"Keith" wrote in
oups.com:
Why in the world would you want a 911 only cell phone on the water,
when you should have a VHF, preferable interfaced with a GPS to call
for help?
You're 20 miles off the SC coast. A thunderstorm cell snuck up on you,
we have them all summer, and dismasted you. For some unknown reason, the
diesel won't start. Maybe it got flooded while sailing when water backed
up into the exhaust over the anti-siphon loop heeled over, who knows.
You're a LONG way from Charleston or Beaufort. The mast, now hanging
under the boat by its rigging, is where the VHF antenna is pointed
towards the sea floor. You rig a temporary antenna. (Name 5 boats that
have temporary antennas in your marina. Ask around.) The VHF range is
now reduced from 30 miles to 3 miles. A coathanger wire stuck in the
back of the radio at the nav station doesn't have much range. You call
and call...noone is fishing in your range circle, so noone answers the
call. CG is way out of your range, so noone hears you. You're not near
any shipping lanes into Charleston or Savannah, so they're not going to
hear you.
You try your blazingly powerful .15 watt toyphone with the camera,
internet in color and video games. Nope...it's not within ITS two mile
range of a cell tower. The cell towers are along US 17 more miles inland
than your toyphone could reach by standing on the deckhouse.
You go below remembering that old bagphone some idiot on the internet
talked you into buying for $1 from Goodwill's Thrift Shop. You blow the
dust off it and plug it into the cig lighter plug in the cockpit. You
flip up its 3db antenna duckie and turn it on. A miracle happens as it
logs onto its AMPS tower that sits, nearly abandoned, 24 miles away on Mr
William's farm. You press 9-1-1-SEND and ask the emergency operator to
connect you to the CG. Stunned anyone would still have such a relic on a
boat, the Coasties are, at first, skeptical you are for real. However,
after having their asses kicked for killing 3 boys and an idiot sailor
aboard "Morning Dew" on the Charleston Jetties, they're forced to send
out the helo to help you.
That bagphone just may have saved your ass....maybe not. Geez, man,
they're only $1. Noone wants them....except you, sitting in your
disabled boat, waiting for the helo to arrive......
See why now?
Actually a 406 Mhz GPS-enhanced EPIRB is much better than a bagphone.
But, not many boats traveling up and down the coast have an extra 800 to
1600 dollars to spend on safety equipment they've convinced themselves
they'll never use.
http://www.shipstore.com/SS/HTML/ACR/ACR2776.html
http://www.watersports.alphanautical...duct_info.php?
products_id=892
--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.