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Emergency SOS via satellite

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Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#441

Post by joshmn »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #380
joshmn wrote: post #375

I was in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area the first week September on a solo trip. It was my third trip of the year. I was hoping to get 300 miles of paddling in for the summer. I have paddled thousands of miles over the years, all across the BWCA. It was Tuesday, my last day before I had to get back to the real world, and I was pretty sore. I decided on a day trip: I got up before the moon set, and I was hoping to be…

I want you to explain exactly what you did to piss off exactly which deity, so that I don't fall prey to the anything like that... :) Glad it worked out.

To this day, I do not know. I always always gratuitous, grateful, and try my hardest to be pleasant. Maybe it was the ticket I didn't close before I left.

The grouse thing was the most ominous, though. My mom was an avid grouse hunter, and my favorite memories of childhood are when we'd walk trails together grouse hunting. Every time I've gone up there ("up north" we say locally), I have had a peculiar interaction with a grouse: one time two were on the side of the road — the first ones I had seen since her passing, and the first time I had been back up there since her passing too; one time, one wouldn't let me through the road and just stood there and looked at me for 10 minutes; one time one crossed 20 yards in front of my canoe, followed by 11 of its offspring (and 11 is my favorite number...). All good times.

Then there's the one that was shredded to pieces on the portage I was navigating on with one shoe.

When I tell this story I always hear "this is why you don't solo" — no, this is why you do solo. Except bring a sat phone and go on routes that you're at least vaguely familiar with... :)

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#443

Post by celsoazevedo »

rootusrootus wrote: post #416
modeless wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distrusting a whole technology simply because you happened to hear about it first from Elon Musk is pretty silly IMO. Anyway, there's nothing impossible about it. AST Spacemobile has already demonstrated a satellite to ground link with regular cell phone hardware on one end (the space end, since it's easier to launch a phone than a giant phased array antenna, but they also did just launch a giant phased array and wil…

Where did I say I distrusted anything based merely on Elon Musk saying it? I gave a few reasons why what he claimed should be taken with a huge grain of salt. His own history is a pretty strong recommendation in that regard. Comparing BlueWalker to Starlink v2 makes no sense, unless you think SpaceX is going to be putting that huge phased array on every v2 satellite they put in the sky? It's a different technology en…

> unless you think SpaceX is going to be putting that huge phased array on every v2 satellite they put in the sky

I'm working from memory here, but that's what they said during the presentation. 5x5 meters, I believe.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#444

Post by kenhwang »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #405
kenhwang wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with a bunch of idiotic friends that always find themselves needing SAR in North America. The rule of thumb within the group that has generally held true is: if you're on federal lands it's fully free, but if you're in resort, city, or state jurisdiction they'll absolutely try to claw back the costs. The SAR might be technically "free", but they'll categorize as many things under "medical emergency" as pos…

Whoa, SAR fines you if you have a medical emergency? As opposed to fire, flood, storm, natural disaster, mechanical breakdown, or just getting lost?

In one instance, yes, for simply getting so lost in the mountains in a state park that they decided it was best to call SAR when provisions ran out after dark. Dispatch routed the rescue request to the closest city fire department, they came out with a helicopter. City then left them with the bill for the helicopter (which was covered by health insurance as medical transport minus the deductible), and fines for trespassing (they weren't supposed go off marked trails) and staying in the park after closing/dark.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#445

Post by throwawaylinux »

kenhwang wrote: post #444
throwawaylinux wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa, SAR fines you if you have a medical emergency? As opposed to fire, flood, storm, natural disaster, mechanical breakdown, or just getting lost?

In one instance, yes, for simply getting so lost in the mountains in a state park that they decided it was best to call SAR when provisions ran out after dark. Dispatch routed the rescue request to the closest city fire department, they came out with a helicopter. City then left them with the bill for the helicopter (which was covered by health insurance as medical transport minus the deductible), and fines for tresp…

Oh, SAR will "creatively adjust" the incident report when people have health insurance, so that they can bill them for a medical emergency and have their insurance cover it? Sounds like fraud.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#446

Post by kenhwang »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #445
kenhwang wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one instance, yes, for simply getting so lost in the mountains in a state park that they decided it was best to call SAR when provisions ran out after dark. Dispatch routed the rescue request to the closest city fire department, they came out with a helicopter. City then left them with the bill for the helicopter (which was covered by health insurance as medical transport minus the deductible), and fines for tresp…

Oh, SAR will "creatively adjust" the incident report when people have health insurance, so that they can bill them for a medical emergency and have their insurance cover it? Sounds like fraud.

SAR doesn't care about whether you have insurance. They simply stick you with a bill if they think you were negligent or the situation shouldn't have happened if there was adequate preparation and/or skill.

Then you, the rescued, file a claim with whatever insurance you think is appropriate and make your case. Maybe insurance investigates and looks up the SAR incident report, maybe they don't. Either way SAR isn't part of any alleged insurance fraud.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#447

Post by sfgd »

COGlory wrote: post #373
jjtheblunt wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is asking this but the rest i know about, so i find myself thinking "what on earth do you do with a rifle-shot-dead elk?", since I have no suburban-kid idea.

Great comment by LeifCarrotson pretty much explains it. I gutted and skinned it, removing each quarter, and the meat along the back, ribs, and neck. That took basically all day. I use a knife with a replaceable blade. The guts are held in by connective tissue near the spine. If the belly faces downhill when you open it, gravity starts to pull them out. I removed the lungs to get room to work (just indiscriminately sl…

Thanks for a very descriptive write up. Didn't know hunting is legal in the so called first world.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#448

Post by throwaway892238 »

Hello, I'm a moron! I once got myself trapped, alone, in a canyon, at night, with no gear, and couldn't get out. It was dumb luck that I didn't go deeper down in the canyon; I was just close enough to the top-out that I had 1 bar of signal sometimes. I was able to text and call emergency services and send my lat/lon. Finally a local sheriff was able to find me. He threw me down some tiny poly cordage, and I was able to claw my way up a crack. If I hadn't had that bit of cell signal, I could have been stranded for days (or forever?), or drowned in a flash flood. In that moment, I don't care how much it costs me, I'm going to take any emergency service option I can get. I don't have an iPhone, but I would consider getting one now.

Aside from that, I live in upstate NY, and probably 85% of the land around here has no cell service. If you can't make it to someone's house who has a land line, this is probably the best option to get ahold of emergency services.

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#449

Post by kenhwang »

PierceJoy wrote: post #429
kenhwang wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with a bunch of idiotic friends that always find themselves needing SAR in North America. The rule of thumb within the group that has generally held true is: if you're on federal lands it's fully free, but if you're in resort, city, or state jurisdiction they'll absolutely try to claw back the costs. The SAR might be technically "free", but they'll categorize as many things under "medical emergency" as pos…

You might want to change North America to just America. In Canada, SAR is free no matter where you are. Clawing back costs isn't a thing here.

Free as long as you didn't sign an agreement saying you'd be responsible for the cost of SAR. Such as breaking resort rules by going out of bounds[1].

It's really the same as the US (other than our states and cities acting more like corporations), it comes down to who gets dispatched: if it's the government you're fine, but oftentimes if you're near a resort, it comes down to whether dispatch thinks the resort staff, a government agency, or a volunteer group is better suited for the rescue. If it's the resort, you might've agreed to give them the legal right to claw back costs.

[1] https://www.metro.us/grouse-bans-4-bills-for-rescue/

Re: Emergency SOS via satellite

#450

Post by matharmin »

dave78 wrote: post #275
ingalls wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, super glad to hear your friends are out of the field safe. Want to address one point however: "The SOS button is very expensive. Extremely expensive" In my experience on multiple SAR teams (Search and Rescue), this is almost never the case in North America. Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free [1]. Thousands and thousands of volunteer hours every year keep it that way.…

> Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free [1]. I wonder if this will remain true once everyone with an iPhone has access to it. The increase in volume could easily overwhelm the volunteers, no?

I've seen stats that showed a significant increase in the number of callouts without major injuries in a period around 20 years ago, which correlated with mobile phones becoming popular. Suddenly it was easy for someone to call rescue services when they're stuck, where previously they would have had to make a plan. And maybe it also increased the number of people going out into the mountains now that they had an easy way to call for help.

But overall, the rescue services managed easily. The growth was slow enough over a couple of years, that it's easy enough to scale up the number of volunteers as needed. In my experience, when you get more callouts, more people are eager to volunteer. No-one wants to spend regular time doing training when there aren't any callouts.

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