Some time ago I read about a hiker that had fallen on the side of a mountain and was disabled from an injury. He had a cell phone but no signal. So.............he pulled out his aircraft transceiver, got on the emergency frequency of 121.5 mhz and hailed a passing FedEx jet. He gave the pilot his position from his GPS and requested the pilot notifiy the nearest SAR.
Shortly, a helicopter arrived and extracted him from the mountain. Case closed.

I have searched the net and looked at several radios that are affordable. I finally decided that the best bet for our needs would be an ICOM IC-A5 Sport. This radio weighs about a pound and uses AA alkalines. The more expensive version uses a NiCad battery with charger. The IC-A5 Sport covers all the aviation channels AND features all the NOAA weather channels as well. There is one or more channels that you can go to which is used for general chat between planes so once you made contact, you could get off the emergency frequency and talk further with the pilot on this "chat" channel. It would also be wise to have the pilot advise the SAR team what channel on the aircraft radio you will be standing by on. Then you can communicate with your rescuers. The radio puts out five watts and you should be able to hail any commercial plane and most private planes/helicopters within fifty miles or more from your location. I would prefer this radio over the one with the NiCad battery for the simple reason that you have no charger in the wilderness but you can carry spare alkalines although it seems that the use of this radio would be very minimal and it would not be turned on for very long.

If there are any pilots out there, would appreciate it if you would correct anything I have said and give me your thoughts on this method of "getting found".

The radio sells for $219 at this web site. It possibly could be found cheaper by using one of the Internet "best price" search sites. Anybody that finds a cheaper price, please post.

http://www.mypilotstore.com/mypilotstore/sep/2426

The radio weighs about a pound and measures 4 7/32 high, 2 9/32 wide and1 1/8 deep.

Let me have some feedback on this suggestion.