Would you wear one of these in the backcountry?

I was reading an article on line about radio beacons for backcountry hikers - the things that people strap to older folks and autistic kids who are prone to wander away from where they're supposed to be.

Information at http://www.projectlifesaver.org/site/

Personally, I don't like the idea of Big Brother being able to track where I am (not that I'm doing anything when I'm backpacking that I wouldn't tell my mom about!). I mean I won't even buy a car with OBD-II or an OnStar system ('cause I don't want my location, velocity or anything else tracked!) - but that's besides the point of the question - would you wear one of these things when backpacking?

Steve (who feels he may be a bit paranoid about government intrusion into his life following typing this !)

I'm trying to get beyond the idea -since I've started my way back to this sport-of folks using cellphones and gps devices in the woods. That was NASA stuff back then! Why would anyone need a beacon? Got a health syndrome and have to be ready to SOS? What is the point to be in the woods and wilderness if ya need to have the techie toys to enjoy/feel safe?

..not to mention the Big Brother idea of someone/thing breathing over your shoulder. (Does this board have a way to edit messages?)

Sabino-no edit function I'm aware of.
Steve-I saw the same story. Like you said,these beacons are primarily for tracking Alzheimer's patients who live at home or autistic children who may wander off. It has a short range and is essentially the same technology as the radio collars they put on bears. They can be tracked by a ground unit or from a helicopter at low altitude. They look like a big wrist watch. A family member calls a rescue center if the person disappears. From their examples, the person usually isn't more than a mile or so from home.

By coincidence, a hiker was found recently after spending 5 weeks alone in New Mexico after being stranded on the wrong side of a raging river and couldn't cross back. She had supplies for 2 weeks, so spent 3 more out before being spotted. The searchers who had initially looked for her only looked 2 or 3 days before giving up in late December. If she had a beacon of some type, she could have avoided her ordeal. She was just lucky-no one was looking for her at all. Two hikers on their own saw her.

I have been going alone lately so the thought of a beacon appeals to me. I would only use it as a last resort, but it would be nice to have. A PLB, which is a satellite GPS beacon, or a satphone would be better, IMHO. A beacon would not only save the person, it would cut down on rescue costs and time, which is why they have proposed it for hikers. A PLB only goes off when you activate it, it's not like it's on all the time.

I suppose the paranoid side of me can see a day when, to enter a national park or national wilderness area, you'll be required to carry/wear one of these devices.

I can see their value - the recent loss on Mt. Hood may not have happened had the climbers had a rescue beacon or been wearing these gizmos - but I also see a lot of room for abuse by those who would like to know where we are 24/7 -

And no, I'm not a fan of the current administration, but that's a topic for another discussion forum.

Steve

Steve -

In fact, there are certain wilderness areas in the US where a beacon is required for a hiking or climbing permit. Also, private aircraft are required to carry an ELT (Emergency Locator Beacon, activates when the plane has an impact greater than some amount, with the switch being directional so it goes off during crashes).

Bill wrote: "In fact, there are certain wilderness areas in the US where a beacon is required for a hiking or climbing permit." -
Interesting - I can understand the value. Having searched for lost people in the woods before I can understand how any device that can minimize the amount of territory you need to cover as a searcher is a valuable item.
It'd be even better if lost people would learn to sit down and stay still - rather than wandering around. Hey - I can dream can't I???

I hear you Steve; I did SAR in New Mexico.

In theory, these beacons are fantastic...but how much do they cost? What device is required to track the beacons? I think they're just not accepted enough to sell well, thusly, industry hasn't developed them to the point of being efficient or affordable. I think personal GPS technology is at the same point; I pay a lot of money for a device that "kinda" works.

Steve, anybody, do you have experience searching for the personal beacons? What do you think?

Dang it's been a while - sorry for not responding. No - I've not had the opportunity to search for anyone with one of these gizmos.
I've spent my most recent SAR time searching for a father who was out looking for his kid (we found the kid - or rather he found us - a few hours earlier ) - The kid was fine - the father was hypothermic and all cut up from thorn bushes and the like - but that was a more than a couple years ago.

Take a look at my note in this forum about the proposed new Oregon regulations requiring electronic location devices. Hmmm, wonder if an avy beacon qualifies as an "electronic location device"? probably not, probably has to be one of the multi-hundred buck widgets.

What a cool idea, there would be a big Backpacker Situation room like in the basement of the pentagon and they'll track everyone on "government property" like parks, BLM and USFS on this big panel like we used to see in NASA rocket launches.
Hey whats that red blip in California - hey its Bill S and he just crossed into a hiking zone that he wasn't registered for. Take it out of his credit card deposit...

Hey why not just require every body to stay home and watch someone who wins a lottery as they climb Mt Hood for the last time? We can record it - no reason for anyone else to be exposed to danger.

Since youre GPS position is by law encoded in every transmission to a tower, why do we kid around about these BS tracking devices?People are calling to ask for help and turning on their beacon. Why? I'm sure that if the sheriff wanted to arrest you that your location would show on the flat screen in his car.

No I wouldn't wear one.
Jim S

Jim -
The Loma Prietan (newsletter for the local section of the Sierra Club) is advertising a presentation on backcountry communications. Take a quick guess who the "communications expert" is. None other than your old buddy, Mr. Stearns. Judging from the course outline, I have a suspicion that his handouts are the ones that Doc Ellis and I put together something like 15 years ago with some minor updating. He also is billed as the lead instructor in a National Trip Leaders training course. Goes to show, ya gotta get informed about who is doing the presenting before you sign up for the course. Then again, maybe someone who experienced a broken leg two separate times on the same section of a standard tourist trail has built the personal experience necessary, eh?

what about cell phones that have gps location? I dont believe they need signal to be seen by satelite. one could kill two birds with one stone. (no bird were actually harmed in the making of this metaphor)

southwestcolo -

I'm not sure I understand your comment, particularly the part about "I dont believe they need signal to be seen by satelite." The GPS-enabled cell phones require a minimum of 4 GPS satellites to obtain a reasonably accurate position, just as any GPS receiver does (3 gives a 2D location, but if the assumed altitude is significantly off, the 2D location is displaced horizontally by a significant distance as well). Second thing is that cell phones do not communicate via satellite (Iridium and Globalstar are not cell phones, but do require satellits, since that is their mode of operation). However, cell phones require connection to at least one cell tower, something which is usually lacking in wilderness areas where people get lost.

The Mt Hood incident did have line of sight for the one climber for cell phone, and that was used to narrow in on his location in the snow cave. However, the other two climbers apparently were in an area that was blocked from cell coverage by the terrain. A cell phone would do no good in that situation, which is the usual case in wilderness areas.

Bill -

Some of the cellular phones are advertised as providing GPS location tracking (popular with parents of teenagers that they don't trust, I suppose), but I'm not sure if it's true GPS or just triangulation between cell towers to establish location. If it's true GPS then your location could be identified - but without line of sight to enable communication that wouldn't be worth a lot (since you'd have no way to indicate you need rescue).

I'm waiting for police departments to start issuing tickets based on tracking / communication systems (like OnStar) - I mean if you know distance and time between two points it's pretty simple to calculate velocity.

As the proud owner/operator of a "pre-technology" Saab I don't need to worry about it (unless someone sneaks a transmitter into my car!) -

I wonder how many people who carry a GPS know that they can be tracked? Every GPS sold has, after all, an electronic signature.

My Silva compass, purchased in 1972, does not, to my knowledge, help anyone but myself and those with me to establish my position!

Steve said:
"Some of the cellular phones are advertised as providing GPS location tracking (popular with parents of teenagers that they don't trust, I suppose), but I'm not sure if it's true GPS or just triangulation between cell towers to establish location. If it's true GPS then your location could be identified - but without line of sight to enable communication that wouldn't be worth a lot (since you'd have no way to indicate you need rescue)."

The e911 regulation requires that all cell phone companies be able to provide location, just as your copper-wire phone does. This is so 911 responders can get to the location of the emergency call, even if the caller is unable to speak. The two solutions that cell companies came up with and use are a form of triangulation (too complex to explain here) and readouts of the location from a GPS receiver chipset in cell phone handsets. Most, if not all, cellphone handsets sold since 2005 have the chipset, so that the precise (potentially within 10 feet) location of the handset is included with the digital signature of the handset (the one that provides billing information). Your bill only shows the general neighborhood of the initiating cell tower, but it could show the precise lat/lon.

In short, if you have a recent handset, your location is continuously transmitted as long as the handset is on and is receiving a sufficient signal from the GPS birds (your handset is continuously exchanging information as long as it is on and in range of a cell tower). If you have an older handset, a form of triangulation is used (no, it is not a directional triangulation or resection as you would use with your compass, it works on a different principle, as does the GPS positioning for that matter).

Just as your pocket or vehicle GPSR has canyon and canopy limitations, so does your cell phone. Just having it in your pocket blocks the signals from the SVs, and if your car went off a cliff and into a deep ravine, the GPS signals would be blocked and you are SOL for the 911 guys to recover you (except they might be able to use the cell tower triangulation if you were lucky enough to have line of sight to at least a couple towers so they could narrow things down).

And yes, all cell providers offer tracking handsets that can be queried by parents or caregivers (for Alzheimers patients or special needs kids, for example).

But, no! Your GPS receiver does NOT send signals to the GPS Space Segment or anywhere else. It is a receiver only, just like your Walkman pocket radio. Yes, there are units like Garmin's Rino and emergency service (police, fire, paramedic) radios that include the GPS-derived location in each transmission, and there are tracking units you can place in a car or an ankle bracelet that transmit the location. And the EPIRB and other variations on the locator units that Oregon wants to require do transmit the location when activated (but not otherwise). But your regular eTrex or eXplorist do not transmit any information to anyone. You cannot be tracked through your normal GPSR.

As for using OnStar to issue tickets, this point has been argued for several years now. All cars built in the past few years have a "black box" that stores information on the use of the car, including speed. It is possible to extract that information and use it to issue tickets. Your friendly Mr Goodwrench does that at each service, and the information is used to determine whether you violated the terms of the warranty. But at present, there are no legal standards allowing the issuing of tickets based on that information. There has been a lot of talk about using it for accident analysis, as they do with aircraft black boxes, but so far, no go.

Man, how did we ever survive as a species for so long without being assured of rescue no matter what situation we got ourselves into?

Perhaps I should re-phrase that ...

How will we ever survive as a species if we are always depending on others to get us out of situations we get ourselves into?

I may be very wrong, but to me this is just another step in the dumbing down of humanity. Can't read a map? No problemo - take a GPS - here are your coordinates! Can't do self rescue? No sweat - press this button and a team of folks will come get you out! It all sounds wonderful - until the batteries die.

I recall an exercise we did in Boy Scouts (you probably couldn't do this today in Scouts, but this was 1969 or 1970 - when self reliance was still something to be proud of) - we were dropped off by our scout master at various locations (in pairs)- with a map and compass. We had to find our way back to camp.

I've always derived great joy from selecting a route and potential campsites just looking at my topo map - then following the route and finding that some of the campsites were delightful (some were, I'll admit, bloody awful as well (I recall selecting a swamp once), but in that case I'd just push on and find a better one!).

We have to accept responsibility for something, don't we? And if not for our own well being when we're in the backcountry, then what?

I have a cartoon from many years ago stuck on the refrigerator door that shows a Scoutmaster hiking through the woods with a bunch of tiny Scouts. All the trees on their line of travel had small squares of paper on them. He says to the young Scouts "Back when I was a Scout, we had to blaze trails *without* Post-It notes."

On June 16-17, I will be giving one of my "Finding Your Way" (land navigation, staying found) workshops at the Sierra Club's Clair Tappaan Lodge at Donner Pass. The first several hours on Saturday morning are about finding your way WITHOUT map, compass, or modern widgets, just using your brain and all the natural senses. It does cover map, compass, and (gasp!) electronic widgets like GPSRs, and it is very much hands-on (get out in the woods and hills behind the lodge and, yes, actually find your way!). I have this strange philosophy that you ought to understand the basics before depending on something which has a battery that could die.

I'm glad you teach that, Bill. I think that's a very smart philosophy. When I pack for a trip, I think of all the people who made it in the wild sans electronics or gadgets. I wish I was in the lower 48 to attend class.