Last weekend I attended the Ahtanum Cleanup on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains about 30 miles west of Yakima. We called C.B. channel 7 as our main communications link and 146.580 MHz (simplex) as our backup. I set my dual-band radio to the designated 2-meter frequency when I left home and spent almost the entire day monitoring it until I left camp for home.

Shortly after I reached civilization I received a cell phone call from my son-in-law. It was about 5:30PM and he said my wife had had an emergency episode and that they had been trying to reach me all day. Long story short the paramedics took her to the hospital at around Ten O' Clock AM and since then the whole fam-damily had showed up; everyone except me! My wife is okay, but my communication program needs reprogramming.

As we all know, communications is at it's worst in the mountains; all those rocky hills blocking our cell phone and radio signals. So at one high point I was curious and took a minute to check out my 2-meter radio to see if I could hit local repeaters and did so with no problem. Then I tried a repeater about 100 miles away and it worked, too. But, I was only on the repeaters for a minute or two. Feeling good about how well the radio worked I switched back to to the simplex frequency and continued on our trip.

Well everyone at home was trying to call me on my cell phone and my son-in-law, a licensed amateur ratio operator, was trying to reach me on 146.580 simplex. Simplex is typically car-to-car communication without the assistance of a mountain-top repeater. You are pretty much at the mercy of "line-of-sight" transmission and both vehicles must be relatively clear of solid obstacles, sort of like CB only better. Besides trying simplex he also tried several local repeaters, but that didn't work either because I had my radio tuned to a single simplex frequency.

If I had set my radio to the "scan" mode instead of a single frequency I know I would have heard his call on one of the repeaters that serve the area. And as far as the designated simplex frequency is concerned, I could have set it as a priority channel and heard it as well. In the future I will continue to monitor the designated simplex frequency and at the same time scan all other programmed frequencies.

After all, the reason I went with ham radio in the first place was to report emergencies on the backroads, and now I realize that scenario goes both ways; not only outgoing transmissions, but incoming as well.

A lesson learned.

Ditto, Craig, me too!  I had to refer to my operating manual to learn how to set a priority channel.  I haven't got it down pat as there is more than one option, but given a little time the kinks will work out.  I was just referring to my manual last night and it is still laying open on my desk as I type this.

I keep about 100 VHF and UHF frequencies programmed into my radio.  That number includes repeaters located in areas I frequent most, i.e. Wenatchee, Colockum, LT Murray, Naches, Ahtanum, Tri Cities, Ukiah, Meacham and La Grande.  It also includes all Washington State allocated VHF and UHF simplex frequencies.  If I venture out of my "home area" I spend a few minutes researching repeater frequencies for say, SE Oregon, and install the frequencies and tones for Bend, Hines, Juntura, Jordan Valley, Silver City, etc.  Once home from the trip I delete those freq's.

One source for obtaining repeater frequencies is the ARRL Repeater Directory.  And perhaps more up to date information can be obtained from the following web pages:

http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/

http://rptr.amateur-radio.net/arn/rptr/index.html

http://k5ehx.net/repeaters/qrepeater.php

http://www.usrepeaters.com/

There are some linked repeaters that cover the I-90 corridor, but I have not had the opportunity to use them to date.  I'm sure you can find them without too much of a search.  I think they would be excellent for those trips to the Quilomene.

I'd say if you are facing situation when there might be an emergency call coming to you. Using complicated system of support person, linking repeaters is very likely to be broken down every time you truly have to used it.
For price of decent UHF radio, or maybe even less you can have $299 Qualcomm Satellite phone and plans starting at $34/month

I think that would be much more reliable solution.

Good to hear that she is ok, Getting my ham license this month.