Your own rescue
Have you ever heard your own rescue on the airwaves...???
This happened to me years ago...
We had a very heavy overnight snow, and my porch collapsed and I was TRAPPED inside...
In retrospect, the poles that supported the porch roof weren't heavy enough...
And all my windows were sealed up, and probably too small for me to wiggle out of anyway...
This was my temporary Airstream trailer dwelling...
The porch collapse didn't wake me up, but the urge to pee sure did...and soon it was time to let the cat out, except that the door would not budge...
So I did a quick assessment of my water & supplies, how deep the snow was looking out a window, and how long it would take the snow to melt down...and most importantly my comms ability...
The cell phone was worthless, and I was stumped until I realized I had my 2m Kenwood TR2500 handheld Ham radio, and just enough power to hopefully run it...
I had a deep cycle battery in my Jeep Wagoneer, and a Jones plug in the grill, and 12 AWG cord running from the Airstream to the grill plug...this was my only 12VDC power source at the time...the 2m radio was in a powered mobile adaptor, so I was able to get 12vdc to it...
I lucked out in that I was able to hit a repeater in the Willits area, and even better was the fact that there was a person connected with the radio club down there (35 miles away) standing watch on that frequency...
She started the wheels rolling by contacting CDF MEU HQ at Howard Forest on landline...the VIP program was new in those days and dispatch was not at all sure why a Ham radio op was contacting them...
As it turns out somebody I knew was in earshot and they came into the ECC and took the call...
Caltrans was plowing Rattlesnake Summit, and they were diverted to start up the mtn (which is above the summit), but they couldn't get through the snow drifts...and th elocal FD was called out and their SnoCat broke down...and the CalStar chopper couldn't fly due to the low cloud base...
What to do...??? At least I wasn't alone, as long as the deep cycle battery in my Wagoneer didn't quit (and remember that a COLD battery doesn't have as much capacity as one at room temp)...
I was able to get my door open about 1 inch...just enough to get the rifle barrel through...and I let off 3 groups of 3 (a recognised distress signal) from my Winchester, but nobody could hear it in this very sparsely populated area...
I was hearing my own rescue on my scanner, and the difficulties they encountered...hearing voices I knew and used to work with...
About half an hour later I heard voices outside...
It turns out a neighbor heard the rescue call go out on MEU Local...he's a retired EMT...and he and another person snow-shoed almost a mile to get to me, and they pulled the porch roof away far enough for me to get out...
What saved me:
1)...the hand held Ham radio was connected to a 2m external antenna on the roof...
2)...The heavy snow did not dislodge the wire feeding the 12vdc from the grill plug on my Wagoneer...
3)...There was somebody standing watch on that repeater frequency...
Since then I have a sturdy porch, a solar powered 12vdc set of T105 batteries, grid power, a telco landline, lots of water and food on hand, a much more powerful 2m radio, and an old Cushman TrackSter...
Just another day in the deep boonies...
On another note...it's one thing to be ON fire apperatus making a code 3 run...and kinda spooky to be involved in a TC and hear the code 3 run coming for you...