I'm no techy and I don't have a smartphone but surely leaving the phone switched on when there is no signal or only a minimal one will flatten the battery quickly as it scans in vain. If it's not switched on its emergency benefit is limited but if the battery is flat it's of no use at all.

There seems to be a tendency in the great outdoors to try to 'get away from it all' but to take an increasing load of tech with us. Isn't this part of what we want to get away from ?

I'll be walking solo with a minimal mobile phone (without even a camera function but registered for SMS as Louise has) and complying with coordinator JM's phone-in timetable. My personal 'risk assessment' means I may use more caution in some circumstances but I believe experience, judgement and prudence beat technical answers.

I suppose it depends on what gives you and your loved ones most comfort. Of course, unless you walk across Scotland with mobile in hand and thumb poised over the relevant button, the main problem in both cases is, on your own, are you able to get to it? If you are simply lost, by sending an SMS you would be engaging with the emergency services and getting relevant help, whereas pressing SOS could send a message with only a location and call for help with no detail, cost thousands of pounds to send a helicopter, MRT, local police, coastguard etc.,when more appropriately, you could have been walked out by the local MRT. If you're dreadfully injured you could be unable to do either. Like all gear, it's a choice and relevance thing.

Good call, Louise.

My own take, for what it's worth, is that Challengers - irrespective of their experience - should be competent navigators, and should know at all times where they are within a couple of hundred metres. Of course I can fully understand that there may be times when there's a certain disclocation. And this is where old-fashioned compass and map skills come into play - aided now by current GPS locators.

I would hope that our current cohort of Challengers have the requisite map and compass skills. Of course smartphone and dedicated GPS devices have their place - and I use them myself - but they're an adjunct to tried and trusted physical material. The same goes for Get-Out-Of-Jail emergency applications. Typically these are those that dial you in to Mountain Rescue /Police services. There are no golden bullets!

I'd urge all Challengers to focus in the first instance on good old-fashioned paper maps, to consider escape routes at all times, and to give consideration to The Venerable Vetters. Yum! Yum!

Why on earth do I want others to know where I am?

Am just popping out for a couple of weeks is good enough for me :-)

"Why on earth do I want others to know where I am?" Andy I hope that you remember this if ever you are laying on a hillside with a broken leg!
I have been very abstemious on the forum this year but I just could not resist this one.

I have that T shirt, got it in 2004. And since I had dropped off a hill in deep mist, into the valley before my gravity incident, it was very useful to tell the RAF Helicopter boys my exact Grid Reference. It was the only time I had used it, but at that moment it was jolly useful.

Just Sayin .......

Andy,

I am unable to find your TGO 2004 blog.

It may be a bit brief but it could be interesting to relate your tale.
Giving an insight of things that sometimes go wrong.

May give others hope, "The fall and rise of Andy (Perrin)"

The rest of your blogs would of course be the sequels.

I didn't write it up Sandy, but you have inspired me, so if I can drag through the memory cells, I will have a crack at it this week.