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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
List hosted by www.tscnet.com
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Greetings,
I sail on Lake Ontario, the Finger Lakes and other inlands bodies of water.
I vote for both. I can get a hold of help a lot quicker on the inlands
bodies of water with a Cell Phone. Lake Ontario on the other hand has a CG
station so VHF is the way to go. On the Erie Canal if you are in distress
you just step of and wade to shore but the VHF is used for contacting the
Lockmasters. I guess they list phones to, but the instructions specify VHF.
The 1000 Islands is a picturesque sailing area but it is also the entrance
to the St. Lawrence Seaway through which all Great Lakes freighter traffic
passes. A Cell Phone would work well to alert the State Police that your are
about to be run down by a coal barge but the VHF would prevent such a
necessity.
There is a BIG difference with how far a cell phone reaches with each
provider. I have a friend who is an Engineer on oil tankers for Chevron. He
has a cell phone that you can reach him on wherever he is along the coast,
up to 100 miles out he says. I have never had difficulty reaching him when
he is going port to port US coastal. I suspected that this was one of those
satellite cell phones that are pretty pricey, but I do have trouble reaching
him when he is doing California to Hawaii or California to Alaska so I don't
know what he uses.
Currently I do not have a VHF and consider it a bit of a risk each time I
venture forth onto the Great Lakes, but hope to rectify that soon.
John Haley
P18
Rochester NY
haley@geneseo.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: Rye Gewalt <ryeg@vais.net>
To: Potter List <wwpotter@tscnet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 6:05 PM
Subject: Cell vs VHF
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> West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
> dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
> List hosted by www.tscnet.com
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> Cell phones by definition don't reach very far and depend on having a
> cell tower in the immediate area. Beyond about a mile from shore things
> can get kind of sketchy. VHF radios, even the walkie talkie types, have
> considerably more power (10x +) and can talk to shore base stations that
> have high antennas --- so they can be expected to work further out.
> And, of course you can reach other boats in your area directly.
>
> The antennas and gear inside of a cell tower are purposely designed to
> have limited range.
>
> Sometimes on the Cellular fringes you can get an indication that service
> is available, but when you make the call it poops out because of spotty
> signal strength as you move about. Something about fresnel effects etc.
>
> But, of course I prefer both and maybe signal flags, some flares, a
> megaphone and a whistle. ;-)
>
> Regards
> Rye
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Mar 31 2000 - 03:27:08 PST