That brings up a VERY good point. Are there any standard operating procedures for SAR teams with respect to radio frequency detection?

It seems it would take a pretty special setup to simultaneously scan for all potential frequencies (HAM, GMRS, FRS, CB, 406 MHz PLB beacon, 121.5 MHz PLB beacon, cell phone pings). Do SAR teams do that?

Ken K.

Next to a ham radio, I think that a transceiver capable of 121.5 would be your best bet since most aircraft are equipped with a radio that should monitor this freq and at least every SAR aircraft should be capable of receiving and probably also locating a transmitter on that freq.

One of the questions on our SAR reporting form is whether the victim has a radio or cell phone. If they do have a radio we ask for the channel or freq if it’s known.

With the equipment we have on hand, we can only monitor FRS/GMRS, 2 meter ham radio, and 136-174 mHz VHF band. Cell phone “pinging” would have to come from the phone company. Some of the larger surrounding SAR teams have COMM units that may have wider monitoring capabilities.

would there be any advantage to also mounting a CB?

That was the question. I would only depend on a CB near a highway that has considerable truck traffic. There are some people who use CB radios for local communications to keep up with their buddies but I would not count on CB for an emergency. It certainly would not have helped the Kims. If you want to get found it sounds like PLB is the way to go. I don't own one yet but I will. I am also a ham. Unless I had an HF rig in the vehicle, I would not count on much help from Ham radio in the Kim's situation. The 2 meter band is line of site. I doubt that there was a repeater near the Kim's.

In ham radio, there is SUPPOSED to be "The Wilderness Protocol" - the idea is, every 3 hours, from 7am to 7pm, all base stations will monitor the national simplex frequencies for their band (146.52 on 2m) for 5 minutes at the top of the hour. Unfortunately, it never really caught on

IF you happen to be near communication towers, or other people, the radios may work fine. If you are not, I am at a loss in naming any hand held radio of any frequency that will help you initiate a search with the exception of a SATELLITE PHONE.

I am hoping a communication expert comes forward with an alternate solution.

Two common factors stand out in local (backcountry Idaho) searches and those with national exposure.

1. THE SEARCH IS INITIATED TO LATE BY A SECOND PARTY.

2. NO ONE KNOWS WHERE TO SEARCH.

What else will work "NOW" besides -

- SATELLITE PHONE
- PLB W/GPS

That is REALLY good information to know. It makes me think a GMRS/FRS radio could be a big help ... so long as I didn't run the batteries down too soon, AND so long as someone was looking for me in the right place.

I think I'll stick to my PLB and a signal mirror.

Being a ham and doing a fair amount of emergency communications, if I were really out in the sticks, I'd pick radios in this order, if I could afford them: satellite phone, cell phone (+external antenna), ham HF mobile, CB, FRS/GMRS, business band radios. Phones are obviously great when they work because you can pretty much pick who you talk to. A reasonable ham HF mobile setup can almost always make contact with an established net or random helpful hams within several hours, depending on the atmosphere. With a decent CB setup it's pretty likely that you can track down a random trucker if you're within a few miles of a truck route, or a pickup-driving get-r-done kinda guy if you're more out of the way. Otherwise you end up dealing with the same atmospheric conditions ("skip") that hams have. FRS/GMRS and business band radios are pretty rare outside of theme parks, malls, and businesses and users often use "privacy" squelch tones so that even if someone is in range and on the right frequency, they may never hear you.

I've been intrigued with the idea of carrying a portable airband transceiver but that's pretty specialized. If you're anywhere near the coast, a VHF marine radio would make a lot of sense and they're quite cheap.

What we need is a cheap-ish prepaid satellite phone just for emergencies. $400 for the phone and 30 minutes of airtime doesn't seem that expensive once you price out all of the alternative land-based communications.

FRS/GMRS seems more suitable for inter-survivor communications than as a method to rely on to gain the attention of outside help. If it ends up working, great, but with the morse code requirement for amateur radio dropped, there's no reason not to go for a licence and a 2m radio, which will give you far better range and repeater use

Correct.

If you have a GMRS/FRS radio, being the one in distress, you should transmit on every channel once in a while. Chances are the SAR teams are communicating with themselves using one of the channels.

There aren't really any standard operating procedures AFAIK regarding GRMS/FRS usage. I know that as a team leader, I might tell my people that have such a radio to use channel 3 or 4 to communicate, but this is only within this small team.

This does not mean that we don't use additionnal radios for other reasons. During operations, special antennas are put up that allow more powerful VHF radios to be used for the duration of the search.