Quote:
Originally Posted by FJ40_owner
Jim B had a sat phone last year when your pal had his accident. He could not get a signal and we used ham radio to call for the bird.
Sat phones are finicky. Don't trust your life on one.
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I rented a Globalstar phone for the week, about $100 with the mailing back and forth. I prepaid about 30 minutes so I could play around with it. When it worked it sounded great but about half the time it would drop the call at some point. It didn't like trees and steep canyons.
In the case of the accident, near V-rock on Cadillac Hill, at one point I had a good signal, the emergency phone number entered and was just waiting for a patient status update from the on-scene EMT, before I hit send. Once I received the status and hit send... nothing... The location was a steep canyon side with trees. At this location and a few others I felt like the satellites were moving overhead. The coverage would seem to come and go. But, I'm not sure if that's how they actually work. In the mountains it can be tough to see a large portion of the sky without climbing higher.
As bad as it was, it was better than nothing. I thought it was pretty cheap insurance. I was also impressed with the amateur radios which seemed to work great at this location.