UKC

Paying for an emergency phone in mountaineering hut

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 doc_h 22 Feb 2017
My club has a reasonably remote hut in North Wales. Never had a phone line. Recently Mountain Rescue needed to use a phone at our hut and were amazed we didn't have one. We now want to install a phone but it looks like the cost of new poles, cable etc. by Openreach could be around £8000.

Does anyone have any idea where I might be able to get some grants or other financial support to help us pay for a new line for this important reason?

(The £400 broadband grant offered by the Welsh gov is no good as they say you must be able to get at least 10 Mb, we'd be lucky if we get 3 Mb over an internet connection there)
 Rob Parsons 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

I can't help with your question, but am wondering why you think this is important. I've not seen such a phone in *any* of the huts I've used in the UK, and would wonder if/how/when such a thing would be used.
 daWalt 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

> Recently Mountain Rescue needed to use a phone at our hut and were amazed we didn't have one.

I am amazed that they were amazed.
Aren't MR teams well informed on what facilities and serviced are available in their area; besides don't that have radio and base-staff?
Whatever; I'm not going to tell folks how to do their job.........
OP doc_h 22 Feb 2017
In reply to Rob Parsons:

Two reasons really. One, the obvious, is that we would be able to call the emergency services in the event of an, err..., emergency. (There is no mobile phone coverage in the area). Secondly I work as a hut warden there and we have been advised to maintain phone contact with somebody before and after working there alone on dangerous tasks eg chain saw use. A fixed line phone is the only way to do this with no mobile coverage.
 Wingnut 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

>>working there alone on dangerous tasks

Wouldn't a requirement to have a second person there be a better way of doing it? Rather hard to perform first aid over the phone.
2
 galpinos 22 Feb 2017
In reply to daWalt:

I thought the same. I'd assume MR teams would carry a communication device that would allow them to stay in touch regardless of mobile signal coverage.
 wintertree 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

An Iridium satellite phone (mobile) is about £1200. Global coverage - including the poles!

A pay as you go SIM will cost less per year than line rental with BT, assuming it's for emergency use only.

You have to remember to dial the country code for the UK though!
Post edited at 12:25
 Al_Mac 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

Would a mobile phone signal repeater perhaps be a better/cheaper option?
Rigid Raider 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

Isn't there a land based equivalent to an EPIRB for summoning help?
 balmybaldwin 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

How about a solar charged sat phone(somehow secured)? would be much cheaper than all that cabling
 Andy Johnson 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:
If most of the £8k is poles and wire, then a point-to-point microwave link might be a cheaper option. Does your hut have power?

Otherwise a fixed satphone installation would probaby also be cheaper. As well as Iridium mentioned by wintertree, there are also the Inmarsat and Globalstar networks.
Post edited at 14:01
J1234 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:
Why should you get a grant? Tell everyone in the club to drink less beer for 12 months, that should cover it.
ps. Also once you get a phone line in a hut, people start wanting WiFi
Post edited at 14:36
 petellis 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

If it were my club hut I would be very keen for it not to get a phone, as someone else has mentioned you will get mission creep to providing wifi. You must have managed for years with no phone so why bother now, they won't let us lone work in the labs at work and we have phone, chainsawing etc is likely to be far more dangerous.

I am as bad as the next person for staring at my phone instead of engaging with folk in front of me. Having no signal is a great way to get away from it all.
 GrahamD 22 Feb 2017
In reply to wintertree:

> An Iridium satellite phone (mobile) is about £1200. Global coverage - including the poles!A pay as you go SIM will cost less per year than line rental with BT, assuming it's for emergency use only.You have to remember to dial the country code for the UK though!

VHF Radios are a bit cheaper ! If you are at a hut you aren't really that remote after all.
 GrahamD 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

Thinking about it, I'm sure that Lundy used to be connected to the mainland via a VHF radio link.
 Brass Nipples 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:


How many people have called at your hut in the middle of an emergency in the last 10 years?
 Dax H 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

> Secondly I work as a hut warden there and we have been advised to maintain phone contact with somebody before and after working there alone on dangerous tasks eg chain saw use. A fixed line phone is the only way to do this with no mobile coverage.

I would have someone re assess my risk assessments to be honest.
Unless it's the most minor of accidents a phone line isn't going to help you in a loan working chain saw incident.

 PM 22 Feb 2017
In reply to Dax H:

> loan working chain saw incident.

"Wonga.com staff, who had formed a human chain to try to help, were the only witnesses to the gruesome accident."
In reply to doc_h:
Maybe if you told us the location of the hut we could have a better idea of the likely need for an emergency phone? I too am surprised that MR would have been expecting to find a phone at a remote hut.

Is your intention to have a public access emergency phone on the outside of the hut? (Very few other remote places have one of these in North Wales!) or just a phone line inside the locked hut (in which case what will happen if there's an emergency when nobody is there?)
Post edited at 18:30
 Billhook 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

Oh dear! No phone! Do we really, really need phone coverage every where you can't get mobile reception? Perhaps we could erect a series od dayglo telephone boxes at regular intervals on remote hillsides for that, oh so possible emergency.
1
 Mountain Llama 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

Why can't your club or the mrt use vhf radios? The impact to the environment of installing a cable sounds OTT.

Davey
 FesteringSore 22 Feb 2017
In reply to Mountain Llama:

> Why can't ... or the mrt use vhf radios?
I would have thought that all MRTs have radio comms as standard.
 FesteringSore 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

> Recently Mountain Rescue needed to use a phone at our hut
I find that puzzling
 Timmd 22 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:
Having been 'on the end of a thousand questions' myself on UKC I'll keep to seconding the idea of having another person at the hut when chainsawing.

On my course we had it drummed into us quite thoroughly that we shouldn't chainsaw alone, or a long way from communicable-with help.

Some club fund raising drives to cover costs could be a plan too.....
Post edited at 23:00
Removed User 23 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

I would leave it. As people have pointed out, most huts don't actually have phones. As far as I know, most of the ones in Scotland don't. Mountain Rescue is not supposed to have to depend on random huts for their communication, they should have their own equipment (e.g. satellite phones).

I can see how it would be a nice and useful thing to put in for, say, a grand, but £8,000? That's seems a bit excessive.
In reply to doc_h:

> Recently Mountain Rescue needed to use a phone at our hut and were amazed we didn't have one

"Recently Mountain Rescue wanted to use a phone at our hut"

It sounds to me that they were putting their hopes on there being a phone in a remote hut, and were being 'overly disappointed' when finding they could not.

Are they expecting a network of land lines to be installed at handy points across the countryside, on the off chance their radio comms suffer a blackspot?

As much as I support and admire MRT, this 'amazement' (if accurately reported) sounds like bollocks, and, if you've survived until now without a phone to the hut, you'd be wasting 8k of your members' money, and if I were a member, I'd be voting against it.

OP doc_h 23 Feb 2017
In reply to everyone:

Thanks for all the replies, even if nobody was able to address my original question.
I'm just dealing with getting the phone installed, not the morality of, or reasons for, getting one.

Personally, I'm happy without one although not being able to call home to say I'm safe and not being able to get a weather forecast is a bit of a pain sometimes.

I am investigating satellite phones as well but that's not really the point.
My post was asking if anyone knew of any grants etc. to help pay for telephony (like the Welsh Government £400 grant towards getting broadband), but it appears not.

Thanks for all the comments though. I'll close the post now.

 GrahamD 23 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

Maybe there are grants out there but using Mountain Rescue as pretext to getting one sounds like an alternative truth to me.
 FesteringSore 23 Feb 2017
I find it hard to believe that ANY club would contemplate the installation of a phone in a hut which is likely to be empty for long periods. Surely the expense(installation, line rental etc) would outweigh the occasional advantages. I'm afraid I even find myself incredulous about the op's motive for posting.
 LG-Mark 23 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:

Your best, and cheapest bet might be to look into satellite broadband and use an IP phone through a provider like Vonage.

Despite what they will tell you, a phone conversation will have a slightly annoying delay due to the latency but should be reliable and by far your cheapest option.

Have a look at : - https://www.satelliteinternet.co.uk/
 itsThere 23 Feb 2017
In reply to doc_h:
Put up a 3G antenna for wifi then use skype to call landlines via the tinternet. I was actually talking to the captain of my club at new year about doing this for a hut in wales. Its about £200 ish for the initial setup and then the cost of a sim card thereafter which is about the same as line rental. I totally forgot about emailing him back until I saw this post.

A friend of mine has a similar setup in a place where there is no phone signal, but a decent 3g antenna gets loads of signal. I was thinking about borrowing his antenna and checking to see if I could get a decent signal this summer for my club. Might be the same one.
Post edited at 11:06
 Jim Fraser 23 Feb 2017
In reply to wintertree:
> An Iridium satellite phone (mobile) is about £1200. Global coverage - including the poles!A pay as you go SIM will cost less per year than line rental with BT, assuming it's for emergency use only.You have to remember to dial the country code for the UK though!


MR sat phone sitting in front of me right now so I know a bit about this. Sat phone pre-pay airtime expires pretty quickly. This is why we had to go for post-pay contracts. $45/mth plus calls plus VAT.

Emergency contracts have high (10 USD/min) call costs. Just not funny.

If mobile coverage nearby then maybe consider desktop cellular phone and cabling to a suitable antenna location.
Post edited at 18:23

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