, but they're only general. A bigger problem, for the backpacker, is that these signals are almost always far away. the NVIS method, "Near Vertical Incidence Skyway", involved signals that go nearly straight up to the ionosphere, and then almost straight back down again. The result is hopping over mountains and fairly predictable communication with low interference. An advantage is that the antenna doesn't have to be high off the ground, in fact it's REQUIRED to be close to the ground...but stretch out horizontablly, not vertical like a walkie-talkie antenna. As the antennas tend to be larger for the HF band, you'd have to make camp and set up your hunk of wire a few feet above the ground before getting on the air. There are other issues with NVIS, the only one of importance being that the frequency which you tune to, in order to facilitate communications, varies throughout that day. But it does so in a predicatable manner.
If you get the Yaesu FT-817, you get a small radio that's just a little bigger than a walkie-talkie, that covers both HF bands, VHF, and UHF...so you can use repeaters or NVIS as available. The battery and charger than come with the FT-817 are crappy, go for the aftermarket W4RT produced models. There's an aftermarket antenna called "Miracle Whip", that is much better than the antenna included with the unit, is small and easy to use. You might also want to buy a portable solar panel. The ones made by Brunton are nice. Get the 12 Watt version, the six watt one isn't enough to charge your radio quickly.
Last piece of advice: don't just wait until you're out in the field to get familiar with the equipment. Get practice using it, with all its accessories in various configurations, BEFORE you go camping. It will be well worth the practice.
FT-817, W4RT battery, charger, Miracle Whip, solar panel -- package can be acquired for under $1000 (much less, in my case).
Speaking of repeaters, a really good option is to have a good mobile dual band rig in your car, capable of what's called crossband repeating. Basically the idea is you transmit from your HT (handheld) on one band (like 70cm), which is received by the rig in your car and retransmitted on another band (like 2m) preset to the input frequency of a local repeater. If the local repeater has autopatch (most do) then you can make phone calls, or in an emergency just call for help to any of the people listening to that repeater. Also many repeaters are networked, so you can communicate across many hundreds or thousands of miles if you wanted to get in touch with a specific person (like a buddy that listens in for you while you're on hikes).
Both the wattage and antenna gain of a mobile (car-mounted) rig are orders of magnitude better than any HT rig (due to FCC regulation of wattage allowed for handheld transcievers, antenna size, and even vehicle groundplane), so you could reliably work repeaters dozens of miles away in that scenario.
Oh, on another note, many HTs are now multiple band (my Yaesu handheld transmits on 4 bands!), and thus the OEM will include an antenna that is only mediocre across all the bands the HT supports. For best performance you should use an antenna specifically tuned for the band you are going to use. I used 70cm for your HT in my example above, because antennas for that band are nice and short which is good for portability. Then you can have a high gain 2m on your car that can really reach out and touch repeaters far away.
Better known as 318230.
(1) It is possible to rent a satellite phone, a lot of places. Why is the OP "waiting" for a satellite phone? They are not any more expensive than a lot of ham radios. The airtime charges are expensive, but presumably limited to important or emergency situations.
(2) Remember that some personal locator beacons can be used to send a simple non-emergency message to a pre-defined email address. Usually "OK" and your lat/long coordinates. Would this solve your problem? Personal locator beacons are the greatest backcountry safety device to come along in years. Get one, and then do everything you can to make sure you never need to use it.
(3) For hiker-to-hiker communications in the US, why not FRS/GMRS radios? These are cheaper than ham radios, and about as likely to give line-of-sight communications in the mountains. Licensing requirements are none (FRS) or trivial (GMRS).
Computers obey me.
[citation needed]
No citation needed because what the GP claims (HF DF done by criminals) is impossible and unbelievable. HF DF requires huge installations ("elephant cages") and this technology is not available to many nations, let alone vagrants. VHF DF is theoretically doable with a man-portable equipment, but in practical terms it isn't. Besides, any DF in mountains will result in tons of multipath, so you need to be in an airplane if you want to perform DF with any hope for accuracy.
It is true that there may be danger present when you are out there. There may be danger from weather, from [lack of] luck, from poisonous plants, from dangerous animals ... and from people. People would be the last on your list, unless you hike in Central Park of NYC. Criminals are not entirely stupid, they don't wait for people in the middle of nowhere; and hikers aren't likely to have their diamond rings and thick wallets with them. Some hikers may be armed. The most dangerous place for a hiker is probably the sidewalk in front of his home.
HamSatDroid (for Android) only needs a internet connection to update the keps (keplerian elements) file and that is not done automatically.
In fact, "fox hunting" is a popular activity among amateur radio operators.
Not in the mountains :-) You need to listen on repeater's input, and the terrain most likely doesn't give you the line of sight. On top of that, the criminal doesn't know the frequency, and doesn't know timing of transmissions (those are given to fox hunters.)
Basically geolocation with a single, not moving station is not possible; you only get a bearing to the strongest direction of arrival. To triangulate without moving you need to have many stations (more than three, probably.) To triangulate with a single site you have to move yourself - and you have to move fast because you need to change your position so much that the LOB changes, and you have to move faster than your transmitter moves. Ideally you spiral around the transmitter. This requires a vehicle, most likely a flying vehicle (that solves the LOS problem also.) Such a setup is completely out of a common trail stalker's league. Perhaps a rescue team would be sufficiently equipped and trained to do DF, since they often use helicopters. The professional equipment with Watson-Watt antennas will cost you just under $100K, ham level equipment with Doppler antennas will be much cheaper, but it will distort the audio with the switching tone.
If we set the reference risk of a hiker meeting a criminal at 100%, 99.(9)% of it will come from the criminal just lying in wait near the trail. No radio needed, and he instantly knows who is coming, how many people, are they armed or not, etc. - facts that can't be determined from a brief radio communication. Criminals are usually not very smart, and their methods are amazingly simple; that's why they so often work.
I thought comm satellites were geostationary.
Not amateur radio satellites. It costs a lot of money to up a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, far more than even a bunch of hams could come up with. As a result, amateur radio satellites are usually piggybacked on commercial launches with a bit of spare capacity and end up in a much lower orbit.
You can go to the Amsat Web site for more details.
This ain't rocket surgery.
Seems like the amateur radio folks need to get together with the amateur rocketry folks and cook some shit up and put a sucker in a geo-stationary orbit.
now that would be brain science ;)
It's the latter. I did a little research and it turns out I was mistaken about requiring an Internet connection.
This ain't rocket surgery.
My only reason for having a ham license is to communicate with my club members as outlined above. I don't involve myself with the greater 'ham' community other than to pay my membership dues in the local repeater society to help support the ongoing maintenance of the repeater network. In listening to some of these guys talk while on my way to work, I envision a rescue call going something like so:
- K2BRK Mayday Mayday Mayday. Anyone listening
+ K2BRK K2HLP what is the nature of your emergency
- I've injured my back and I'm trapped under a log in the Shwitzer valley. I need help.
+ Wow. The Shwitzer valley is a long way away. What rig are you using?
- A yaesu vx-3r and a yoyodyne G8 SMC antenna. Please send help.
+ Oh, I have one of those antennas. It's a good unit. I paid $38 from YingCo on eBay. Thank you for the contact K2BRK. K2HLP clear.
Just kidding. I suspect most basement Ham radio geeks are literally waiting for the day where they can assist in some sort of emergency situation.
Rent one when you're going out. Return it to the vendor when you get back. ;reception is appropriate ; available for rental without too much difficulty.
Weight is appropriate (I met an RAF mountain rescue team trialling an early one about 15 years ago ; eminently packable, though hardly light weight) ; dimensions are appropriate
Cost is the biggest reason for not owning one. Which is why there is a reasonable market for them for rent. Do roadworks in the middle of nowhere (cellphone-reception-wise, that can be almost anywhere) and it very quickly gets to be a justifiable business expense.
But frankly, I'd look at the human factors first. If you're on your own, what are you doing that you can't face the thought of crawling on a broken knee for a few days to get back to "civilisation" ? ; if you're in a group, why don't you have confidence in the ability of your group to get assistance and get you off? ; if you're leading a party, why don't you have confidence in yourself to get your party to safety while managing casualties. If you've not addressed those human factors, then you can be guaranteed that your technological fix will short a circuit (or have a flat battery) at precisely the wrong moment.
Murphy's Law : if it can go wrong, it will.
Extended Murphy's Law : if it can go wrong, it will go wrong, in the most inconvenient possible way, at the most inconvenient possible time.
Murphy was an optimist.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"