Not a bad idea, but to be truly effective at being a signal to others, it's got to be bigger. A 1-inch x 10-foot banner is essentially useless at any appreciable distance.

I read once that the human eye can detect about 1-inch difference in color at 100 yards.

So, if you have surveryor's tape in the 1" size, i'd suggest some sort of method for making it of a larger size - be it tape, weaving, or melting pieces together.

I think a vest is more than I might want. I carry a hunter orange bandana (fairly heavy cloth, not thin cotton). The darn thing is so bright that it hurts my eyes to look at it. It remains folded up in the bottom of my pack until I need it to function as a signal. (or bandage)
I also often carry a neck gaiter that has an inner orange side.

I'm a big fan of neck insulation in addition to watch cap. I actually sleep year 'round with a simple fleece neck gaiter and I sleep much better because of it.

I prefer to travel subdued but when visibility matters it's good to have options.

Welcome Newguy. Bright orange always seems to work...

"...If I'm changing a tire or rendering aid by the road I want to be SEEN..."

Me too. So I have an old military orange flight suit that I got in the '60's (and still fits) that I carry just for tire changing, etc. Keeps me clean, and VISIBLE...

Hi All,

There is an easy way to make standard 1" flagging tape more visable.

I used to work summers as a Fire Ranger in Northern Ontario and often during mop-up operations we would have to expose burning piles of buried debris and then call in a helicopter to bucket water on to these hotspots. It was difficult to exactly direct the pilot where to drop the water so we came up with a marker system using bright orange 1" wide flagging tape. You need to cut about a 2" dia. 8' tall hardwood sapling, remove the leaves but not the main forking branches in the top. Tie many 16" lenghts of flagging tape to the bare upper branches, the sapling ends up looking like a giant pom-pom on the end of a stick. By radio the helicopter would be directed to the drop-site, a crewmember would wave the orange flagged tree over the hotspot and then drop it directly on the site. The helicopter pilot could easily see the movememt and broad, bright colour of the signal and our percentage of direct bucket hits went way up (therefore us crewmembers did not have to digout smudges as much).

I demonstrate this method when teaching signaling to the local kids in our youth group; explaining the advantages of large, moving, contrasting, bright colour.

When marking locations in dense bush or at long distances you need a bigger, higher signal than just a small piece of flagging tape. Find a hardwood tree about 20 feet tall and bend the top to the ground, tie a piece of flagging tape to it (or a couple of long pieces) and then let the tree spring back upward, pulling a long piece of tape with it. The movement of the long strip in the wind really catches your attention.

This letting the tree spring-up method works very well at night with a luminous snap-light to mark a landing location (boat or helicopter) and is how I locate my downed big-game when I return to them with help for extraction (e.g. extra people or ATV).

I also keep a road safety vest in the repair kit of my vehicles, be sure it is one of the type with the reflective stripes as they are very visible at night. Many years ago the son of a co-worker of my father was killed while changing a tire in Southern Ontario; he was hit by a passing car, thrown off an overpass and onto the busy highway below.

The use of ultra-violet dye in the creation of bright colours is contraversial amoung hunters, recent testing has found that some wildlife can detect ultra-violet as a seperate colour (like the glow from a black light at a disco), while hunams do not see it at all. There are also U/V brighteners in many laundry detergents. It is possible to have two matching hunter orange garments, one which "glows in the dark with U/V light" the other which does not. An excellent article on U/V light and wildlife can be found here http://www.atsko.com/articles/animal-vision-and-smell/how-game-animals-see-smell.html along with lots of other interesting information.

Welcome to the ETS Forum new guy!

Mike