While I’m supervising a bush camp of tree planters, I occasionally make use of a satellite phone for remote communications. These phones are invaluable for people working in extremely remote locations, where there is no cell or radio-phone coverage. Although they are a relatively new technology (I first saw them in widespread use in planting camps beginning about five years ago), their use has exploded in situations where the basic ability to communicate with the outside world is what matters, and where the cost is fairly irrelevant. For instance, as of last summer, GlobalStar (the provider that I’m familiar with) had over a quarter of a million phones in operation in over 120 countries around the world.
The way that the satellite phones work is quite simple. They are very similar to a cell phone in look and operation, but instead of getting a signal from a tower on a nearby mountaintop, the signal is transferred between the user and a satellite in low-earth orbit or geosynchronous orbit. GlobaStar has a network of 52 low Earth orbit satellites to provide coverage. The satellites fly about 1400 km above the earth, which in aeronautic terms is “fairly low.”
GlobalStar has a few problems, however. First of all, their satellites have to be close enough to an earth-based station (known as a gateway) to operate properly, so there are areas around the world where coverage does not exist. For instance, there are no gateways in remote areas of the ocean, because traffic in those areas is almost non-existent (except from passing ships). Therefore, even though the satellites fly over these areas, their phones don’t work there. Also, because the Globalstar satellites have an inclination of 52 degrees, they don’t provide coverage over the polar areas, which are “out of sight” of the satellites.
GlobalStar’s satellites were launched between 1998 and 2000, and were mostly expected to have a lifetime of seven to eight years. Accordingly, in 2005, some of the satellites started to be taken out of service. They are currently designing new satellites with much longer life expectancies, but I have no idea when they are being launched. I think they expected availability is around 2010, but I may stand to be corrected.
The big problem is that in early 2007, GlobalStar filed documents with the SEC in which they admitted to a problem with their S-band amplifiers (a critical part of the communications equipment) which would lead to a significant loss of operational capability by this year. In fact, I started having extreme difficulty in using my own satellite phone last summer. The company went so far as to issue the following statement last year: “Based on its most recent analysis, the Company now believes that, if the degradation of the S-band antenna amplifiers continues at the current rate or further accelerates, and if the Company is unsuccessful in developing additional technical solutions, the quality of two-way communications services will decline, and by some time in 2008 substantially all of the Company’s currently in-orbit satellites will cease to be able to support two-way communications services.” So in other words, the reliability of the GlobalStar network is highly questionable right now.
One of the other planting camps in my own company had a medical emergency today. An employee was found unconscious on a remote block by another member of her crew. She is quite fine this evening – the crew had the proper first aid personnel and gear on site to provide proper care, and a helicopter was called immediately to take her to the nearest hospital. However, the helicopter was summoned by satellite phone, using a GlobalStar phone. It worked well today, but we can’t count on the phones being reliable in all situations.
As a supervisor, I have to plan for safety every day, and have reliable methods of dealing with emergencies. My plans no longer rely on the assumption that my satellite phone will work. It’s funny – I spent fifteen years working in remote camps without a satellite phone, and never worried in the slightest. But now that I’ve become used to having it, I feel very uneasy knowing that the technology is no longer reliable.
Showing posts with label mobile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile. Show all posts
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Hitchhiking Safety
I haven't posted on my regular blog for a while. Since the middle of November, I've been pretty involved with moving my restaurant, (see here for more details) which takes up almost every hour that I'm not at work at my job at the university. It's been pretty time-consuming, so my email-answering and other communication has been minimal during these past two months. However, right now I'm sitting in Seattle and waiting to fly home (I played a show here last night), so before I get back to work on some paperwork for the Pub, I thought I'd take a few minutes to write something here.
I get a lot of random ideas. When it comes to "problem solving," I've been told that I excel at lateral thinking. Sometimes these ideas are pretty crazy, sometimes they are fairly intelligent or creative (this is my own assessment). My blog has been a bit boring lately, so over the next few months, when I have time, I'm going to share a few of these ideas and let people reading here make their own opinions.
Today's idea came to me because I was thinking about the "Highway Of Tears." This is the name that some people use to refer to a section of highway in British Columbia, in particular, the section of the Yellowhead (Route 16) which runs from Prince Rupert to Prince George and eastward. Over the past decade, a number of women have disappeared from this highway - so far there are about ten documented cases which are assumed to relate to the highway, and of course, there may be more unreported cases. The theory is that someone is preying on hitch-hikers along that highway, targeting mostly women with Native backgrounds. However, one victim in particular (Nicole Hoar) raised the awareness surrounding this subject, at least for myself. Nicole was a tree-planter, and her disappearance brought national attention to the area. If you do a search on Google, you'll find more information about this situation.
Hitch-hiking is a fairly common practice for some people. It's an inexpensive way to get from place to place for people on a low budget, and you can meet some interesting people when doing it. I used to hitch-hike regularly between university and home before I got a car, and I also did it fairly often the first several years that I was tree-planting, when I had to deliver vehicles to a different town or city and then return to Prince George. However, in the past few decades, I think it has become less common, as people become aware of the danger of getting picked up by a psychopath. Who knows, it's probably safer than some other things that people do regularly, but "safer" doesn't mean "safe."
My idea is something that would make hitch-hiking "safer" than it is currently. I think someone (a not-for-profit institution of some sort, or maybe one of the big auto-makers) should set up a toll-free hotline for hitch-hikers, something like 1-800-HITCHHIKE, although of course the exact number would have to be picked carefully (that one has too many digits). The concept would be that if someone is hitch-hiking, as they are walking to the vehicle that picks them up, they call the toll-free number and leave a message on the hotline saying, "My name is XXX, I'm calling from about 10 miles east of Prince George on route 16, and I'm getting picked up by a red truck with BC license plate KC 7839. I'm heading East to Jasper."
That's it, that's all there is to my idea. There wouldn't have to be a detailed conversation. The hitch-hiker wouldn't have to call once they arrived at their destination to say, "I've made it safely" - that way, there is far less work for the operator, and many hitch-hikers would be too lazy to call once they had arrived at their destination. However, if the hitch-hiker goes missing, at least there would be a record somewhere of what might have happened. Now of course, this still doesn't prevent all problems. For instance, hitch-hikers are often low on money, which means that they probably are less likely to have a cell phone than many other people. However, so many people have cell phones these days that this is becoming less of an issue.
Anyway, if you happen to get into a car and the person turns to you and says, "Hi, I'm an axe murderer, and you're in deep trouble now," then you could turn to them and say, "So are you - I've just left a message with the Hitch-Hiker Hotline to tell them your license plate number, and if I don't make it to Jasper safely, they'll know where to start looking." Now of course, this still may not deter the axe murderer from cutting you up into tiny pieces and feeding you into a woodchipper, but if it DOES happen, at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that he or she is more likely to be caught.
That's my idea for the day. In the meantime, be safe and take the bus.
I get a lot of random ideas. When it comes to "problem solving," I've been told that I excel at lateral thinking. Sometimes these ideas are pretty crazy, sometimes they are fairly intelligent or creative (this is my own assessment). My blog has been a bit boring lately, so over the next few months, when I have time, I'm going to share a few of these ideas and let people reading here make their own opinions.
Today's idea came to me because I was thinking about the "Highway Of Tears." This is the name that some people use to refer to a section of highway in British Columbia, in particular, the section of the Yellowhead (Route 16) which runs from Prince Rupert to Prince George and eastward. Over the past decade, a number of women have disappeared from this highway - so far there are about ten documented cases which are assumed to relate to the highway, and of course, there may be more unreported cases. The theory is that someone is preying on hitch-hikers along that highway, targeting mostly women with Native backgrounds. However, one victim in particular (Nicole Hoar) raised the awareness surrounding this subject, at least for myself. Nicole was a tree-planter, and her disappearance brought national attention to the area. If you do a search on Google, you'll find more information about this situation.
Hitch-hiking is a fairly common practice for some people. It's an inexpensive way to get from place to place for people on a low budget, and you can meet some interesting people when doing it. I used to hitch-hike regularly between university and home before I got a car, and I also did it fairly often the first several years that I was tree-planting, when I had to deliver vehicles to a different town or city and then return to Prince George. However, in the past few decades, I think it has become less common, as people become aware of the danger of getting picked up by a psychopath. Who knows, it's probably safer than some other things that people do regularly, but "safer" doesn't mean "safe."
My idea is something that would make hitch-hiking "safer" than it is currently. I think someone (a not-for-profit institution of some sort, or maybe one of the big auto-makers) should set up a toll-free hotline for hitch-hikers, something like 1-800-HITCHHIKE, although of course the exact number would have to be picked carefully (that one has too many digits). The concept would be that if someone is hitch-hiking, as they are walking to the vehicle that picks them up, they call the toll-free number and leave a message on the hotline saying, "My name is XXX, I'm calling from about 10 miles east of Prince George on route 16, and I'm getting picked up by a red truck with BC license plate KC 7839. I'm heading East to Jasper."
That's it, that's all there is to my idea. There wouldn't have to be a detailed conversation. The hitch-hiker wouldn't have to call once they arrived at their destination to say, "I've made it safely" - that way, there is far less work for the operator, and many hitch-hikers would be too lazy to call once they had arrived at their destination. However, if the hitch-hiker goes missing, at least there would be a record somewhere of what might have happened. Now of course, this still doesn't prevent all problems. For instance, hitch-hikers are often low on money, which means that they probably are less likely to have a cell phone than many other people. However, so many people have cell phones these days that this is becoming less of an issue.
Anyway, if you happen to get into a car and the person turns to you and says, "Hi, I'm an axe murderer, and you're in deep trouble now," then you could turn to them and say, "So are you - I've just left a message with the Hitch-Hiker Hotline to tell them your license plate number, and if I don't make it to Jasper safely, they'll know where to start looking." Now of course, this still may not deter the axe murderer from cutting you up into tiny pieces and feeding you into a woodchipper, but if it DOES happen, at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that he or she is more likely to be caught.
That's my idea for the day. In the meantime, be safe and take the bus.
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