This a common misconception. A GPS *receiver* does NOT transmit your position to any satellite.

Onstar uses the GPS receiver to determine your position and then transmits this information through the cellular phone network, IF it is available.

Yes, you can. Here is the guy I use. Very friendly and personable. The owner does an outdoor radio show every Saturday morning on KSL radio out of Salt Lake City. You can get it via Itunes as well. Very informative.

Craig.

All the talk about PLB's and Sat phones...who ever takes these on road trips? Less than 1% of car drivers would have these. Are they really on anybodies vehicle kit, or even recommended by preparedness organizations, outside of this list? Just raising a point of question...

Unlikely, ON-Star obtains positioning information from a GPS receiver (no transmitter) and then transmits that information over cellular wireless. If they were out of cell range, On-Star would not have helped.

Craig.

If people are interested, you can pan and zoom around this area using Google maps.

Go to http://maps.google.com/, then paste into the search box "42 38 28.09n 123 45 40.36w", then click on "Hybrid". You'll get an arrow on the map coorisponding to the center of the path graphics map, above.

To get a good apples to apples comparision, Click on the path graphics map once to zoom in, and click zoom in (+), twice on Google maps.

FWIW, zooming out to the 1mi scale gives a pretty good idea how confusing these Forest Service (old logging roads) really are.

-john

I have a Globalstar GSP-1600 with 2 batteries and a car charger in a Pelican box, an ACR Aquafix 406, and a Garmin Etrex Vista Cx loaded with Topo USA in a backpack when I'm headed out into the backcountry (that's in addition to PSK, food, etc.). But I get WAY OFF the grid and am known for overkill <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Craig.

I wonder if a common FRS/GMRS radio would have been of any use in their situation?

If you live in California and are preparing for earthquakes, then no, it's not paranoid. That would not be considered an unlikely scenario. However, if you live Kansas and are preparing for a tsunami, then yes, you might possibly be paranoid. You just have to analyze the risks associated with each one and determine what you want to prepare for.



Having more food might also have given him the confidence to try and look for help earlier, instead of staying with the car. I don't think we can say that would have definitely saved his life.



Again, we have to look at this from his point of view, with the information he knew at the time. He had stayed with the car for 7 days, burned all 4 tires without any signs of rescue. So he could only assume that there was probably nobody looking for him. We know he did have lighters with him when he tried to walk out, so he had the ability to make a fire. But if he was trying desparately to find help, maybe he didnt want to stop and take the time to make a fire if he thought it wouldn't help.



The compass would only work in the car, but it would have given him a general sense of direction. A better map would have shown more of the logging roads but again, we're still looking at this with hindsight. He was not planning on driving through this area, and even if he was, how many people carry detailed topo maps of an area they are not planning on staying in? I have quite a whole bag of maps when I travel, but very, very few of them have much more detail than a major highways, and of those, only about 1 of those would show logging roads. And those are only because I specifically searched for ones that did. Let not forget he's 400+ miles from home, most people would not carry roadmaps containing that much detail of every place they pass through.



It's good if this incident has caused you to rethink your preparations, but again, this could also have a negative effect. The popular opinion has been to stay with the car at all times, so why would there even be a need for showshoes? Not that I'm discouraging you from carrying them since i don't know your situation, but that does seem to contradict what has been repeated over and over in this forum, which is to NEVER leave the car (advice that I don't agree with btw)

We don't know for sure whether having any extra equipment with the family would have changed the outcome of this incident, for all we know it could have led to an even bigger tragedy. We can analyze and assume all we want, but without ever knowing the full details, and the condition he or his family was in, it's just all hypothesis. It could have been that James learned from the story of the Hill-Strivers family who were stranded for 17 days in the same area earlier this year, in under similar circumstances. Searchers had stopped looking for them, so two of the men walked out to get help, and succeded. Given that knowledge, that there were no searchers, they could possibly be stranded for a couple more weeks, it's no surprise that he tried to walk out. I didn't see any criticism of that family for leaving the vehicle, even when they had a fully stocked RV to live in.

It's good to analyze this situation and learn from it, but we have to be careful not to make any assumptions that might not apply in a differenet scenario. There are NO set rules in any survival situation.



I prefer to look at this a different way. Here was a guy, who's only real mistake was getting lost on a family vacation. His goal was to keep his family alive under very difficult circumstances. In the end, he thought that the only way to keep his family alive was to go out and find help, even if that meant risking his own life. So even though he might not have lived, he did manage to his family alive until rescuers could find them. So while not 100% successful, I wouldn't exactly say he failed.

I really hate the article of last night/this morning suggesting a time of death (nice that the reporters can guestimate it when the Medical Examiner would not) or how "close" Mr. Kim was to food/shelter. One mile is not a short distance in that situation. But it sounds short in today's article. The story just smacks of "let's sell some papers, folks!" It does a disservice to the SAR folks and only adds to the pain being suffered by the family.

Unlikely, they have a very limited range and unless searchers knew that he had one, they would have no reason to be monitoring those frequencies. But certainly better than nothing.

You would be much better off getting your amateur radio license and carry a 5 watt dual-bander HT (walkie talkie) along with ARRL's shirt pocket repeater directory. That would give you a chance of hitting one of numerous amature radio repeaters out in the back country and a ham is more likely to be monitoring one of those frequencies.

Craig.