Satphone experiences...

The DeLorme Inreach satellite messenger might be just what you are looking for. It was given an Editors Choice award from Outdoor Gear Lab.

Then Columbus makes two people that can walk on water. When I was a kid half way back to the cival war the teachers told us that Columbus came over on three ships...

A lot of the answers on this thread are for sat phone use on land...

some are for it, some think there are better solutions

some apparently seem to think that there are better technologies on sea and land

I personally think that everyone should have the necessary basic skills to explore, to travel, so that they can survive without gizmos...

then if they want gizmos fine... if the gizmo fails they can survive.

DWeikert wrote:

sleepy wrote:

John Muir, Danial Boone, Lewis and Clark, Columbus... what if they hadn't explored?

The Donner Party, the Franklin Expedition, Percy Fawcett... What if they could've called for help?

Exactly.. That was then and this is now. You don't think any of those groups had whatever the technology of that day with them? Any true exploritary team (not some weekend thrill seeker) these days are all carrying the latest technology. The only people lost these days are those thinking technology is for pansies and think they can do it on their own. Trying to compare Percy, Donner, and the rest to anything today is silly. They weren't stupid, they just made due with what they had.

Besides, this is an ocean crossing, not a ground party.

DWeikert wrote:

sleepy wrote:

John Muir, Danial Boone, Lewis and Clark, Columbus... what if they hadn't explored?

The Donner Party, the Franklin Expedition, Percy Fawcett... What if they could've called for help?

None of your list would have been here without the few on my list and of course my list could have many more bold and corageous explorers... fearlessly facing the unkown... with just their skills and training to get them through.

What were the Donners contribution? If they hadn't eaten human flesh we wouldn't know who the were... Yes, I've been over Donner Pass... seen a little of what they were up againest.

As it is, we also know who Jeffrey Dalimer is for the same reason.

profdant139 wrote:
lensatic compass

Excellent! ;)

LS

Getting a little off the rails are we?

sleepy wrote:

John Muir, Danial Boone, Lewis and Clark, Columbus... what if they hadn't explored?

The Donner Party, the Franklin Expedition, Percy Fawcett... What if they could've called for help?

Sleepy is right about one thing -- don't pin all of your hopes on a gizmo -- be ready to self-rescue. But I am a belt and suspenders person -- I have as much self-rescue stuff as I can carry (lensatic compass, paper maps, water filter, first aid, etc.), AND I am probably going to get a PLB gizmo, too. Why not?

Recently, we were hiking in deep rotting snow in the Sierra at 11,000 feet, very far from anyone else, and the terrain under the snow was big sharp talus. It would have been very easy to post-hole down and to break a leg. We turned around and headed down. If I had gotten badly hurt, the gizmo would have come in very handy.

While I have friends and family, they don't expect me to check in on a regular basis so the cost of a sat phone just isn't warranted. A PLB on the other hand is fairly inexpensive insurance, especially since I generally camp solo and often don't know from one day to the next where I'll be camped. While it's nice to believe I can always self rescue, I'm not naive enough to believe there is no situation I can't get myself out of. Sure it would be embarrassing to have your rescue shown on TV, but I'll take that embarrassment over attempting to crawl 20+ miles out of the middle of nowhere with a broken leg, or having search and rescue find my body because I only made it 10 of those miles.

I worked on one project that was quite mountainous and so the company decided we should have Sat phones so we would have communications. They didn't work 90% of the time + very expensive. We turned them back in and never used them. The company returned as unacceptable form of communications. We had to make sure that we let some others know were we were going to be at in case they had to come search for us if we got injured in the field. We had one guy that went down in the field in a bunch od downed timber but luckily he just scrapped himself up and made it back out on his own. We worked by ourselves most of the time and in some remote areas.