Facebook-posting climber stranded on Mt. Hood found safe

 @BW  @phyllis21 No, of course not, that was terrible. The good work was reporting his location and condition.. that made what was obviously avoidable a much less epic search with better outcome.  So noted.

 @Deanna Szuter  @Doobie Brothers 

Wow, I just saw he did post his coordinates. BUT, he had no idea how to interpret them! No Map? Or just no clue how to apply gps to a map. I mean sure Hood's easy when it's clear, but it's not uncommon for small clouds to form on mountain's and limit visibility to 100m. 

 @James Aaron 

Cell phones us aGPS which is Assisted GPS. It uses a combination of WiFi, cell towers and satellites to find a general location.

 

In urban environments, especially with tall building, stand alone GPS is very inaccurate and actually fails when it can't see enough satellites. With aGPS a cell phone can deliver a reasonably accurate location for 911 systems which is why it was developed.

 

So, yes, GPS is not about cell towers and yes, aGPS is about cell towers.

 @RalphCramden  @James Aaron You're aware GPS has nothing to do with cell towers, right?

 @Muttley  @djshimon 

I agree. Battery management is critical in situations like this.

 

I pack a solar charged cell phone battery that I can use to charge my cell phone. It's not very powerful but I can get another 20% out of my cell phone which can be life and death.

 

I also have a solar charged flashlight that uses low self discharge caps that is so light that I barely know it's there. Once charged it can last 7 years in the dark at still be at 50%.

 

My other item is a solar charger for AA/AAA batteries. It is also not very powerful but will charge 2 batteries in 8 hours of sunlight.

 

I am looking at getting one of those foldable 5-10W solar panels. They can charge a lot of stuff in a short time. If the sun shines for a short time they can produce enough energy to fully charge a cell phone or AA batteries for a flashlight.

 

Standby mode for most smart phones is pretty high. The iPhone5 is rated at 225 hours. To get that much out of it almost everything has to be turned off. Wifi, bluetooth, auto update features, GPS and so on. Keeping GPS on would would be valuable in this situation. Each ping from 911 would take some battery life but would be necessary.

 

The worst thing would be to find a dead guy with a fully charged cell phone and the rescuers couldn't find them because the phone was turned off or GPS was off.

 @RalphCramden  @djshimon I didn't read the epithets before.. But if you turn off all modes but 3G and turn the display off.. or heck even turn the phone off every now and then, you can nurse the phone along for a long, long time.. I use ham radios and handheld GPS becasue they use AA batteries and I can carry a lot of those before they become a weight problem.  It solves all of these problems.. so does my aforementioned spare battery fully charged for my battery-hog of a cell phone.. still, very little weight/space involved...

 

 @djshimon 

Standby is dependent on Ah of the battery. It does take energy to be on standby and some phones have higher energy requirements for standby than other. Also having some services on will increase energy consumption.

 

If you were in the wilderness you would appreciate standby of 5 days.

 

My guess is that once you get out of the city you would last about 2 days on your own without help since you have no understanding of wilderness survival.

 @RalphCramden   You what's funny, when you are calling people stupid and posting, "I'm telling ya, people are do stupid anymore"- now that's funny.

  Stand-by for 5 days, big deal.  Stand-by is Stand-by.

 @Muttley  @lee986321  @oh4FS 

I have standalone GPS and cell phone GPS. In the city there isn't much difference. Once I get out of the city the handheld does a lot better.

 

Stand alone uses only satellite and won't really give a location until it has acquired 3-4 satellites. Many times I can see more than that in open terrain.

 

I have a Garmin that, when put into hiking mode, will only update every 5 minutes or so to save on battery life. It shuts off the LCD screen and turns it on only if I manually do that.

 @RalphCramden  @lee986321  @oh4FS A stand-alone GPS will generally work much better than the integrated software in a cell-phone... and presumably if you are using one of the GPS handhelds with the top maps in them, or downloadable, you are now not relying upon the phone system to send the updated map files on an ongoing basis.. Standalone GPS wins here..

 @lee986321  @oh4FS 

Standalone GPS and Compass uses the same identical system as assisted cell phone GPS. The only addition to the system for cars is the laser which is the same technology as LISAR.

 

Pictures from a cell phone comes from the GPS system of the cell phone. It has nothing to do with the picture, posting on Facebook or anything else.

 

My GPS will work just fine without cell phone reception. It's just that I can't be found by anyone else.

 

I have Find Friends on my phones and can be tracked as long as I within range of  a cell tower. The more cell towers the more accurate it becomes. With only one tower the accuracy can be a hundred square miles.

 

The Google map is only a geofile overlay of the GPS coordinates that is gathered from the cell phone. Many times there is a huge mismatch between the geofile and the GPS from the cell phone and it shows me driving down the Columbia river.

 

I suggest that you do the research. Your post is very inaccurate.

 

I helped test and troubleshoot several 911 systems when they converted over to the MDC's with the GPS technology so not only do I have extensive knowledge of the GPS system and assisted GPS systems I know the inherent inaccuracies of those systems and have worked to tweak the geofile overlays to be more accurate. I am considered an expert in the field of communications for emergency services and am paid big bucks to teach classes on those systems. In fact I am teaching a class in a few months on interfacing MDC data to electronic reports for emergency services and the time and accuracy advantages of providing an effective interface.

 

I just got back from the south Pacific on vacation and can tell you that my GPS worked just fine at 40,000 feet and going 600 mph over the Pacific ocean with no cell tower in sight. I didn't need to take a picture or post on Facebook to make my GPS work.

 

 

 @RalphCramden  @oh4FS evidently You don't know a great deal about the newer Phones . it is called a "Standalone GPS and Compass" and posting to the face book gave the rescuers an idea on his wear abouts and what to look for. if you do not believe me what stand alone GPS is then you really know nothing about cell phone tech, I think you had better research the commando Gzone. oh and to bring you up to speed, Pictures from cell phones with GPS can be used to link where a person is , ever hear of Google maps?  it uses the phones GPS data to track where that picture is from. I have a camera that also has Built in GPS it has a lousy map mind you. but what ever can be used to save ones life can be used. Granted he should not have hiked alone that was dumb. But he used his brain and used every recourse he had to survive.

 @BW  @7Ws Correct here. He climbed into declining weather and was not prepared to dig a snow cave and fire up the portable stove.  He would have been good for literally weeks if he really , really had to .... Anyone can climb into a storm if that's what they are prepared to do and in fact want to do and hunker down. It is, done correctly, excellent training. But, that's not what happened here..