"notbob" wrote in message
. ..
This worries me because it highlights the shortcomings of all this new
high tech gimcrackery.

I'm not sure what "shortcomings" you're referring to; no cell phone or WiFi
vendor suggests that you're somehow going to be able to get service out in the
middle of nowhere, miles from any populated town.

As I understand it, even satellite cellphones
require a service provider with a nearby uplink antenna.

No, plenty are 100% standalone. You're probably thinking of models that
effectively act like traditional cordless phones back to a basestation so that
the handset itself can be small and light and have good battery life.

How long do you think it would have taken James, or anyone in that
situation, to make contact with outside help and get him and his
family out of there if he'd had something like a basic QRP tranceiver
and antenna and knew how to use it?

(Assuming an HF band transceiver...) Not long at all.

If he had made various short hikes from the car to the surrounding hill tops
perhaps he could have managed to hit a cell phone tower as well and
successfully made a call.

Any thoughts you may have on this issue would be appreciated.

Although we'll probably never know exactly what he was thinking, I've been on
the road in question and to most people it justs scream "do not enter!" in
winter... at least not without much better equipment and supplies, including a
different vehicle.

I'd be curious to learn if he used a piece of mapping/routing software to
choose his course; I've seen some that will choose the road he did because it
is shorter, in mileage, than the main highway out to the coast -- not
considering that the road is narrow, gravel, and otherwise rather treacherous
in winter. (Even in summer it's significantly slower than the main highway.)

---Joel