Trackers test new rescue technology

[fgoodwin]

Trackers test new rescue technology

 

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/185472/

 

KATIE SCHMITT - Daily Herald

Saturday, July 08, 2006

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Keith Reber, a wilderness tracker, was hunting last fall when his 15-year-old son, James, got lost tracking deer.

 

On Friday, James got "lost" again in Hobble Creek Canyon to help test a new tracking system.

 

Three Boy Scouts and a leader from Troop #215 in Springville got "lost" like many other Utah Scouts, but this time they were equipped with a new belt containing a transmitter that emits a signal using radio telemetry.

 

Reber said when most people go missing, an approximate location is known but the belts narrow the search even farther.

 

"If you find the signal, you'll find the boy," Reber said.

 

Flying over the Scouts' position several times, a plane equipped with a receiver was able to triangulate where the boys' approximate location was. The coordinates were radioed down to a team who then drove as close to the site as possible. The Scouts were then tracked on foot with a hand receiver.

 

James said having the transmitter assures people that if they stay in one place, they will be found.

 

"When you get lost, you kind of freak out and you don't want everyone to worry about you so you try to find your own way back," he said.

 

Garrett Bardsley, a Boy Scout from Elk Ridge, was one who couldn't find his way back. He went missing in August 2004 in the Uinta Mountains when he, his father, Kevin, and several other boys and their fathers went camping. He was 12 and was never found despite a massive manhunt.

 

When Brennan Hawkins, a Cub Scout from Bountiful, went missing in June 2005, it took search and rescue teams three days to find him.

 

"We'd like to find them a lot faster than that," said John Gailey, spokesman for the Boy Scouts' Utah National Park Council in Orem.

 

With the new belts, the Scouts from Troop #215 were found in about an hour after they went "missing" thanks to the signal from the transmitter that can be picked up from a 30-mile radius.

 

Hiding from the sun, the volunteer Scouts were found Friday in a patch of shade, each with their own brightly colored belt. Each belt has a unique frequency to make tracking individual hikers or Scouts easier.

 

"The whole troop would get a belt because if one walks away, he's the one who needs it," Gailey said.

 

The transmitters were originally used to track falcons and were made extremely durable.

 

"They could be stepped on, run over with a car or dropped and they would still work fine," Reber said.

 

The transmitter is put inside a water resistant tube in the water resistant belt and it comes with a battery that lasts two months with constant use.

 

The technology was first used in World War II and may not cost as much as newer technology, but Reber said the receiver could still cost as much as $995 and each transmitter as much as $135. They will be available for rent at a much lower cost.

 

Sgt. Tom Hodgson, of the search and rescue division for the Utah County Sheriff's Office, said the cost wasn't the only concern.

 

"There is still a human element involved," Hodgson said. "Those who are given the device have to make sure they wear it."

 

Despite the potential that an individual could lose or just not wear the transmitter, Hodgson said he sees a place for the system in Utah County.

 

"I think it has some potential to assist in search and rescue," he said. "It helped having the airplane, and having that tracker will speed things up exponentially."

 

Gailey said he hopes to outfit all search and rescue teams in Utah with the technology. When they become available in Utah County by the middle of the month, they can be obtained at the Scout office in Orem, Gailey said.

 

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.

[yellow_hammer]

The article said,

 

"They could be stepped on, run over with a car or dropped and they would still work fine," Reber said.

 

These things won't be truly field tested until my son gets his hands on one. They boy could tear up an anvil with a rubber hammer.

 

Here is a good site with information on survival equipment and personal locator beacons (PLB): http://www.equipped.org/

 

[GernBlansten]

for about $30, you could buy a pay as you go cell phone with GPS locating capability. When in trouble, just call 911, they will send in the mounties to within 100ft of your position. Of course that requires you have cell phone coverage where you are lost, but with the ever encroaching civilization in the woods, that will happen sooner than later.

[SR540Beaver]

Gern,

 

I don't know how the cell companies seem to focus their beams so narrowly, but if you step 5 feet off the highway around here, you are out of range. It is fun to watch the boys with cell phones realize that they really are cut off from civilization when they intended to stay in contact with their homeboys while on a campout.

[Trevorum]

Most of the Philmont backcountry has no signal, but I was amazed to see a number of fellows whip out their cell phones on top of the Tooth of Time and sit there, blithely chatting with moms, little brothers, and girlfriends.

 

It's a brave new world...

[SR540Beaver]

Now that is just purely sacreligious!!! I'm surprised that the Great Master of all Scouts didn't smite them!

[GernBlansten]

Beave, "Can you hear me now? Good"

I get great cell phone coverage at the base of my driveway. I walk 170 feet to my house, I am roaming. I walk to my back yard, no signal. I do live in the mountains and we get really weird signal bounces. (IE, I can get XM radio reception in my garage with the door open).

Now, since a cell phone is a radio transmitter on a known bandwidth, couldn't search and rescue hone in on that signal and receive its GPS broadcast even without a cell tower? Of course assuming they are in range to receive it?

[frank10]

GB- ummmm yes but no and no...

 

they could if the cell phone was on,had real GPS and had power. First, the new law requires that the phones have gps like tracking but many of them use the cell towers rather than satellites so out in the woods they lose location as well as useability.

Second, the reason cell phone last so long between charges is that the cell phone yells out "can you hear me now" (ok, not really but it pings the tower) and the tower replies "yes, please wisper" (ok, no really but it does answer back)... the phone lowers it's power level and tries again and the tower replies again, each time telling the phone to lower it's transmiting power until finally the tower doesn't reply and the phone is forced to raise it's power just a bit.

 

When near a towner my phone will last three or four days between charges, in the woods, it last just hours.

[GernBlansten]

The GPS is coming from the tower not the phone? Well that makes the locator pretty much useless doesn't it? I mean if the tracking (I've read the publications that tell you to turn off your GPS locator so the govmint can't trace you) is only good to a known land mark (the cell tower) then how does that really help locate the victim? You already know they are relaying off that tower and were that tower is. Sorry, I'm not buying that. The govmint is tracking all my calls and following me were I go when I have my cell phone on. I know that, and black helicopters are just over the horizon ready to whisk me away to a secret underground city in the Nevada desert.

[SR540Beaver]

Gern,

 

It is for your own protection Comrade!

 

wingnut,

 

So this little "shout out" is why the speakers on my PC occasionally purr when my cell phone is near it? They really tune up when an actual call is coming in, but lightly purr every once in a while when not in "use".

[SR540Beaver]

Gern,

 

It is for your own protection Comrade!

 

wingnut,

 

So this little "shout out" is why the speakers on my PC occasionally purr when my cell phone is near it? They really tune up when an actual call is coming in, but lightly purr every once in a while when not in "use".

[nldscout]

There are a couple of problems with PLB's that I see.

 

1. You have to turn it on if your lost.

 

2. In the case of these from council, its got to have good batteries and has to work properly

 

3. They give untrained people a sense of security to go into places they have no bussiness being.

 

As an example of #3 a gentleman, not much woods experiance went into the Adirondacks in the spring here a year or so ago, had a PLB with him. Had no proper gear and got caught in a spring snow storm. Activated his PLB when he figured he needed help. This caused the S&R people to go into high gear, to find him and extract him via helicopter in bad weather. Cost of rescuein the thousands. Individual recovers goes home, deceides he wants his canoe and gear that was left behind, so he goes right back to same place alone. Gets lost again in another storm. What does he do, why activate his PLB again. Again S&R goes into high gear in bad weather to rescue the same dummy from almost the same spot. When questioned why he went back, his response was, I wasn't worried I had my PLB, I knew they would rescue me thats what they (S&R) get paid to do.

 

As more and more of these get spread around people will be doing more dumb things like this and S&R staff's will be run ragged rescueing the idiots.

[SR540Beaver]

Well, isn't that what they get paid to do?

[hops_scout]

Yeah, Beav, they get paid the big bucks too:)

 

 

[frank10]

" The GPS is coming from the tower not the phone?"

 

The phone uses distance from the towers to determin it's location same as you would use two peaks and a map to find your location.

 

Some phone do however use real gps and would work in the woods (to provide location that is)