Adventioneering

You don’t have to spend much time in the mountains or open tracts of America, let alone other countries, to realize that the cell phone network most of us take for granted is not everywhere.

There are many options for communications when traveling in the backcountry, particularly by vehicle. I tend to categorize backcountry communications needs into three piles; a) emergency, b) local, and c) long-distance (also known as “DX”).

Emergency communications are straightforward; life is immediately at risk and your party requires an any-cost rescue by anyone. In these situations your basic need is to relay your position on the globe to a party interested in retrieving you.

Local communications are those used for coordinating your party’s resources. For example on the trail, multiple vehicles may coordinate with each other via radio signals to arrange fuel stops, or to signal breakdowns.

Long distance communications are used typically to coordinate with an outside (or home) party. These might be to provide information, scientific results, or to coordinate supply drops.

Personal Locator Beacons (PLB)

For years, for many complex reasons I will never understand, PLB devices were not authorized by the FCC for use within the USA. This changed on 7/1/2003, but Americans have been slow to catch-on to these life-saving devices that have long been familiar to Canadians and users elsewhere around the globe.

A PLB is a small, lightweight device capable of transmitting a distress signal on 406Mhz. This signal is recognized by the COSPAS-SARSAT network. Some (but not all) PLB devices can also transmit their GPS coordinates. If so equipped, it can instantly and accurately be relayed to rescuers. Otherwise the beacons are accurate to within a couple of miles.

US PLB’s also typically come with a 121.5Mhz beacon built-in, which is useful for homing in on the party’s location (especially if the unit is not GPS equipped). 121.5Mhz should be instantly recognizable to airmen, as it’s a standard distress frequency. These beacons transmit with a distinctive noise and you should become familiar with it even if you choose not to operate one yourself; it is a series of whoops with a CW “P”, which is “.–.”.

Every climbing season I read about rescue operations that are mounted for missing climbers in the Pacific Northwest. While I always hope for the best in these situations, each time I also think of the cases where the party was wise enough to bring a PLB device with them. You don’t hear about those cases in the news much, because they tend to end uneventfully – rescue within hours.

PLBs cannot be rigged to automatically activate (so in this way they differ from airframe ELTs that active when an aircraft crashes). In other words, you have to be alive and of sound mind in order to activate the device.

The primary disadvantage to PLB’s is that they are useless for anything other than bringing on a full, any-cost rescue. If you just need some fuel or you’ve had a breakdown that has not yet developed into a life-threatening emergency, a PLB is not a useful tool. Still, they are compact and inexpensive and parties in the backcountry would be wise to carry one if only as a last resort.

Satellite Phones

Your options open up when you consider satellite phones. They have a similar reliability to PLB units, although the phones themselves tend to be less rugged and use more power. Inmarsat, Thuraya, Iridium, and Globalstar are the main networks you are likely to encounter.

I have personally worked the Iridium network from the desert using Motorolla gear. It worked well, every time, and the audio quality was good. The phones also typically can haul data, so you can send and receive email and upload scientific datasets. There is no limitation on using the transit for commercial purposes, unlike Amateur Radio.

The primary disadvantages of satellite phones are their fragility and cost. The gear requires a lot of power and must be looked after, something easy perhaps on a VDE and difficult on a four-day rock/ice mixed climb. The units themselves run $500-$1000 new and airtime can cost $1 – $5 a minute depending on plan. What I do is rent one when required.

Unless your pockets are deep, satellite phones are unlikely to be good for local communications within your party during an expedition. They will work for this, of course, and may be useful as either a backup or as a primary communications means if you don’t have to communicate frequently by radio with your party members.

This article is part of the Vehicle Dependent Expedition section.

It can be confusing not only to dial out on a satellite phone, but to dial in. Satelite networks have their own country codes and their unique manner of dialing that may be unfamiliar to users. Make sure that everyone in your party knows how to dial the phone, and affix instructions to it. Print out sheets for parties likely to call you so that they too understand how to place the call.

Citizens Band Service & Family Radio Service

CB radio is an 11-meter band service that is fully unlicensed. This means that anyone, including your neighbor, can get a CB radio anywhere and get on the air. The radios are limited to 4 watts AM or 12 watts SSB.

In general, CB radio is a local service only, however during periods of unusual propagation 11 meter signals can be heard thousands of miles away. This obviously cannot be relied upon, and further, within the US the FCC has made illegal attempts to use CB to contact stations more than 250km away.
The primary advantage to CB is that it’s unlicensed and many off-road vehicles are already equipped with serviceable CB radios. The primary disadvantage to CB radio is that it’s unlicensed and many off-road vehicles, as well as most of the North American trucking fleet, is equipped with CB radios.

If you choose to work CB radio, it’s best to work SSB. However this requires that all of the radios in use support SSB.

Family Radio Service (FRS), and it’s brother, General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) operate around the 70cm band (460). FRS is completely unlicensed while GMRS requires a license – which many users unfortunately do not bother to get.

FRS radios use CTCSS codes (like amateur radio) to create “talk groups”. This makes them easier to use by laypeople, since they do not have to understand or manage squelch on the radio (they are automatically tone squelch). This has a significant disadvantage that you cannot tell if you are talking over other traffic on the frequency, which might be transmitting on another talk group, since the radios are uncoordinated.

FRS radios are by definition low-power and FCC rules prohibit external antennas. This is why you always see them in the hand-held format.

In general, these radios are very “consumer” grade and offer few benefits, even over CB radio. Their primary advantage is that they are ubiquitous and inexpensive; almost every family already owns at least two.

Amateur Radio

All roads eventually lead to Amateur Radio. A properly outfitted amateur radio with a licensed operator is capable of communicating not only locally, by regionally, as well as globally. Communications can be via direct propagation, by tapping into the network of repeaters throughout the world, or via satellite. Such gear is small enough to be carried in a backpack or even fanny pack.

Local communications with amateur radio sets tends to be very reliable; and large areas can be covered using UHF/VHF frequencies by placing one or more repeaters at a high point. Several repeaters, for example, service the greater Puget Sound area, allowing for regional communications by operators not licensed for HF work.

Since all (or at least, almost all) operators you encounter on amateur radio are studied, licensed and must disclose their identity during communications, they tend to be more professional than users of the other services. The equipment can be found to be a lot more sophisticated and rugged then the consumer equipment sold for the CB and FRS frequencies. In addition, military radio hardware can be used on the Amateur Radio service.

The primary disadvantage to amateur radio is that all of the operators must be licensed in order to use it; this includes the radios in your party (for local communications) as well as the operators at your home base, if you are relaying information or will be calling for aid.

Depending on the nature of the expedition, the Amateur Radio service may be unsuitable. In many countries (including the USA) operators may not use the service for commercial ends or carry traffic they were paid to do so.

While it is possible and in some ways practical to raise a rescue via amateur radio, PLB devices and even satellite phones will be a more direct, guaranteed communications medium. This is particularly the case if you are thousands of miles away from the home party with whom you need to communicate.