[MilCom] Mount Hood Climbers.

[lrk]

On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 12:39:56PM +0000, sdaitch at mor.ibb.gov wrote:
> Yes, agreed, a $65 FRS radio on the climbers and a $65 FRS radio with the searchers might have located them much faster, but, the fact is, as I understood it, the climbers did have at least one cell phone and the reports were that cell phone did make contact with the cell network at one point.
> 
> With that in mind, can the cell phone companies and the techncial industry devise a cell base station that operates like a paged two way radio and can communicate with a specific cell phone?  
 
Possible but with limited use so probably too expensive.


> I could be wrong, but the number of cell phones in use in the US, for example, probably far outnumbers the FRS radio population.  Cell phones generally have far better battery life than FRS radios, granted most FRS radios can use field replaceable cells, typically AA or AAA, while cell phones use flat packs.
 
In the US we have at the moment several different standards so you would
need a very complex system. Someday it may be mostly GSM but with the US
telecom industry, it is hard to know.


> I don't know the three climbers lost on Mount Hood were relying on the cell phone as a replacement for proper planning in regards to weather concerns and routes.

Probably not relying on cellphones. The 'proper planning' would have
included an EPIRB. (info at noaa.gov I think)


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