|
EnergyindustryPhotos.com
|
|
Oilfield Blowout Photos, Rig Fires and Wild Well Photos Photos of Tanks Production Equip. Photos of Wells Gas Pipeline Equip. Alternative Energy Photos Wind Energy Photos The Oilfield Bookstore, Oil & Gas Industry and Geology Books The New Albany Shale. Map and Info The Bakken Shale. Maps and Info Utica Shale The Barnett Shale Texas Geology Map What A Mudlogger Does What A Gyro Hand Does What is Enhanced Oil Recovery? How Oil and Gas Wells Are Drilled Horizontally History of The Yates Oilfield In Iraan, TX The Job Of An Oilfield Pumper What's A BOP? What Happens When An Oil Well Is Drilled On Your Land Eliminating Your Intercom Rental and Boosting Internet Wireless On An Oil Rig Location What Are Personal Emergency Beacons? Eagle Ford Shale Oilfield Jobs
|
Big Bend NP, 2007 A Guide To Personal Locator Beacons: EPIRB's and SPOT When I'm not a slave to the dollar working in the oilfield I try and get away to places where there are good opportunities for nature photography. I enjoy getting as far off the beaten path as possible, hiking remote mountain trails, many times alone, in search of that perfect shot or a chance to wet a fly in a pristine stream. In the old days I never thought much about what might happen if I got in a situation where I was physically unable to walk back to civilization. Locations such as Big Bend National Park shown in the photo above, have no cell phone service throughout most of the park, so you might as well have a rock in your pocket to throw at mountain lions instead of a phone. Now there are options within reach of almost any person's budget that will allow you to summon help or even send a one way message and allow friends and family to track your hike on their home computer. Missing According to the National Association for Search and Rescue, more than 50,000 search and rescue missions are initiated each year in the United States alone. Many of these missions are undertaken without search and rescue parties knowing the exact location of the missing party. This causes valuable resources to be wasted and often costs the lives of the missing party who would have survived had they not been exposed to the elements or received medical attention. Each part of the country has its hazards to hikers. Where I spend a lot of my time, in the desert Southwest, it is dehydration and heat exhaustion by day and hypothermia at night. No Service ! There are thousands of square miles of land in the United States where cell phones do not work. Now the government, in it's infinite wisdom, has mandated that analog cellular is going to be phased out this year and many phones such as Verizon and Sprint will no longer be able to roam on analog in remote areas. Onstar relied heavily on analog cellular to reach out in remote areas but now their new service uses regular digital cell phone towers and does not work in all the places it used to. Depending on what carrier you are using one phone may work in a remote forest while another may not. T-Mobile for example does not work very well off of major highways. It is most likely that if you hike off the beaten path, you will not have a cell phone signal in many places. Because of these limitations of cell phones, you may need another means of summoning help. Also, if you are snowed in up along a mountain pass or infrequently traveled road, your only option may be a device such as a personal emergency locator beacon or a device called SPOT. GMRS and FRS Radios
In addition to my trusty Canon 40D
camera, I carry in my backpack both a lightweight GMRS-FRS walkie talkie
and a
McMurdo Fastfind GPS Personal Locator Beacon The GMRS-FRS radio by Midland claims to have a 25 mile range. I find it realistically transmits and receives to about 5 miles on FRS and 10 on GMRS. I turn it on scan when I make camp and can eavesdrop on other hikers to get clues as to trail and weather conditions. Mine also picks up NOAA weather broadcasts. Many hikers carry them and there is a slim chance you can summon help by using one of them but the problem is that there are so many potential channels that people could be using and the possibility they are using a privacy code. If they have the privacy feature on then you can hear them but they will never hear you. In an emergency you could put your radio on scan until you find a conversation and attempt to break in if the other party does not have privacy enabled. This however is a very unreliable way to summon for help. EPIRB's EPIRB stands for
"Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon". Modern EPIRB's transmit
on 406
megahertz and upon buying one you must register with NOAA, the government agency
that monitors them in the USA. Upon activation by the user, (or immersion in
water for some marine models) The beacon sends a signal to a satellite above the
earth with your specific beacon code. A monitoring site will identify the owner
and attempt to contact the emergency numbers they provided and also contact the US Coast
Guard if near water and local authorities if on land. There are heavy fines and
penalties for misuse and you may pay a fine for false alarms. Models such the
McMurdo Fastfind GPS Personal Locator Beacon SPOT A relatively new
device called
Spot Satellite Messenger with GPS Tracking Once activated, SPOT will acquire its exact coordinates from the GPS network, and send that location along with a distress message to a GEOS International Emergency Response Center every five minutes until cancelled. SPOT's Emergency Response Center notifies the appropriate emergency responders based on your location and personal information – which may include local police, highway patrol, the Coast Guard, your country’s embassy or consulate, or other emergency response or search and rescue teams – as well as notifying your emergency contact persons about the receipt of a distress signal. The other half of the service is a software package where you set up your SPOT profile, which you can manage from any computer. With your SPOT ID number you can go to the company's Web site, log in, register your device, and configure your alerts. It can send three different types of messages: check-in messages, help requests, and emergency/911 messages. Each message is sent with information to help find your location, including your latitude and longitude, your device number, nearest town, and how far away it is, and a link to a Google Map with your position located on the map. Comparison Both SPOT and the
McMurdo Fastfind GPS Personal Locator Beacon On the technical level the McMurdo uses geostationary COSPAS-SARSAT satellites and SPOT uses communication satellites. The McMurdo Fastfind uses the same technology that the beacons required to be carried commercial ships and airplanes do, which is designed first and foremost to be an official emergency distress system. with rigid specifications. While EPIRB distress signals are handled by government and international agencies, SPOT emergency messages are handled through a private company, the GEOS Emergency Response Center in Houston, Texas and it's support centers around the world. EPIRB response time is not available but I'm pretty sure they do not need as long to start sending a distress call to satellites as the SPOT unit does. Many new EPIRB's such as the Fastfind do use GPS like SPOT does to identify the exact location of the distress call, but the difference is that the EPIRB will begin to transmit immediately, giving a rough indication of the users location and then as the internal GPS acquires the exact location it will add this information to the distress call being transmitted. In my opinion, there is some slight trade off between the two in response time but that is not easily provable. The makers of SPOT claim that it has a 99.5 percent "up time" or connectivity. I personally carry the McMurdo Fastfind but there are times I wish that I had a SPOT to send a quick one-way family message. Although it is waterproof and floats the SPOT units are not designed to act as a emergency beacon onboard a boat, nor are personal EPIRB's. Boaters should instead use a regular sized 406 EPIRB unit that will activate when in contact with water and float. Summary. For the serious hiker
both types are worthy products. Also if you have any condition such as allergies to bee
stings, etc either is a must have if you are going to be in a remote area. For everybody else, they're a great idea
to have and could save your life or that of someone you love.
For More Back Country Gadgets "The Back Of Beyond Wilderness Electronics and Gadget Store". "Survivor Man" Describes SPOT |
|
Helpful Links: Rigzone.com Rig Count Page Schlumberger Dictionary Baker Hughes Peak Oil News
|