Perhaps it’s the NZ topography or the relatively low density of cell phone towers, but here once you get off the beaten track phone reception is very patchy at best. I can drive 5 kilometres to a nearby forest park and loose reception. In mountainous regions there’s no chance.
However, most phones have GPS capability and if configured correctly can provide GPS positioning that will assist searchers in locating you. Anyway it’s quite inexpensive to buy or rent an emergency beacon device that you can activate when there is a need. They are accurate to within 10 metres.
In the case you are referring to, I’m surprised the rescue team didn’t send an SMS message instead. The probability of someone reading a text message sent from an unknown number is much higher than the probability of someone answering a phone call from an unknown number.
I’m no doubt doomed to a similar fate. I figure I’ll be hiking in some precarious spot and go over the edge and plunge to my demise while screaming obscenities at someone reading from a script in broken English and insisting they’re with the Government Department Of Tax Enforcement & Immigration, telling me that the police are on the way and I can only avoid arrest and deportation if I go immediately and get them $10,000 in McDonalds gift cards…
Because how there are, too many scam callers right now, we are, accustomed to, ignore the phone numbers that we don’t know, not realizing, that, answering that call from an unknown caller can, save our lives…
My mum got 4 calls today from mobiles that she didn’t know. These scammers are getting clever!
Me too – my VM message says if I don’t know your number, you better leave a message if you want a return call. I was thinking the same thing when I saw that article … 😂
My problem is a little different : when the mobile rings I can’t find it , buried under books, mail, clothes that need ironing .
Musings from a Tangled Mind 
Perhaps it’s the NZ topography or the relatively low density of cell phone towers, but here once you get off the beaten track phone reception is very patchy at best. I can drive 5 kilometres to a nearby forest park and loose reception. In mountainous regions there’s no chance.
However, most phones have GPS capability and if configured correctly can provide GPS positioning that will assist searchers in locating you. Anyway it’s quite inexpensive to buy or rent an emergency beacon device that you can activate when there is a need. They are accurate to within 10 metres.
In the case you are referring to, I’m surprised the rescue team didn’t send an SMS message instead. The probability of someone reading a text message sent from an unknown number is much higher than the probability of someone answering a phone call from an unknown number.
I’m no doubt doomed to a similar fate. I figure I’ll be hiking in some precarious spot and go over the edge and plunge to my demise while screaming obscenities at someone reading from a script in broken English and insisting they’re with the Government Department Of Tax Enforcement & Immigration, telling me that the police are on the way and I can only avoid arrest and deportation if I go immediately and get them $10,000 in McDonalds gift cards…
Because how there are, too many scam callers right now, we are, accustomed to, ignore the phone numbers that we don’t know, not realizing, that, answering that call from an unknown caller can, save our lives…
My mum got 4 calls today from mobiles that she didn’t know. These scammers are getting clever!
Me too – my VM message says if I don’t know your number, you better leave a message if you want a return call. I was thinking the same thing when I saw that article … 😂
My problem is a little different : when the mobile rings I can’t find it , buried under books, mail, clothes that need ironing .