But I am acting for the stroke victim, trauma victim, etc.. Even voice in these types of situations would be non existent by the victim. And depending on out of cell sat communicators, text is all that is available.
Ham Radio & Contacting Emergency Services
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And that is why I try this in our remote areas so I know that if will work. And it does.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
It was, however it's a good point. The other point made about it was trying to compose a text message on a microphone keypad would take some time.
Depends on radio. The FTM-400 touchpad on the radio is very quick, lot better than microphone keypad.
While I now use the FTM-400, I previously used a Kenwood D710 for sending messages and it took a while looking at the buttons. I was bemoaning that to someone and they said, "It's just T9, like the old cell phones" and suddenly it was quick and easy. It was like the Matrix movie when they tell them to load up the ability to fly a helicopter. For me, T9 was just laying around in the brain.
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RFI-EMI-GUY
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I’m glad you asked. So the Tail of the Dragon is very popular with bikers and sport car drivers. It is literally a destination for them. I was out on Saturday around 3pm and while it wasn’t as busy as I expected, there were plenty of bikes are cars out. The bikes or other non sport cars didn’t bother me, but I was actually concerned that if one of the cars came around a corner to fast and could slow it down enough they would run into me or someone. Depending on which curve you are on and which direction you are going it is quite possible that if a car hit you fast or hard enough it could send you off the side of the mountain. I was slowing down to about 10-15 MPH and looking around the bend the best I could to see if any cars were approaching. The other thing also that I noticed is that most of the cars were being driven by pretty young kids, like 18-21 age range.
Case in point - this biker laid his bike down in a curve. I came around the corner right after he crashed as I mentioned in the original post.
View attachment 94139
I talked to some other folks that have driven it multiple times and they said it is much less busy both during the week and first thing in the morning. I’d try and shoot for both. Early enough and you can probably run it a couple of times without feeling rushed. I kept pulling over and letting people pass, but I also was in a Jeep with 36” tires.
I did a write up on my site about the route I put together. Check it out, it has some more info about the Dragon.
GPS Route | GPS Route | Murphy, NC to Deals Gap, NC - Southeast 4x4 Trails
This route starts in Murphy, NC and ends at Deals Gap, NC after crossing US Hwy 129 (Tail of the Dragon). GPX and KML route file downloads available.southeast4x4trails.com
I am looking forward to it. I will try to pick some off day. My wife got car sick with me driving toward Clingmans Dome on our last trip. She will need to double up on the Dramamine!
belvdr
No longer interested in living
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belvdr
No longer interested in living
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Gotcha. I was thinking more along the lines of self-preservation, not a healthy body able to do everything for me. I don't see packing a Yeasu 400 in my hiking pack or on my bicycle, but it's good to know it has a better interface.
good info. Now to setup a way to trigger an alert for me if someone uses that.
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
A long time back, ARRL/QST had decoder plans in one of the issues. Probably back in the late 1990s/early 2000's.
But wouldn't be hard to make a DTMF decoder that would trigger for you.
I really wish I could find HT that did DTMF alerting. I think using a different using a different PL tone for alerting would be a better option since it requires little work from everyone. If your monitoring just for emergencies, you don’t have to hear all the other traffic and if you’re the type to “channelize” repeaters on your radios or use commercial radios for ham work, you just have to create a channel for a repeater with the emergency PL tone.
nd5y
Member
If you are suggesting a common nationwide PL tone for emergency use then that will never happen.
If I hear someone say help, emergency, or mayday I know they need immediate assistance. Even when I am contesting at higher elevations, I stop and listen around the top and bottom of the hour. I then resume contesting on FM on the call frequencies, before switching back over to sideband. An 8000’ antenna helps with that.
At home I scan only a few repeaters, but do sweep the call freqs. While I have not heard calls for help, I have assisted SOTA activations or others testing their radio.
P.S. If I hear someone blow a whistle three times up in the middle of nowhere, they will also get my attention.
At home I scan only a few repeaters, but do sweep the call freqs. While I have not heard calls for help, I have assisted SOTA activations or others testing their radio.
P.S. If I hear someone blow a whistle three times up in the middle of nowhere, they will also get my attention.
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ccg_ga
Member
I really like this idea. In reality, it may be very difficult to get widespread acceptance, but some of the GMRS radio's have (MXT400 does) call alert feature to blast out a tone for a fixed amount of time. I haven't ever used it really, but I kind of think about it like that. I get that GMRS is considerably more limited in terms of spectrum space, but it would be great to standardize a similar approach over on the Ham bands.
One other thing I was thinking about as a Ham solution was would it be feasible to setup an HF station at home and then carry a mobile HF rig around while out in the woods. Kind of like SOTA, if an emergency occurs try and get as high as possible and call the HF rig at home. I'm studying for General now and my HF knowledge is very basic at this point, but I thought the idea made for a neat thought experiment...
nd5y
Member
So in other words you want an HF repeater or remote base at your house that you also access on HF?
That's not practical and not legal either.
ccg_ga
Member
Re-read the last sentence of my previous post.
While I strongly agree everyone needs their license, and personally support the "button" remark, this would probably be a decent time to exercise the "emergency use rule" for amateur radio without a license.
nd5y
Member
There is no emergency use rule for amateur radio without a license.
Which cell carrier do you use? Is there no service for ANY carrier? My wife and I are both licensed amateur radio operators and we ride ATVs as a hobby. That gets us out to some VERY remote areas. I try to always have something on both Verizon and AT&T.
Coverage from all carriers is very sporadic out there. In certain spots, you can get 1 or 2 bars but the majority of the 18 miles between Tallassee and the state line has no coverage.
The state TRS doesn't get out there very well either but they are currently working on solving that problem with the addition of a new site in Cherokee National Forrest.
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