Irish Whitewater Forum

Would a gauge of how good phone reception is around rivers be a good addition to the information regarding rivers.

The information could be graded as we all know it changes, but going from "theres none" --- to ---- "theres some" (meaning you wouldnt have to run far to get reception) --- to ---- "Full reception"

It would just help alongside the river grading and your jugdgement of your own standard to know weather or not a phone with you on the river might be handy?

If you bring a phone good the sooner you get help the better but if there is no reception and you spend too much time looking for reception instead of persuing other help you might be in trouble.

what do people think?
mick

One thing i never thought of when you mentioned this before, is that its hard to say if there is good or bad reception. Vodafone has great reception in most places, 02 would be a close second, but Meteor and 3 aren't great (so i hear). So it would be hard to gauge. Or would we just judge it on the 112 (emergency) signal?

There's no separate signal for ringing emergency services, the phone just uses whatever network it can pick up, which can be any one of the four in Ireland.
And we'd find out quickly enough what the reception is like when we turned on the phone on the river bank.
If it's an emergency, the phone has access to all the networks, but if it's not, and you need to just phone out, I guess you'll just climb the nearest hill for reception. I don't think knowing where you have good reception in advance would make that big a difference.
If I knew for a fact I'd have no reception I may bring a walkie talkie and have someone in a shuttle if communication is 100% necessary, but that'd be it.

dont forget lads, you will often get a text message away when there is not enough signal to make a phone call.