My point on “days for rescue” was that ONCE you have alerted authorities (regardless of how that was done) it can still take time for them to get to you especially when you are remote, not that authorities would magically start looking for you (unless you had an intentions form or person); and I wanted to make the point that if you did have two way communications, then authorities can tell you how long they think it will take and they know what to prepare.

I don’t want to take away from a SPOT or PLB’s benefit, it is simply an extra tick for phone (if you have coverage) or sat phone use. Sat phones can be very expensive to buy and run compared to a PLB, so that’s a negative for sat phones.

For example, if I set off the SPOT in the middle of the nowhere, the authorities have no way of knowing whether I have a critical vehicle breakdown or a snake bite to deal with, so they follow their protocols. If I make a sat phone call and talk to them, then they can decide to send a mechanic rather than a doctor.

My apologies here, but I do feel a bit defensive about the benefits of two way communications because I’ve been in a situation in the remote Kimberleys where a member of the party became sick in the late afternoon. It was 4 or 5 days drive to the nearest town with a doctor. I had an EPIRB (a few years back) and the sat phone. If I had I set off the EPIRB, authorities would have probably contacted the local Ranger, who would probably have taken a few hours to reach us that evening, or more likely would have come in the morning. He may have used his sat phone or RFDS radio (VHF) to arrange an evacuation, which would take more time - perhaps later that day or the following day …. That’s a long time for the casualty and a lot of stress for the rest of the party; and if I’d only had one way communications it would have been a very anxious wait never knowing when someone would arrive or what was happening. Many people have un-realistic expectations about how long it might take to be rescued which is compounded in a high stress situation.

As it turned out I used my sat phone and spoke to an RFDS doctor immediately who was able to give reassurances and advise me to administer some high dose antibiotics. Fortunately the matter was dealt with straight away (I have a remote area first aid kit, and of course a Ranger would have access to one too). When we did eventually reach “civilization” we called in for a check up and made a hefty donation to the RFDS.