Safety Question : Who here has a satellite phone and who all has calstar ?

[blondejoncherokee]

Who here has a satellite phone?
Who has calstar?

Going to be buying both in the near future to add to my safety concerns and would like some first hand experience if it exists on the satellite phones the calstar enrollment is an obvious yes.

 

[XJensen]

Calstar Is Only $35 A Year Through Fotr And Other groups

 

[blondejoncherokee]

yep I saw that on pirate

 

[souske]

Do you already have a ham?

 

[blondejoncherokee]

No ham. Is it better than a satelite phone

 

[the_weirdo]

I have had CalStar for 6+ years. My insurance covers the helicopter ride but I pay for it to help keep the helicopters in the air. If your insurance doesn't cover it, plan on a helicopter ride costing at least $25k and likely lots more. Check out the reciprocal agreements with other guys like Enloe to pick what's best for your wheeling areas.

 

[NorCalChris]

I have a race.radio. I think they're modified ham radios. Never used it anywhere but at races. Might be good to pack with my expo gear too. Idk..

 

[Jeep450r]

Look into SPOT. It's a device that can send preset messages to numbers that you preset. Mine had 3 buttons:
One sent a message to my parents saying "just checking in. All is fine" for when I got to camp or wherever I was going
One said "in need of help. Not an emergency
And the last told them it was an emergency and was sent to my parents as well as an emergency dispatcher with instructions to send a helicopter to the attached GPS coordinates.

All messages were received as texts with a link to the coordinates the message was sent from.

Pretty neat safety device. I'd recommend it.

 

[bisaeff]

just spent 2 Saturdays - now Michael and I both have Ham Licenses and Radios, FOTR has yearly classes in El Dorado Hill's - from any where inside the rubicon you can talk to Sacramento to Tahoe - even possible to receive phone call via internet connected smart phones

 

[bisaeff]

John great subject - thank you

just added another discussion - as this is very very important

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1123730

 

[XJ_Rudolph]

Iv looked into getting a sat phone at one point...you just have to get one where there is no contract fee just a fee per minuet or text, because in reality you might only use it one or two times a year. I always recommend ham, I can always hit the south lake tahoe repeater (mounted at the top of heavenly) from anywhere on the rubicon. That repeater will rebrodcast the signal in a 100mile radius, so everyone around will know whats up. I have a 75watt radio, and I believe the repeater tower is 200 watts. This is what iv got mounted up in the jeep: http://www.amazon.com/2300H-05-144M...s&ie=UTF8&qid=1447127255&sr=1-1&keywords=icom