Mounted search and rescue

[pennbo@bbv.net]

You have a weird and unusual mind Jorene! I love it! I had a good chuckle too!
<G> We have stationed folks at important radio points before but our problem 
is
often a shortage of SAR members. The only real solution to this is the 
repeator
locations and installation. The county is really working on this. So far we 
have
never been in a position where lack of communications has been critical - but 
we
are trying to think ahead. We have been in situations where even our small 
MSAR
radios could not contact the next team. This is a time delay which could be
disastrous someday. For example we were on one seach in the rough area around
here. My partner and I picked up the MP tracks. We headed down into a very 
steep
canyon. We knew that another team was parallel to us but just on the other 
side
of the ridge above us. Radios wouldn't work more than a crackle. Knowing that 
we
needed to relay the info to CP we ended up leaving the track, riding to where
the team could hear us shout, having them relay the message by radio (they 
were
on the ridge-their radios worked), and then resuming the search. In this case 
it
worked out fine and the MP was located (he climbed up to a road). But it was a
delay of about 20minutes which I would rather not have wasted!
We do have some new and improved radios but haven't had a chance to try them 
out
in the field yet. That is this week! However the weather has been unseasonably
hot and no one wants to be out in it. (Thankfully that includes most potential
MPs!) We're training at night this week instead. <G>

Chris Pennington
Big Bear MSAR

Jorene Downs wrote:

> Chris, I must confess I just had a big chuckle. Your description gave me a
> wild mental image series of Morse Code-like messages being honked out on an
> air horn while people at both ends scrambled to read the cheat sheet cards
> to translate the code. In confusion and frustration all reference cards were
> then used for fire starter and the communication method switched to puffs of