Nobody could have missed the tragic incidents in Boston this week, but one thing that caught my eye was the live tweeting of what police and other emergency responders were saying over the radio, and how the police asked for…
Blog Archives
Vancouver Island Comms Workshop
Coquitlam SAR member Jordan and I attended the VI Region Communications Workshop in Parksville yesterday, with 45 representatives from 10 VI SAR Teams, amateur radio clubs, and EMBC. I presented my talk from SARScene 2012 (for those who attended, this…
GPS Dilution of Error Notice
In awesome space news, SAR Teams throughout southwestern BC were notified today that a known GPS dilution of error event will occur tomorrow (January 16th) between 2215Z and 2245Z. Converting Zulu (UTC) to normal time means that’s from 14:15 (2:15 PM) and…
The SpareOne Emergency Cell Phone
Readers of the blog know that I’ve said before that you shouldn’t use a smart phone for backcountry travel. The most important reason for this is that you’re using battery life which will make it hard to use the phone to…
Tagged with: communications, emergency, gear, how-to, review, smart phone, technology
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Stop with the Smart Phones already
Last year I wrote about how you should stop using Smart Phones for backcountry navigation. News outlets continue to post comments from local SAR teams highlighting what I wrote about; people using their phones as navigation devices are running the…
Tagged with: backcountry, communications, gear, GPS, opinion, rant, safety, smart phone, social media, technology
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SARScene 2012 Presentation
I attended SARScene again this year (see here for last year’s presentation), and gave a presentation titled “Best Practices in Managing Geospatial Data for SAR Teams”. The idea was to present practical tips on managing “geospatial data” which is a…
Tagged with: communications, GPS, how-to, mapping, OpenStreetMap, SAR, technology
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A Social Media Storm
I originally wrote the following as a response to a question in a LinkedIn Group “Do you have a social media policy?”, and although it’s not a direct answer to that question it is an interesting lesson on an undesired effect of…
The idiocy of using social media to call for help
The Canadian Red Cross commissioned Ipsos Reid to conduct a survey on what Canadians expect of social media in an emergency. One of the results they talk about here is that 63% of respondents think emergency responders should answer emergency calls via…
Tagged with: backcountry, communications, GPS, rant, smart phone, smartphone, social media, technology
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Cell phones and GPS
It seems there’s been a few articles in the news recently about Cell phones and GPS “signals”, and how SAR uses them. The Issue: Accuracy Last week, North Shore Rescue helpfully pointed out some perceived flaws in the system. That…
Tagged with: backcountry, cell phone, communications, GPS, PLB, smart phone, technology
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