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NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

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Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#91

Post by alach11 »

tlrobinson wrote: post #71
thaumaturgy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in search and rescue near the Tahoe area. So far we've had good luck with beacon call-outs. The cases we've responded to have almost entirely been folks that were legitimately stuck or lost, and yes, they were somewhat under-prepared for the situation they were in, but that's just the modern reality of outdoor play and it makes no more sense to expect all recreationists to be perfectly prepared than it makes to e…

> I have heard from other SAR groups that the beacons have been a mixed bag, and they're getting too many call-outs from people who just got tired and want a ride home. It seems like charging people for the cost of the rescue would solve that problem.

Adding negative consequences to "false calls" could have a chilling effect on real calls. You don't want people to have to weigh whether they should try to tough it out and risk heat stroke vs. risk a charged rescue. On balance, it's probably better to have false positives here than false negatives.

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#92

Post by davidw »

lucb1e wrote: post #70
wongarsu wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For further context, [1] is a map of worldwide population density. Except for the Nordic countries and Spain there are no places without people. 1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/World_po...

Wow, I had no idea the USA is so sparsely populated. As someone from a purple region on that map (having lived near Aachen and Amsterdam), I can't imagine what it's like to be more than a few minutes driving away from the nearest occupied house or named road. The most alone I've ever been was probably in a German forest and that was almost certainly still within hearing distance from other people, if not immediately…

Last summer I went camping on Steens Mountain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steens_Mountain

The "town" at the base of it is called Frenchglen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenchglen,_Oregon - it has a little store and hotel.

From there it's about an hour to the nearest town with any kind of services like a hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns,_Oregon - there are about 5000 people in the area.

From there it's another 2.5 hours, roughly (in good weather) to where I live which is a town of nearly 100K.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9351809,-119.0716963,10.06z/...

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#93

Post by tialaramex »

lucb1e wrote: post #73
valgor wrote: post #55

Nothing worse than an article with acronyms without stating what those acronyms are.

I know what NOAA is but I didn't (from the headline) understand what a weather satellite does for saving people (at least in tangible numbers, I get that a hurricane prediction helps but 421 people is awfully specific). So I would agree that the headline could use some work. It's also not as if NOAA is the only provider of this service (see Galileo), but I'm not sure if there are stats published for other systems.

The stats will be for the whole COSPAS SARSAT system but limited to rescues in the United States because Americans only care about other Americans (not all of them but in general)

The system doesn't present users with "This beacon was detected by this NOAA satellite". You could trace it back, but it's generally not relevant and people are focused on stuff like Do we have a good fix? / Does the registration tell us anything useful? / Who is available that can be tasked to go look? Also do you then count scenarios where five satellites were involved and one was NOAA? A lot of alerts will be "seen" by more than one satellite.

NOAA has some geostationary birds, which can be enough for sole alert if the beacon has GPS, because GPS tells the beacon where it is (if it can see the sky well enough) and then the beacon tells the geostationary satellite its location as part of the distress beacon message. For those obviously they're "parked" over America so maybe some central American or even Canadian incidents but mostly US stuff. For a beacon without GPS the geostationary alert is not much help. "Joe needs rescuing from somewhere in your hemisphere". With 406MHz digital beacons you might perhaps try calling Joe's wife "Oh! Joe is out on the lake, actually he's a bit late for dinner" and that might be useful but mostly alerts with no location are not actioned.

But lower orbits mean a non-geostationary NOAA bird could be over anywhere in the world, and those low orbit satellites can measure doppler shift (ie determine location without GPS), it's just that the rescuers wouldn't necessarily be American and in most cases neither would the victims. Australia has lots of wilderness and so lots of alerts for example.

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#94

Post by ineedasername »

jxcl wrote: post #2

I have one of these beacons and take it with me most times I'm going out alone into the wilderness. I don't want to be the guy who had to cut his own arm off after it got trapped by a falling boulder. That being said, this is an interesting spin on the number. I've been hearing from friends on Search and Rescue crews that an increasing number of people are going out hiking being completely unprepared for any possible…

I'd be extremely reluctant to go to any wilderness or hiking area and rely on my cell phone. Sure, coverage is much better than years ago, but even a few weeks ago I was driving a few hundred miles. I checked ahead of time to see about possible stops along the way, cell coverage, etc. because some of the route went through the middle of nowhere. Cell maps said I had full coverage the whole way, but there was a hundred mile stretch where every few minutes I'd lose coverage for a mile or two.

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#95

Post by iudqnolq »

nexuist wrote: post #29
7952 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although salvage laws do allow a reward for recovery of property.

There's a funny story from the 80s in which a cargo ship crew was awarded an exorbitant sum of money from the Royal Navy when one of their Harrier pilots got disoriented and, running out of fuel, chose to land on a van parked on the deck of the ship...

Wow! Thanks for sharing this. For others who found that interesting and wanted to know more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alraigo_incident

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#96

Post by dmurray »

wongarsu wrote: post #88
dmurray wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very interesting map, but the political boundaries look wrong. Germany is shown as two countries, though they unified in 1990. But the USSR is shown post-breakup, at least looking in the Baltic, though that breakup only happened in 1991.

The map is from 1994, which helps explain the weird borders. They are still wrong, but inaccuracies in then-recent developments that are not the map's focus can be forgiven imho. One should keep in mind that the map is 25 years old, meaning it doesn't really show the post-soviet development of Eastern Europe or the population growth of Asia and Africa. But I don't think that the distribution of "empty" (less than 10…

I have a lot more questions about the map: that's just the start of my picking at its legitimacy.

There are areas of grey (less than 2 people/sqkm) around the coasts everywhere. A processing artifact, or some indication of low water marks? I don't think the tidal area can ever be 20 km wide, but it's very sloppy if it's just bad drawing. (There's already a cyan outline for the coast! Why add grey areas too?)

Then I'm certain there are areas in Wicklow, Ireland with less than 2 residents/sqkm [0]. But the whole area is shown not one but 4 levels more populated, at 100+ residents/sqkm, comparable to Las Vegas and ahead of Buenos Aires which is shown at 41-100 residents/sqkm.

The resolution of the map appears to be at the 10km level, but I think this is misleading and in most of the world it's actually based on data at the country level or one level below.

One of the most surprising things to me about the map before I looked closely was the lack of wilderness in Turkey. If it's that dense all the way through, it should be a massive power. But aren't there mountains and deserts? Probably just the map being lazy again.

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/cktt79N4FDLegF7a6 - not the most egregiously incorrect measurement on the map, but one I know personally

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#97

Post by vkou »

wongarsu wrote: post #63
davidw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure there are remote places in Europe There are a few, here and there, but it's just completely different. Everywhere in Italy (I lived there a number of years) there are people. It might just be a little mountain hut, or a cabin or something, but there are pretty much always other people around. Here in Oregon, I can ride my bike to places where I almost won't see other people all day.

For further context, [1] is a map of worldwide population density. Except for the Nordic countries and Spain there are no places without people. 1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/World_po...

I have my doubts about the accuracy of this map. According to it, a huge chunk of central Russia is 'peopled' - yet there are many parts of it where you can try to bushwack through the taiga for two weeks, without ever running into a soul.

I assume that the 'regions' that were painted in the map are oblasts (Russian equivalents to counties) - so if there's a giant oblast, with a medium-sized town at its center, but few people living in the outskirts, the entire region gets painted orange.

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#98

Post by thaumaturgy »

tlrobinson wrote: post #71
thaumaturgy wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in search and rescue near the Tahoe area. So far we've had good luck with beacon call-outs. The cases we've responded to have almost entirely been folks that were legitimately stuck or lost, and yes, they were somewhat under-prepared for the situation they were in, but that's just the modern reality of outdoor play and it makes no more sense to expect all recreationists to be perfectly prepared than it makes to e…

> I have heard from other SAR groups that the beacons have been a mixed bag, and they're getting too many call-outs from people who just got tired and want a ride home. It seems like charging people for the cost of the rescue would solve that problem.

SAR and Mountain Rescue Association groups are almost entirely opposed to any form of pay-for-rescue, including the kind of "negligence fines" that a few agencies like New Hampshire's Fish and Game department levies.

It's not just a theoretical possibility that people will hesitate to call for rescue if they think they'll be charged for it, it's something that has already happened in a lot of cases. When people delay a call for rescue, it complicates search and rescue efforts and may even further endanger rescuers.

A great example of this is injuries that worsen to the point that they require evac by helicopter. Helicopters are an over-used tool in SAR and they are extremely dangerous. It's much safer for us if we can just hike out to you, triage a minor injury, and escort you out on foot or by litter if necessary. If we arrive and you're delirious with pain, exhaustion, or dehydration, those options have just gone off the table.

Another really unfortunate related issue is the number of people that think they have to wait a certain period of time before reporting someone overdue or missing. That's not at all the case, especially where children are involved. We would much rather get out while the potential search area is only a few square miles than get called when it's gone up to 30 or more square miles, even if it means we more frequently get woken up in the middle of the night only to get a "disregard, subject located" notification 20 minutes later.

I have a number of statements available from various SAR groups and other articles on this subject if anyone's interested.

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#99

Post by tialaramex »

scarejunba wrote: post #82
stopads wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really cool, I had no idea these exist and are somewhat affordable. For example: https://www.amazon.com/Resqlink-PLB-375-Personal-Locator-Buo... I'm going to pick something like this up before my next Wyoming adventure.

Almost all the reviews for these are "haven't had to use". Look at this product https://www.amazon.com/ACR-ResQLink-400-Buoyant-Personal/dp/... 13 5-star ratings - everyone should have one, I haven't had to use mine but it gives me peace of mind 1 1-star rating - gave it to my son because he jet skis. After a while it was rusted. Gave it a shot, didn't work. Reminds me of this xkcd https://xkcd.com/937/

That's a fair point, and historically it was very hard to arrange to test a unit unless you were the manufacturer. So even a serious reviewer couldn't say "The FooCorp RescueMax failed after just six minutes in our ice water bath" or "Our testers weren't able to understand the orientation instructions for the FooCorp RescueMax and test transmissions were not received in the canyon test area" because they weren't supposed to try the actual function of the beacon at all.

I believe COSPAS SARSAT and the relevant US authorities got it together so that it is now possible to arrange a test carve out, agree with everybody when and where the units will be tested and not cause helicopters of annoyed rescuers to arrive so long as you stay in the agreed area and only test in the agreed time frame. But it can't be made trivial, so chances are only really hardcore survivalist outfits will do that work.

Re: NOAA Satellites Helped Save a Record 421 Lives in 2019

#100

Post by pyromine »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #98
tlrobinson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have heard from other SAR groups that the beacons have been a mixed bag, and they're getting too many call-outs from people who just got tired and want a ride home. It seems like charging people for the cost of the rescue would solve that problem.

SAR and Mountain Rescue Association groups are almost entirely opposed to any form of pay-for-rescue, including the kind of "negligence fines" that a few agencies like New Hampshire's Fish and Game department levies. It's not just a theoretical possibility that people will hesitate to call for rescue if they think they'll be charged for it, it's something that has already happened in a lot of cases. When people delay…

Just as an anecdote I received a fairly significant injury while on a multi-day climb in the French Alps this past summer and my climbing partner and I had a significant discussion regarding the cost of a rescue that definitely factored in to our decision whether or not to keep climbing.

I bought rescue insurance the next day.

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