Cell Phones - A Revelation

[flymaker2]

Good post. So sad about Snipe's condition.

I have had no service come up on the cell enough that I have invested in a Satellite Phone by Globalstar. I don't feel right taking my family into the back country without a safety link.

The Globalstar 1600 works anywhere-anytime (cont. USA) and I have tested in narrow canyons in Death Valley, The open desert in the Mojave and out in the mountains of central Nevada and right here on the beaches of So.Cal.

It just works like a charm each and every time-clear as a bell. The company offers n Emergency Kit and plan. The phone is in a waterproof box with all of the chargers and auto adaptors needed. Comes with yearly minutes allaowables too. Cheap insurance considering the trouble a pearson can get into in the field.

[Denny]

I have had my cell phone for 4 years now.
When I first got it my coverage and dropped calls was not satisfactory for me. I now have a plan where I can make calls from anyplace in the USA, no mater which tower I contact. I do not get any roaming, is all included in my plan. I have no long distance charges as my minutes covers it all. Liz is also on my plan as is her son, Andy. I have Verizon and calls to Liz or Andy at anytime of day or night is a free call. (In -Calling) I think it is called.

I agree, check with your provider and ask about coverage and NO Roaming. It is out there if you check for it.

I fish a lot, all over the USA and seldom am in an area where I do not have coverage. There are a few places but normally with a very short drive I do have coverage.

Dropped calls are a thing of the past for me. I just need to keep the darn thing charged or plug it in when driving. It is important to keep the battery charged.

I love my cell phone so much that I no longer feel a need for a land line. With great joy I cut the land line Co off when we installed the satelite for the Internet connection.

The newer phones are for the most part far superior to the old ones. My cost today for this service is far less than what I had to pay for the land line / long distance set up in the past.

Denny


------------------
Denny
Denny@conranch.com
Co-Owner Conranch Hackles

[buttermilk]

Also, please look at satellite telephones. They are not as expensive as they once were and have better coverage in many out of the way places.
There are some flexible plans for these phones as well so they are another option.

Andy

------------------
all types of fishermen must pull together for the good of all!!!

Reading the brochures from three companies, I noticed an interesting bit of information. Each one shows a complete map of the USA with colors indicating their areas of coverage. However, there is a disclaimer (in small print of course) that this area may include other service providers, that the map may not be accurate and that within the serviced area each connection depends upon the terrain, buildings, etc. The maps by Verizon, Sprint and Cingular are almost identical. In other words, the maps are just guidelines but really mean sh*t.

BTW, Has anyone figured out the 'acronym'?

Allan



[This message has been edited by tyeflies (edited 14 July 2006).]

[pspaint]

That's an excellent idea. I need a different plan though, cuz eveytime I head out, and try calling, all I get is a roaming signal. Not much help if I need it. I couldn't even get a signal in the town of Arcade.

[DaleW]

Cel phones are a mixed bag. On the one hand they can be such a blessing and a convience and on the other, a complete PITA! I've had one now for a few years and they are great security driving down the highway. But I'm always leary of some moron ziping down the road and yaking away on the cel ... I think an accident just waiting to happen!

There are places we go in the mountains and there is absolutely NO reception ... and that's kind of nice ... a little by-gone peace and quiet! What we do here is use those simple Motorola "talk-about" FRS radios. Their range is somewhere between two and three miles depending on the terrain, but we just don't get that far apart. I think we bought them at Wally-Mart for something like $29.95 for a pair and we ended up getting six of them so everyone has a radio out in the boonies.


Dale



[This message has been edited by DaleW (edited 14 July 2006).]

[Jonezee]

The FRS (Family Radio Service) are great little gadgets and a lot of folk fine them very useful and benifical. Let me help explain some of the pro's and con's. I you have a unit (pair) that has rechargable battereies you must be aware that kind of battery gives no warning when it is about to expire. One minute you are talking, listening, the next minute Nada. If you have a unit that uses penlight AAA or AA batteries, they will gradually loose their umph and you will knwo something is going to give soon. Even with the cost, I prefer drycell Akaline batteries. For one, they will last four times as long as a rechargable. You can carry spares. Again, we are talking line of sight, you are lucky to get half a mile in real life conditions. Know your limitations and use them wisely. Their limited power output is 1/2 watt and the use the UHF (ultra hight Freq) bands. I like them when travelling with two or more cars and friends, a great way to communicate. Also, they hardly use any current when receiving, when transmitting, its like a toaster, you are burning the jucie fast. If you see units for twenty five dollars and some for a hundred, there is a difference. The better models will have a sleep mode,batteries are conserved until a signal is detected, a very nice feature. Also, if you can get cigerette light adapterr for the car, you cn talk forever with out fear of the batteries going dead. The first FRS radio became available to the public in May 1996. Good luck, Jonezee

[This message has been edited by Jonezee (edited 14 July 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Jonezee (edited 15 July 2006).]

[Eight Thumbs]

Like most of the other posters on this thread, I bought a cell phone for safety reasons being old and not too coordinated. On my first trip to the river, I discovered that phone coverage ceased about 15 miles from my destination. The phone went as dead as a road-killed toad. 8T

------------------
You had better learn to be a happy camper. You only get one try at this campground and it's a real short camping season.

[Thwack]

My first cell phone was purchased specifically to be tucked into the pocket of my riding jacket when I started riding motorcycles. I kept it off to make the battery last longer and kept it in my jacket instead of somewhere on the bike in case of a nasty wreck that had me and the bike in different places.

Coverage area was a major consideration in picking a carrier though all the ones I've tried have plenty of holes in common areas. Heck, one of the local reservoirs here in Silicon Valley that's on the edge of town has reception on the shore but not on the water (and it's not a big reservior).

[danbob]

In my area of N Colorado, there's very little cell coverage. It's simply a terrain and distance issue, high mountains and deep canyons, and cell doesn't work in the canyons.

I wrote an interesting article in Back Home magazine a couple years back on the topic. Here's some tips in a nutshell:

When cell phone shopping, buy one with an external antenna jack. These are getting harder and harder to find. But it lets you attach a high-gain cartop antenna, and if you have an extra $300 lets you also attach a (totally legal) booster that bumps your transmit power from 1/2 watt to 3 watts (the legal max). These 2 steps can make a huge difference in your coverage, and the cartop antenna is cheap. Without an external antenna jack, there's still a slip-on, magnetically coupled adaptor you can use, but there are some losses. You can check with [url=http://cellantenna.com/:e8be1]http://cellantenna.com/[/url:e8be1] before purchase to find out if there's a slip-on adaptor avaialble for a phone model that has no external jack. They can also fix you up with boosters and high-gain antennas.

Since I fish with a buddy that has a pacemaker and with my 75 year old Dad, we carry FRS walkie talkies, and we only buy the kind that can take alkaline batteries in addition to rechargables.

I also keep a handheld ham radio in the truck because of the large number of mountaintop repeater sites around the country, a ham license is a GREAT idea for any outdoorsperson, and is easy to get -- the test is quite simple to get a license (you have a 1 in 4 chance of passing even if you don't study!). ;~) Many ham repeaters have 911 phone patch capability built in, talk to your local ham radio club to find out 911 patch info for your area. A good, handheld ham radio costs only $100.

I don't carry the ham radio with me on the river or lake because---I'm a firefighter and medical responder, and thanks to a post-9/11 FEMA grant everyone in our department has a handheld Police/Fire radio, so I can get help faster that way. Never had to use it for a *fishing* emergency, but surprised the s*** out of some folks with an illegal campfire last year when the ranger pulled in 10 minutes after I told them to put it out, and they told me to stick it up my....

Anyway -- you CAN improve your cell coverage, and if you fish with anyone who might have health problems, a ham license is a great idea--our local ham repeaters have people listening in 24/7 who are more than willing to call 911 for you from a landline, if there's no phone patch.

DANBOB
KC0VRD
9RC323


PS at the time I wrote my article, Globalsat et al was way too expensive for most people. Prices are dropping now, and some sat phone providers have 'emergency only' packages that are much less expensive.

[This message has been edited by danbob (edited 16 July 2006).]