[pct-l] cell phone coverage

[Wayne Kraft]

I don't think there is really very much predictable about cell phone 
coverage.  In the areas I know about there is coverage where you'd least 
expect it and no coverage where you would expect it.  There's a cell 
transmitter or repeater or whatever you call it within a few hundred yards 
of Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood.  There must be another one over in the 
Meadows Ski Area east of there because my son called me from there ("missed 
my bus, dude. bummer. it's like, y'know, a freakin' white out here.  can ya 
come get me?").  Just north of Timberline there's a PCT alternate route 
through Paradise Park (only a horse, mule or donkey should take the PCT 
route here).  I am always able to call home from there.  Years and years ago 
I called my office from a boat in the middle of Odell Lake.  I am such an 
idiot.  There's a little hillock on the south end of South Mathieu Lake in 
the Three Sisters Wilderness from which I've called home.

Because I'm hearing impaired I do a lot of texting.  Incoming text messages 
apparently wait for coverage in a cue and transmit to your phone when you 
have coverage.  While hobbling along this spring injured, alone and 
discouraged on a heavily wooded trail miles from the road in the Columbia 
River Gorge, my phone received a text message from my daughter who 
apparently wasn't even aware I was gone for a few days.  I was able to 
respond to her by text, but I could not get a voice call through.  So, yes, 
it appears that text messages will work when voice won't.

Off-topic aside:  When I was in law school professors would assign the class 
cases to read and then call upon students to summarize the facts and 
holding.  The professors would then select and quiz a hapless student about 
various implications of the holding in the case du jour.  This is known as 
the Socratic Method.  Unfortunately, Socrates didn't teach at the law school 
I attended and the "method" resulted mainly in madness.  I took an evening 
class in Municipal Law from a practicing attorney.  On the first day of 
class he said, "I am going to deliver lectures in this class and if you have 
a question, raise your hand, pose your question and I'll answer it.  I won't 
be asking you any questions.  I am not interested in hearing your 
misperceptions about municipal law."  Best class I had in law school. 
Likewise, I posted this for whatever informational value it might be to the 
list, not to regenerate another mind-numbing debate about whether or not to 
take a cell phone into the "wilderness."  My cell phone has a qwerty 
keyboard, takes, stores, transmits and downloads digital images and short 
videos, sends and receives voice and text messages, accesses the internet 
for instant news and weather reports, has a clock, calendar, address and 
appointment book and weighs a couple of ounces.  It is coming with.  If you 
don't want to hear my phone ring, just stay the heck away.