Can you be tracked by your cell phone...

GC

GC

Well-known member
Here is the question... Can you be tracked by your cell phone in an area where the phone has no service? Let's say you were hunting a wilderness area where there is no service/reception for your phone and you had a mishap/accident of some sort. Could rescue teams track your cell phone to find you?
 
I BELIEVE the answer is no for the following reason: It takes satalite contact to show where your at. In looking at your phone(if its like mine) you also cannot tell what time it is either because there is no satalite connection.

JMHO
 
I asked on another forum also and the general educated opinion seems to be that the phone must be turned ON and you must be in a place where you have service/reception. This makes it mostly a non-issue if you have cell service as long as you are capable of placing a help call. That was my question, if you had an accident that rendered you incapable of making a call for help, or had no service, could a rescue team find you by tracking your phone. The answer is no they cannot.

Yesterday evening a pair of hikers was lost in the Mark Twain National Forest in an adjoining county but they were able to call out to the Sheriff’s Department for help. This was in an area near enough a town with a tower so they lucked out. Hardly any of the areas I hunt has cell service and I hunt alone a lot and most often miles cross country from a trailhead or pull off. I’m not worried about being lost I always carry a high quality compass and topo maps, but if I somehow were injured a rescue team would probably not find me unless there was snow on the ground. I participated in a search years back for an elderly deer hunter that failed to return to join his hunting party at their vehicle at dark. This old feller had full coverage orange coveralls on and despite nearly two weeks of daily daylight to dark searching which included both fixed wing aircraft and a helicopter along with tracking dogs on the ground his remains weren’t found until three years later by a turkey hunter. Some deteriorated faded orange material and a few bone shards were all that was recovered. I was just thinking of how to beat the odds, hedge my bets, and cover my azz…
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Can't track cell unless the cell can hit a tower.It would have to hit more than one to be able to do any kind of pin point.However if you had a satellite phone or one of the emergency satellite beacons out today you could be found almost anywhere.I to have helped in searches and it don't take miles and miles to get lost in,just so many depressions to hide a person from sight.Anyone who hunts alone like you do would be really glad he had a satellite beacon if he did need it.I think you can rent a satellite phone for short times,might be worth checking on.If you could see up it would work.
 
The modern Cell phone can be tracked in area's that have spotty communications. The phone actually communicates on two levels. The one that you see as Bars and another frequency to update the device and communicate with the tower. (this is why your phone goes dead so fast when you don't have direct signal)

If you drop someone in the middle of the desert and there was no signal at all and no local towers anywhere then the answer is no..
But if you are talking about most of the USA then yes. you may not be able to get enough to talk, but spotty reception to get the other updates and to send and receive SMS messages or Text messages. These operate on a burst and don't require as much signal. If I was lost and had no signal, you could go up a hill, wait for night (has to do with the atmosphere density) and then make a fire to stay warn and send a text.
 
Tbone,
There are some long stretches where I hunt in which there is zero cell service. I'm talking gaps of twenty – thirty plus miles. Really the point wasn't if I was healthy and lost, but injured seriously enough that I wouldn't have the capability to be mobile enough to reach help over several miles of rough country. If a feller was lying injured in a deep holler somewhere way back yonder, could anyone find you by tracking the cell phone? The answer I am getting seems to indicate that no way can it be done with a standard phone; you are on your own hook for help. Think about it, you get four or five miles cross country not on or near a trail, dressed in camo clothing in steep heavily timbered country, and suffer a serious injury of some sort, how would rescue teams find you?

Here is a typical picture like one of my hunting areas during spring turkey season… the nearest road from where this picture was taken was about five miles, the nearest town/village of any sort about twenty five miles and that is just a gathering of a few houses and a gas station/convenience store. There is cell service there but just a few miles from the village you lose service. I’m not really that worried about it, but my wife is giving me heck when I go hunting by myself anymore because she knows how hard it would be to find a disabled person way back in the timber. I think she has to have the body before she can lay claim to the life insurance…
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+1 on SPOT. Other models are available as well, search for "Personal Locator Beacon" GC.

While I will most definitely agree with T-Bone on the 2 levels of communication on cell phones, everything about them relies on communication with tower(s), there's no satellite involved. Even if you can communicate, the ability to track you through cell phone is based on triangulation of your signal on multiple towers. The fewer towers you reach, the less apt the odds of them being able to pinpoint your location accurately enough to find you.

If you're hitting a single tower, they can narrow that to a general direction (+/-10 degrees or so) and guess at your range based on signal strength. Signal strength can however vary greatly dependent upon your phone itself, battery strength, overhead foilage, in/out of vehicle/structure, weather conditions, any number of atmospheric anomolies, all sorts of things... A 1 tower search is pretty much hopeless from what they've suggested on the topic up here in ND, in talks on lost motorists searches in blizzards. They really need 3 to pinpoint you, and even then, dependent upon conditions, it can leave a fairly large search area.
 

I large majority of phones have GPS built in and can track you without cell service.The chances of being in a no cell or satellite area is getting slimmer by the day.

Most cell phones can be tracked and there speaker turned on for recording even if they are turned off.Battery pull is the only thing that can stop it but they are working hard to get very small un-removable batteries for surveillance. This came to light a few years ago during the trial of an mafia member when it had to be disclosed how the Government attained the recordings.
 
I like the idea of carrying something that has more than one use..(if possible)
I was out there hunting in that situation, i wouldn't go out there without a Gerber multi tool, and Mag block.
But after that I would seriously suggest looking for a Garmin Rhino GPS.(500+ version)
I say this because you can load the Hunting Maps GPS software that will tell you who's land you are standing on. also use the program in friends. (shows you where they are) Listen to the weather channel and call on the distress channel.
 
I have a tracker on my daughters phone, her phone needs to be on and have some amount of service other wise it won't work. Sometimes it accurate to within 40 yards other times 2.5 miles depending on service strength I guess
 
So here is why spot is the way to go.

Last fall we were rock crawling in Moab. We were on a very rough trail that typically takes 8 hours from start to finish if nothings breaks. There is no cell service. Just after lunch we came around a corner and find a rolled ATV. The lady in passenger seat put her arm to prevent the roll. Her arms was snapped and the break had the bone protruding. At 12.34 I activated the spot. At 12:36 the call went into the local sheriffs office. At 12:51 search and rescue copter left the airport. At 1:19 the lady was loaded onto the copter and in route to hospital.

It would have taken ground crews at least 3 hours to arrive had we just called. I also use the same device to send my wife messages when I am out that I am ok and the the other message I have programmed goes to my dad, uncle and friends. When I push it, it sends a message stating I have killed an animals please come help pack.

This message send my GPS location to cells and email. When the email comes in it also provides a link to google map and goole earth so they can see exactly where I am at. The first time I used it. My buddy was waiting for me at my truck when I got head out. It saved me time to get where I had service and then I would have been giving direction and explaining etc.

Over all it has been awesome. Also love the fact it tracks my hunts and allows me to look at google earth tracks.
 
Originally Posted By: elksSo here is why spot is the way to go.

Last fall we were rock crawling in Moab. We were on a very rough trail that typically takes 8 hours from start to finish if nothings breaks. There is no cell service. Just after lunch we came around a corner and find a rolled ATV. The lady in passenger seat put her arm to prevent the roll. Her arms was snapped and the break had the bone protruding. At 12.34 I activated the spot. At 12:36 the call went into the local sheriffs office. At 12:51 search and rescue copter left the airport. At 1:19 the lady was loaded onto the copter and in route to hospital.

It would have taken ground crews at least 3 hours to arrive had we just called. I also use the same device to send my wife messages when I am out that I am ok and the the other message I have programmed goes to my dad, uncle and friends. When I push it, it sends a message stating I have killed an animals please come help pack.



This message send my GPS location to cells and email. When the email comes in it also provides a link to google map and goole earth so they can see exactly where I am at. The first time I used it. My buddy was waiting for me at my truck when I got head out. It saved me time to get where I had service and then I would have been giving direction and explaining etc.

Over all it has been awesome. Also love the fact it tracks my hunts and allows me to look at google earth tracks.




Great story.
 
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Originally Posted By: elksSo here is why spot is the way to go.

Last fall we were rock crawling in Moab. We were on a very rough trail that typically takes 8 hours from start to finish if nothings breaks. There is no cell service. Just after lunch we came around a corner and find a rolled ATV. The lady in passenger seat put her arm to prevent the roll. Her arms was snapped and the break had the bone protruding. At 12.34 I activated the spot. At 12:36 the call went into the local sheriffs office. At 12:51 search and rescue copter left the airport. At 1:19 the lady was loaded onto the copter and in route to hospital.

It would have taken ground crews at least 3 hours to arrive had we just called. I also use the same device to send my wife messages when I am out that I am ok and the the other message I have programmed goes to my dad, uncle and friends. When I push it, it sends a message stating I have killed an animals please come help pack.

This message send my GPS location to cells and email. When the email comes in it also provides a link to google map and goole earth so they can see exactly where I am at. The first time I used it. My buddy was waiting for me at my truck when I got head out. It saved me time to get where I had service and then I would have been giving direction and explaining etc.

Over all it has been awesome. Also love the fact it tracks my hunts and allows me to look at google earth tracks.

I think you convinced me to get one...
 
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