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thanks for filling me in so well democ. sounds cool, now I know more! by the way, good job on SAR - kind of think I'd like to do something like that.
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There are SAR groups all over the country for all types of rescue operations,
for mountain rescue generally you need some mountaineering experience
at least. They have water rescue, they have rescue for lost hikers and
lost people in the woods, they have scuba rescue, they have air search rescue
and they have power boat rescue. All are volunteer based and you have
to own your personal equipment.
The parks have their own people as rescue, their rangers do this, the volunteers
get called in when they need help. Most of the time the helicopter gets called
in and they pick them up. Understand often the volenteer ground pounders are only called
in if they can't find the person or if the weather is too bad to get a helicopter in,
so theoretically you can be called out in the worse possible weather conditions
a possible real test for survival and you may find the person and then what? You have
to go fairly light and you have only gear for yourself, so you may have to use a light
weight kit to make more shelter, etc for a group. Could be a injured party, a lot
of possibilities. Could be way far in, in bad conditions, all sorts of situations
could come up as you can imagine.
I mostly do the mountaineering type of rescue, if a hiker is lost in the
mountains they may call us in, part of the work is body recovery which
I have not done yet and is not fun so be prepared for this, but the family
really appreciates this. The great part is finding and really rescuing people,
that is really nice. Also you get to help support your activity, most people
think that a huge amount of money is spent on finding lost people, while
this is true to some extent the vast majority of rescue people are unpaid volunteers.
I want to mention that for Search and Rescue if your going to be a ground
pounder you need to be in really good physical shape, the best you can be.
You may need to hike in for ten miles or more, maybe thirty miles.
As for the Ham Radio, if you like radios and gadgets, this is a great way to enjoy
doing this and also practical for the back country. If you get the radio above
it will set you back about 200 bucks if you buy it and get the better antenna
and a expanded AA battery case. This is a pretty good deal.
Dan