Is there a technology to track mountain climbers

Well, that already exists. But many hikers and explorers opt to not carry them for reasons of weight and it takes away that darring adventure spirit to have too much gadgets at your aid. After all, most of these climbers do it for the challenge of doing what others did with basic equipment, courage, and dumb luck.

Amazingly, one had a phone, but nobody could get there soon enough.

Apparently, I am told that it is not uncommon to pick off climbers in distress on Hood and other mountains out there. There are a lot of climbers that get into trouble and need to be air lifted off, which is tricky business for the rescue teams.

As Anonymous_Hero said the technology already exists and is in widespread use. They are called EPERB which stands for Emergency PErsonal Radio Beacons. They come is several varieties and vary in complexity depending on the possible use. The simplest ones just transmit a signal on the 121.5 MHz emergency frequency that can be used as a homing beacon. The complex ones have inbuilt GPS receivers and transmit their coordinates as well as a homing signal. The marine ones can be set to go off when they come in contact with water and the aviation ones will start transmitting if they experience severe g loads.

When I fly my glider I carry one in one of the leg pockets of my flying suit just in case. Considering the facts that they are fairly innocuous, weigh bugger all and you can get a simple one for $100 or so there really is no excuse not to have one.

EPIRB = Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. I think those blood shot eyes are interfering with your ability to interpret acronyms.

Can be either EPERB or EPIRB it depends on where you are. As I have stated elsewhere the use of acronyms can be

CRIMINAL

which stands for Confused Regional Interpretation of Multilingual International Nomenclature & Acronymic Language.

A simple solution would be for the mountain climbers to carry a simple 30 mw green laser pointer. These pointers will shine a light beam 15 miles and will last three hours on two AA batteries, if on continuously. Normally the light would be pulsed periodically and thus last several days. The beam would be easily detectable from the air or ground. There are laser pointers of up to 200 mw which will shine a beam 50 miles.

Everyone I know of that followed this story was filled with sorrow not only for those poor fellows, but also for their family, and friends. HOWEVER maybe there are some things that would help:

Seeing as how every climber needs a back pack, why not just spend a few extra bucks, and buy one with the solar panel buit in.

This will Not only keep your Cell Phone charged (which will automatically keep the "Ping" going on GPS chip inside every cell phone, but will also allow the two AA batteries to remain charged on your Bright Green Laser, and you might even be able to play your mp3 player/radio while you await your rescue...

Caution, if hiking in the winter when sometimes the Sun can be hid for days, it might also be smart to bring along the inexpensive little dynamo shake, or wind up charger which would at least power your cell phone for short periods, but for as many times as needed!

However, in the future, hopefully only people with LARGE bank accounts will get lost on mountains because us poor folks CANNOT afford to pay the rescue bill............

PS... we can source those if anyone is interested

The current system the EPRBs use works extremely well. You may have read of the rescue of the solo round the world sailors Tony Bullimore

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/9/newsid_2518000/2518229.stm

and Isabelle Autissier

http://www.ussailing.org/safety/Rescues/2_15-16_99_around_alone.htm

who were both located thousands of kilometers from the nearest land in mountainous seas with the signal from an EPRB.

For equipment like this it's important that the same standard applies world wide. If people go off and develop a multitude of systems to locate stranded people it creates a nightmare. Rescue services world wide would need to be supplied with the appropriate equipment and it would mean carrying multiple devices that did the same thing. Communication satellites would need to be replaced as these are used for the initial detection of an activated EPRB. If you wish to replace the existing standard it means replacing the hundreds of millions of existing EPRBs. The list goes on and on.

The current EPERB system is small, light weight, simple to operate, inexpensive, works well, is accepted internationally and is well understood so why reinvent the wheel or try and fix something that isn't broken?

By the way you don't even need an EPERB to activate the system either all you need is a radio transmitter that will transmit a signal on 121.5 MHz and the satellites will pick it up. All aircraft radios can transmit on this frequency and airliners and military aircraft routinely monitor this frequency while on route. As a result there is little chance a call for help will be missed.

Anybody that goes into a remote area would be a fool not to carry an EPERB and if you are too cheap to buy one there are organizations that will rent them to you, some non profit organizations only ask for a full refundable deposit. Whilst the recent events are tragic there was a system already in place that could have prevented the tragedy and you can only go so far trying to save people from their own actions.

The technology existed and was employed.

The cell phone locates the caller to within a few meters.

The problem was not in locating the subject, but in reaching him

in time.

GPS tracker is a personal remote position device with build-in GPS and GSM/GPRS modules. It is a small size, high accuracy remote location tracking device. Based on GPS satellite , it provides accurate position information under dynamic conditions . Personal remote position device transmit the longitude and latitude coordinate to authorized cell phone.

You can use these features for protecting and searching children and old persons. Further , you can use it as a security purpose and other purpose which needs remote positioning such as asset protection and animal tracking.

Feature:

¨ GPS personal locator.

¨ GSM/GPRS SMS communication

¨ Low cost

¨ Compact size

¨ High sensitivity

¨ Very Low power consumption

¨ Fast Signal Acquisition

¨ Support single location and continuous tracking

¨ Support location triggered by tracker

¨Support location triggered by authorized cell phone

¨ Support alarm and remote monitor

¨ Support quick dialing buttons for 5 or more preset phone numbers

¨Support check location by SMS and internet

¨ Monitors can track the person without interfering him,

LIVE! Real-Time tracking!

¨Locate the locator holder by the mobile phone via SMS (short messaging system).

¨ SOS button send out exact location for immediate rescue/action.

Operating device

1.Turn on/Turn off

Turn on: Switch on the power button the device, then led will keep on lighting ,means device is in satellite signal searching state. When device is located and in normal standby state, led will be on for 35S seconds the goes out.

Turn off: When the device is on, switch off the power button. When the LEDs go out, it indicates that the device is turned off for sure.

2.Send out emergency SMS

Press this button on the Gps tracker will call preset phone numbers .If you have already assigned 3 sets of phone numbers to the SOS button, sp tracker will first call the SOS number 1 and then SOS number 2 and 3.At this time, owner of SOS number will searching location of personal tracker from webpage of service provider or SMS.

To avoid accidentally touching of this button, when you want to send out the emergency SMS, please make sure you press this button for over 2 seconds and release.

3 .Remote location and tracking thorough cell phone

Using authorized cell phone, edit a message as following format: password - number of SIM card of personal tracker .Send the message to personal tracker . Then the personal tracker will reply latitude and longitude information.

4 .Displaying location on map

Start the Google Earth software.(For more information about Google Earth software, please refer to http://earth.google.com/)

Or you can start the Internet Explorer and type "http://maps.google.com" to connect to Google Map website for displaying the location map.

5. Set refresh rate of personal tracker

Using authorized cell phone, edit a message as following format: password –refresh rate new refresh rate to personal tracker .In 30 seconds ,the personal tracker will reply a message "New refresh rate is refresh rate ".In this way, position information will be send to authorized cell phone at the new refresh rate. Default refresh rate is 60s/per time.

Rgds

Sandeep Bhanushali

INDIA

omegates@yahoo.com