I did this for decades, in real wilderness while rucksacking in Mountains, deserts and even the Frank Church Wilderness Area and aboard various sailboats: relayed everything from Lat/Long to love notes - worked fine.  [ Forget the rumors, I never actually sent love notes to Gil. . . haha ] Actually it was a bush plane we had arrive at a specific (different) meadow a day early.  No reason to wait for our prearranged pick-up, we were finished shooting the video and tequila & steaks were sounding very good. .  I was in northern Idaho, the ham was in Arizona and the bush pilot was at his airfield in central Idaho.  The ham took the pilot's phone number, name of our party, my lat/long, common name of the meadow and landmark info , called the pilot on the phone and we (I was on crew,  shooting a survival video) received our answer via Morse from Arizona: "maybe tomorrow". (We're kinda laid-back up here in the mountains of Idaho and the bush pilot also had mail to deliver. ) ...  Worked fine.  That was a kit built, 'one band' SW-40+ ( about two Watts) in a lite clamshell case about the size of a paperback book, with a push button on top for a key; antenna was a dipole with RG-174. Passed traffic for two weeks ( 3 =< 20 words messages per night for crew members and my messages abd sked chatter and hobby hamming ) Before that, I did it for the government/military - enciphered - worked fine and lives depended on it.

Gil did this with the SAME shirt pocket and home made transceiver he often used on our 2 year sked from southern Florida to northern Virginia - two years . the camping trip was very reliable for a week straight, including accurately relaying message traffic: it's daily comms.  Oh and, the entire 'comms shack' fit into his cargo pants side pocket and he hiked into place.  Like Gil said - it's no challenge, it's daily comms, but if it can illustrate some useful points, let's be useful.

Let's do the challenge prefaced on a scenario where  Size, Weight and Power consumption matter. Here's a point to begin with. Is your comms gear a minor addition to normal trekking gear? Can you carry it ALL up and over obstacles, across rivers, up mountains? It is small and robust enough to be PART of your gear, not all of it? If not - why not?

1. Entire comms kit to fit inside of a small coffee can, so that it can easily accompany you trekking. (You can cook in the can when it's not in there ;-)

2. 5 Km walk , including a 500m lift and descent (that's only about 1500 feet - simple days hike - really)


"One Band"   So what? 

Just because something is larger, more expensive and heavier does not make it better.





Skills -vs- 'stuff': you choose.

I heard my first uBITx on the air yesterday.  It was a military radio collectors group that runs USB on forty meters (because mil sets are commonly USB only) . They opened their requiredment to use 'unusual radios' and there was the person calling, weak readable in SSB and entering the net at 7 Watts output.  pretty cool - eh ? In CFw, they would have been VERY loud, in SSB 'weak readable', so no problem.  That's great for an inexpensive, all HF band transceiver at a very reasonable price.

73 de RadioEay  ..._  ._

It's likely wide FM, being a low VHF band, mil set.

"What an awful name though"

Mooooo- ha ha ha ha!  True

of course, a REAL CONTESTERS mode would just be hardwired to send "5NN" and maybe their call - 20 KHz high - of course.

This fellow has a lot of useful information and just returned from a successfl, though 'politically frustrating' deployment to Puerto Rice.  Though a relatively new ham, this is noe very switched-ON person.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P56ox8COG64FXfVrU5nig16AgU19NS5b3EDf1LIO4lw/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs

I did see video footage of the boat and what I saw looked like marine growth along a line near the boot stripe.  That's a common thing to do for people who like to swim (whi I never did, because a human mid-ocean is a "snack", in my eyes...) TO USE A LINE FOR BOTH THAT AND (IF A LARGE LINE) AS A 'FENDER' OF SORTS.The boat did ont appear to be low in the water, which indicates (but does not prove) excess water inside of the hull... 

The mast was basically intact and the 'damage' they reported was on one spreader.  You can sail on several points of sail with one limp spreader OR repair the spreader (the blonDe - amazingly NOT sunburned) said that she built the boat, yet could neither repair nor shorten the standing riggin on that side, NOR sail on a tack to no have that side over stressed.  A sailor could and likely WOULD do that, rather than bobbing for 5 months.

COMMUNICATIONS is still very, very weak in this entire thing.  An HF radio would have done very well.  The Pacific Seafarers net with shore and ocean operators, SOMEONE would have heard from a boat mid-ocean and that close to Hawaii.

"We hit a Force 11 Storm (right out of Hawaii)  and it lasted for days."  Really?  Yet your weather planning missed that giant about one hundred miles or less from THE Major population center in the mid-Pacific.


Their story As filtered through the media IS not adding up, the YouTube videos are not matching with their story of being 'mariners'. We'll know more in time, but likely; the controlled media will do their best to paint then into a mini-series as love bound heroines who fought the sea and won.  Yawn!







 . 

Mast damage -  that's critical.  The articles I read ONLY discussed engine. That's critical and changes my mind on this - for the better. The desalinator was in the other articles and that is a life saver.  As for food -, I always carried plenty, and in a way that I can go everywhere with it -

But Gil -----

You could use it on your coffee table - like you did during one of our skeds ;-)