Posted on 09/21/2013 6:43:48 PM PDT by PinkChampagneonIce
Thanks, everyone, for your useful and interesting suggestions. I’m off to bed now, so won’t be replying, but y’all have given me a lot to think about and I appreciate it.
Perhaps a couple of marine band radios. One for you and one for a monitor.
I have no idea if it would work.
And what's this about an unreliable truck, too? Can't you at least buy a truck that will start in the morning?
-PJ
Talk to the sheriff about using their police radio frequency to call in. Usually they have a pretty good setup and there is a good chance you can use a 37 dollar hand-held to connect with them.
I used to live in a rural setting and was a member of the local volunteer fire dept and they let me use my ham hand-held gear to contact fire and police. You are an officer of the court so maybe they will allow it...it’s worth a shot.
A good external antenna for the Baofeng is not too expensive in case you can’t reach the courthouse on the radio’s rubber duck antenna.
The BAOFENG UV-5R for $36.99 and free shipping.
Satellite Internet is one thing meaning Voice Over Protocol. Satellite telephone service is a different and more reliable critter. They are reliable enough they are used at sea. But it’s expensive as I understand it. Seriously I’d check with a business radio communications company. They may have a shared service which several businesses might share. The secret is in general the lower the frequency the longer your range is without needing a repeater. IOW the tower in town would likely be within range.
For reading when I am awake....good info in the responses.
True but I think I saw a digital version a year or two ago. Just the car antenna alone with a gain antenna increases the range significantly.
As I worked on the Iridium Sats in 1997, the proposed cost was 5 bucks a minute.
Pink, Alex is right. CB is useless, because it is on 27 Mhz band, which is a skip band, meaning you can talk across the country, but can’t talk 3 miles away. I am an advanced class Ham radio operator, but for your problem, a technician license would work for you.
Yep and the original Mobile Phone use to be several thousand dollars just for the equipment. A lot of Birds have gone up since 97 I don't know if it would have brought down prices or not. I do know ships even in the Bering Sea in rough weather and heavy seas use them. {Deadliest Catch}. Down in the lower 48 unless a person is at the bottom of a canyon or gorge they should work fairly reliable.
In 1979 on the ship if we needed to call home say due to a death in family while at sea we had to go up to the HAM Shack on the Bridge. In port in say Italy it was about a 2-8 hour wait at a USO or phone company to call the states sometimes. My cousin deployed on the Washington for Gulf War 2 and he could call home from the crews lounge on satellite telephone service.
When I have a construction job trailer office in a remote location with weak cell signal, I contact my carrier and buy or rent a repeater that boosts my particular signal coming in and out. I think I generally have spent about 200 plus about 150 to have it set up but sometimes my carrier will do it for free if I pay for the unit.
Almost to bed, but had to reply to this one. My neighbor and I actually discussed the idea of placing a vehicle on the other side of the hazards so we could get out. Problem is that you NEVER KNOW when the normal rainstorm is going to turn into the 100 year flood! You can’t count on the weather report, or even instinct. The last washout was completely unexpected and caught almost everyone off guard. We can’t be stationing our vehicles 1/2 mile away everytime there’s a prediction of rain! Even people with lifelong experience watching the weather every day get caught by surprise. FORTUNATELY, this doesn’t happen often. UNFORTUNATELY, it happens when you least expect it. And to reply to the earlier poster about getting a more reliable truck — truck’s always reliable, except it has an uncanny way of being unreliable every few years — just when there’s a weather disaster. That’s why a sense of humor is essential.
Just get together with your neighbors and everyone pitches in to fix the road. I’ve lived in the country for decades and that’s what we do. It’s not all that expensive to get a road fixed so it’s somewhat all weather. A five hundred year flood was the only thing that’s ever stopped me an that was just for a couple of days. We had our road fixed before the State had theirs done.
We had 77 in service hence the name. I never new the overall cost as I never inquired. We had 5 orbiting in a “parking lot” so to speak.
I don’t even know if they are still being rotated in and out.
Lifespan was dubious.
If there is a 100 year flood, you won’t be expected to be at work. Same way people don’t get to work during blizzards and ice storms, hurricanes, floods, etc. Consider it a vacation and forget about it. Someone will come to get you in a day or two.
We thought we had done that. Graded the lower area, put in a good strong tinhorn. Worked great draining off all the overflow water. Then this gigantic gully washer hit. The end of the culvert was imbeded in the side of the hill, and everything washed out around it, leaving it sitting there like a giant straw. Could’nt get it out, ‘cause it was stuck in the hill. Couldn’t get around it, because all the surrounding dirt was wet and you sank a foot in it. Couldn’t put anything across it, because it was just a leetle too far between the solid ground and the “straw.” And couldn’t drive through because there was this giant straw in the way. Like I said, it’s good to have a sense of humor. We are now considering either removing the tinhorn, so we can drive through when the rain recedes, or doing some serious concrete work.
So true. Except that while this was a gigantic problem for me and my neighbors, no one in town 20 miles away knew anything about it. Didn’t happen to them.
Look into a Wilson wireless booster with a yagi antenna. I use this setup to bounce off a mountain side to the tower 15 miles away to get 1X/3G in a complete dead zone. I paid about $400 which is a gamble as you never can be certain it will work without doing a site verification.
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