A question for you radio capable tech types. Would a folding dish with center mount antenna and an alligator clip to your antenna be any better in directional transmission than just your stock antenna?

Is there info available regarding best reasonable size of the dish and the dishes antenna relative to the frequency you are broadcasting at?

Bountyhunter

Susan:

I'm picturing you scooting through the sand on the seat of your pants and the only thing I can think of is that you backed into the fire, and there is no water available.

Not really an LOL moment, but kind of humorous. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Bountyhunter

I was REFERRING to the guy in the original post, Sir!

Sue

Didn't the guy in the original post couldn't walk? Not to mention building camp fires?

Radio in this case was much better alternative. But if it was to me even if you left me the most sophisticated equipment on earth I wouldn't know what to do with it (I cried about my radio problems multiple times). That's why I rent VHF motorola radio whenever I ocean kayak in maine. It has all the marine frequencies and coast guard.

Aren't avaition radios AM? And as for Amateur (HAM) multi-band, DC to light coverage hand held radios, none that I'm aware of are designed to transmit in non-Ham bands, including avaition bands, out of the box.

So don't count on being able to talk to aircraft unless you have a radio desiged to talk to aircraft.

/Neal

You can calculate the optimum antenna length if you know the formula, but if you are going to be transmitting on the aircraft emergency frequency (121.5 MHz) then I would try to jury rig a dipole antenna with end-to-end length approximately from my left shoulder to the fingertips on my outstretched right arm (approximately 3.65 feet). In an emergency situation I doubt I would be capable of building a directional antenna (and if I did, it would be a Yagi, not a parabolic dish).

I have a VHF aircraft h/h from my days as a private pilot, and I have been known to throw it in my backpack if I'm going backpacking. Mine is from Sporty's Aviation (www.sportys.com) but as Doug says, if you're not going to use it for its intended purpose, you're better off spending the money on a PLB.

If you're a pilot and have one, it should always be with you in the plane. (Except I'm sure the TSA would probably find it suspicious - I'm waiting for the day when they refuse to let the flight crew board the airplane because they find it suspicious for three guys with pilot's licenses to be travelling together <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

Far more useful than being able to rig a better antenna, though, would be to know the frequencies in use. Airliners are supposed to monitor 121.5 but only if they have a spare radio. Aircraft at altitude will, however, be communicating on the Center frequency. (Swing by your local flying club and they will be happy to give you a list of useful frequencies, especially if you listen to a brief sales pitch <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> )

(Go to the ETS Home Page, scroll down to the link ?A Question of Survival?, and read William Waldock?s excellent article.)

Also, if you're able to travel at all, you might be better going up than down - from the east side of the Canadian Rockies, you might be able to contact Ground Control in Calgary, but from the west side you'd be lucky to contact an airliner flying overhead.

Also, if you do have to transmit, make sure you say which frequency you?re using. In one case that I know of, a US military AWACS on a training flight picked up a distress call, then had to spend several minutes trying to figure out which frequency the pilot was using, out of the dozens of frequencies they were monitoring. (He was using 121.5 - ?Victor Guard?, which was probably not a huge surprise to them, but there are many other emergency frequencies: 245 MHz for airborne UHF, another one for marine radios, another one for HF, etc.) The pilot in that instance did survive, although whether he ever figured out just how lucky he was to be able to contact anyone after flying into a mountain canyon in bad weather is unknown. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Thanks to all for your input. As I quietly suspected, for the most part, a transceiver of this ability would likely be a tad expensive. I know, I know . . . what price should we place on our survival? I'm just glad we all have as many choices as we do. Really a lot of good info in the posts. There are some very knowledgeable folks on this forum. I know I learned a lot. And . . . if I'm truly in a survival scenario, I can say for sure my life-saving efforts WILL NOT be interrupted by licensing protocol. I will be glad to take responsibility for whatever my actions may be, but at least I'll be alive to defend my decisions.