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Phone as beacon

S

shakushinnen

Well-Known Member
Hi,
I spend a lot of time in the woods. Usually I have my LGK4 (2017) with me; but it has no phone plan. Can it be used as a beacon, in a situation were I'm hurt and unable to get home?
Thanks,
..... john
 
shakushinnen said:
Hi,
I spend a lot of time in the woods. Usually I have my LGK4 (2017) with me; but it has no phone plan. Can it be used as a beacon, in a situation were I'm hurt and unable to get home?
Thanks,
..... john
Click to expand...
nope. beacon? what kind of signal would this beacon be emitting? your phone comes with a only a finite set of radios that it could emit. Bluetooth, Wifi, and cellular (and RF like in the earlier Samsung phones) are the only radios that the phone comes with. the only one that could be a "beacon" would be cellular.....but you do not have a phone plan so that's that......not much else out there. Bluetooth is a very weak signal and wifi needs to be in an area where there is wifi. if you are in the woods, i doubt there would be wifi.
 
shakushinnen said:
Hi,
I spend a lot of time in the woods.
Click to expand...

Can you bring me some songs from the woods, like Jethro Tull did? :)

shakushinnen said:
Usually I have my LGK4 (2017) with me; but it has no phone plan. Can it be used as a beacon, in a situation were I'm hurt and unable to get home?
Thanks,
..... john
Click to expand...

What sort of beacons do you actually need, like distress flares or something? The phone itself has an LED flashlight, which might be useful if you're in the woods at night.
 
A phone that is out of contact with its own network can make emergency calls on other networks (or at least it can with GSM-based technologies, I don't know about CDMA). But a phone with no valid SIM at all, don't know but probably not.

You could probably use the flashlight as a beacon, but that wouldn't be visible from very far away, especially in woods.
 
A phone with no plan / service in the US should still be able to call 911 (if it has signal from any carrier) at which point dispatch should e able to locate you, so technically, yes. If you listen to a police scanner you'll frquently hear calls to 911 calls from kids playing with retired phones that have no service.
 
Cell phones suck in many places for emergency use. I cannot speak for other areas; however, living out here in the western states and hiking all the time, I don't even carry a cell phone. I leave it in the truck or the trailer. For GPS I use a Garmin; and for help if ever needed, I carry an ACR ResQlink personal locator beacon. Can be used anywhere. When you need emergency help just pop the antenna up and press and hold the button. It will send out a 406MHz to the SARSAT system.

The Search and Rescue Satellite System, or SARSAT is a set of satellites circling the earth. the signal is great for getting through dense tree canopy and other obstructions; a lot better than a satellite phone signal/ This signal sends an identifier code of the PLB and also sends your GPS location to a US facility. They then notify the local authorities per the GPS location and from there emergency crews will be dispatched to your location.

It will also send out a different frequency monitored by local SAR to also help pinpoint and will flash a very bright white LED to help in night time rescues.

These are FOR actual emergency use.

The purchase price is all it costs, usually just under $300.00. Battery is good for about five years, replacement batteries can be installed for about $100 and at the time they install the replacement they also install new seals and check water/dust intrusion.

There is NO monthly fee, they do not work off a satellite phone system or require a monthly fee like other units.

Living in Moab UT and knowing quite a few on the grand county search and rescue, these are more helpful than you can imagine. If you hike alone I suggest it. I do the same with my dogs in national forests and BLM lands in MT, ID, WY, UT all the time and I am never without it.

I HAD a very good friend who died in Glacier National Park hiking in July 2020. We had discussed the use of a PLB and he always said it sounded like a great idea and he was going to get one; since like me, he hiked alone all the time in wilderness areas. Well, he didn't, and he died hiking in the park. All I can say is at least he died doing what he really enjoyed and in a place he loved more than anything. But I wonder, was his death unnecessary? We will never know.
 
Hi all,
Thanks for your replies. I guess I've been watching too much television; and thought that any phone can be tracked. I guess that only applies to phones with a plan; otherwise it's useless.
Campingfool. Thanks for you insights. I'll look into it. Sorry about your friend's death.
..... john
 
Just keep in mind that depending on how remote an area you're located in, there may be no cellular service at all. Even with 911 emergency calls that can be done with or without a cellular service plan, if there's not any cellular signal at all your phone isn't able to connect to any cellular network.

If there is a usable cellular signal than at least emergency calling is an option but if not you might want think about switching to a satellite phone instead. They rely upon satellite connectivity instead of a cellular network so if you are in a really remote locale you'll have online access. Just keep in mind that it's a much pricier option -- satellite phones cost more and plans cost more. And there are bandwidth and latency issues, so you're paying more for less, but that's not a major sacrifice if there ever is an emergency situation.
https://www.popsci.com/story/reviews/best-satellite-phone/
 
Thanks svim,
I won't be that remote, so maybe the emergency call would do it. Is there a way I can test it, other than making an emergency call?
...... john
 
When you're out away from home in a typical setting that's really out in the woods, try making a emergency test call -- when a dispatcher answers be sure to immediately tell them this is not an emergency, just a test, and give a short explanation what's going on (you're out in the woods by yourself and need to confirm if something bad happens that you can call for help). Don't just hang up right away without an explanation, as far as they're concerned that incoming call was an emergency situation so they might needless be sending a rescue crew out.
 
I'm not so sure about that 'test' call. It still uses valuable resources if only briefly, what if someone in true distress is trying to get through while you are doing your test, and can't?
It may actually be a prosecutable offense in some places to make a 911 call when no emergency actually exists, and I doubt there would be an exclusion for testing.
None of us test the 911 calling on our phones, we just trust it will work when we need it. For me, it always has on the rare occasions I've used it.
 
Fox Mulder said:
I'm not so sure about that 'test' call. It still uses valuable resources if only briefly, what if someone in true distress is trying to get through while you are doing your test, and can't?
It may actually be a prosecutable offense in some places to make a 911 call when no emergency actually exists, and I doubt there would be an exclusion for testing.
None of us test the 911 calling on our phones, we just trust it will work when we need it. For me, it always has on the rare occasions I've used it.
Click to expand...
The departments I've worked with protocol is to go to each "accidental" call and verify there is no emergency, so yeah, don't "test" it please.
 
OK but not everyone lives in the same kind of setting as you apparently do. In the OP's posting, the assumption being they're out in a very sparsely populated area where cellular companies are very unlikely to provide any kind of service, if you don't test 911 accessibility (or whichever emergency number used in whatever country), it can be a matter of life or death. If there is a 911 call, that's not an emergency but with merit, it would be kind of scary to think that the dispatcher is so bad at their job that they're not able to figure out this needs to be done in certain locales. Having the ability to apply basic logic and make adult decisions is something of job requirement, that's part of the job as far as determining just what problem is and which first-responder service to have deployed. Or in this instance, the OP is doing a test that's pretty much a requirement.
https://www.howtogeek.com/319304/how-to-properly-test-911-services-on-your-cell-phone/
 
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