New Piece of Backcountry Gear - "Communicate off the Grid"

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Tom Rankin

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Bear Tooth - Stay in touch with other users up to 10 miles away.

Also comes with 'High-res offline topographic maps'.

One thing it doesn't say is if you can use it to communicate with 9-1-1. I'm guessing the answer is no.

https://www.beartooth.com/
 
If you read the fine print (image behind text), it says up to 5 mi for voice and up to 10 mi for text and location.

It uses the 902-928MHz (33 cm) license-free band which is shared with other users (and must accept interference from the licensed users). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33-centimeter_band Thus it may be less useful than advertised in urban areas.

I expect the practical range to be similar to FRS radios (~460 MHz) which are often limited to less than a mile by terrain and foliage. (The max range is often advertised to be ~5mi.)


Looks to me like the Beartooth module simply provides a phone-to-phone communications link that is independent of the cellphone system (towers and signals). Everything else (location, map display, etc) probably occurs on the cellphone.

Doug
 
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If you read the fine print (image behind text), it says up to 5 mi for voice and up to 10 mi for text and location.

It uses the 902-928MHz (33 cm) license-free band which is shared with other users (and must accept interference from the licensed users). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33-centimeter_band Thus it may be less useful than advertised in urban areas.

I expect the practical range to be similar to FRS radios (~460 MHz) which are often limited to less than a mile by terrain and foliage. (The max range is often advertised to be ~5mi.)

Doug
QSL on that!
 
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