Lurch:
I was hoping my post would smoke out someone who knows about this stuff, and you delivered. It seems pretty clear that a cell phone with no signal showing is a long shot for saving your neck. But I guess if you were in dire straits, it couldn't hurt to try. As for me, I carry a PLB, so I shouldn't have to worry.
As for location tracking on an Android, I took a walk today at lunchtime, with a GPS app enabled, and halfway through the walk I switched to airplane mode. The GPS app kept recording my track, as expected. When I got back to my office, I went online and found that Google's location tracking had stopped exactly where I switched to airplane mode. I then switched back to regular mode and refreshed the page, and sure enough, Google displayed my entire walk. So, it's evident that the phone stores location data and uploads it when it has a data connection. None of this would do any good in the wilderness, of course.
Your cell phone could save you even when you have no service
- vibramhead
- Posts: 810
- Joined: November 15th, 2009, 10:52 am
- Location: SW Portland
Re: Your cell phone could save you even when you have no ser
Oh sure, if I had the means to communicate, the coordinates would be amongst the first info to get out. And I'd use the coordinates from the Garmin, not the Samsung!Lurch wrote:I think my thought process was more along the lines of, if you had to communicate your location to someone else would you be able to? or do you use your GPS only for tracking and haven't learned how to use proper coordinate systems?
Exactly as I saw it. Except it took maybe 30 minutes after turning airplane mode off before the full route was acknowledged by Google.vibramhead wrote:When I got back to my office, I went online and found that Google's location tracking had stopped exactly where I switched to airplane mode. I then switched back to regular mode and refreshed the page, and sure enough, Google displayed my entire walk. So, it's evident that the phone stores location data and uploads it when it has a data connection. None of this would do any good in the wilderness, of course.
Karl
Back on the trail, again...
Back on the trail, again...
Re: Your cell phone could save you even when you have no ser
interesting results. Is it just me or does anyone else here find it concerning that Google is uploading our every move even when we take effort to turn that off.... ?
lightweight, cheap, strong... pick 2
- vibramhead
- Posts: 810
- Joined: November 15th, 2009, 10:52 am
- Location: SW Portland
Re: Your cell phone could save you even when you have no ser
Putting it in airplane mode just suspends the upload of location data. If you want to conceal your location from Google entirely, you can go into settings -- personal -- location, and disable location tracking.Koda wrote:interesting results. Is it just me or does anyone else here find it concerning that Google is uploading our every move even when we take effort to turn that off.... ?
Re: Your cell phone could save you even when you have no ser
cool, good to know. As long as it can be turned off is fine.
lightweight, cheap, strong... pick 2
Re: Your cell phone could save you even when you have no ser
I had location services on my phone and google didn't track. As long as you have location reporting turned off, it wont keep track. Took me a bit to figure out why my husbands phone tracked just fine and mine never showed it leaving my houseKoda wrote:cool, good to know. As long as it can be turned off is fine.