I REALLY like this thought.

Communicating one's well-being is nice but if you don't make contact what can the others do about it? What does it mean?

Seems to me that giving them confidence in your ability to prevail along with intention to make contact *eventually* would be more comforting than frantically scrabbling with a radio wondering if lack of radio contact for half a day means disaster or not (and they still can't do anything about it). Sometimes family just has to wait.

I've used and enjoyed ham radio for better than 30 years (been licensed as Extra for more than 20) but it's not as simple to use for these situations as it first appears.