I understand what you are saying about the Faraday cage. Right now my Wouxun is on the desk and connected to the tri-band antenna outside to listen to the repeaters. I’m not much of a talker anway; haven’t talked on the phone for ten years other than “Please pick up some milk. OK, I will”. This summer I will take the Wouxun HT on offroad motorbike trips in the remote mountains; would be willing to pay an FCC fine if I needed help badly enough!
It is already legal to use any communication means at your disposal when human life is in danger. This means if you have a transmitter you can transmit at any frequency calling for help. Transmitting on the sheriff's repeater's input frequency makes a lot of sense because their network covers the whole county. Most commercial HTs are blocked from transmitting out of band (or else they can't be sold.)