Smartphones and the SAR Mission, Part IV: Communication

Good communication is key to a successful SAR mission and team administration. As SAR team members we are used to getting calls in the middle of the night, and making last-minute plans. It is the way things go in the SAR world. For effective, timely communication we must use multiple channels. These are often email, pager/SMS messages, phone, and radio. Traditionally radios have been the sole source of communication in the field, but with the increased cell coverage in many areas, the cell phone is becoming a useful tool for tactical communication as well. 

I have often wanted to set up a group text messaging system for a single event that didn't require a bunch of configuration ahead of time. I wanted to be able to put everybody at an incident on the same "channel" regardless of the type of phone that they use. This would provide an additional level of privacy as well as an additional communications channel that is easy to use. This is different from a callout system. I've searched for something that I can quickly deploy on scene with minimal set-up and management: an ad hoc messaging system that works across agencies and phone types.

Group Messaging

There are a host of tools designed for groups to stay in touch, and a number of them could be handy in the SAR world as well. For SAR applications, I prefer that there be SMS functionality. SMS does not require a data connection, and any phone can participate, so it lends itself to the heterogeneous phone landscape of the SAR world. One such tool that I have used with some success is GroupMe. Groups can be created on the fly via SMS, smartphone app or via the web, and participants can send messages via the app or SMS. Photos and your location can also be sent, but only through the smartphone app. The smartphone app is available for iOS, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone. 

My experience with GroupMe, however, is that it works best for small groups. There is no way to limit the traffic. Every subscriber sees every message, so it can be very noisy with larger groups. Also, there is no way to direct message a single person without the app; direct messages do not work via SMS. Subscribing to a group requires an invite. This is good for security, but not useful in a SAR scenario when the command post is trying to quickly get people into the field. It is much easier to have the sign-up be user-initiated. GroupMe is a cool tool that may work well for your team. My experience is that with more than 5 or 6 people, the group becomes rather "noisy", so I have abandoned it for SAR use.

A few months ago, while researching for my "day job", I came across a tool that I immediately recognized as being handy for SAR missions. The tool is called Celly, and it does exactly what I have been looking for.

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Smartphones and the SAR Mission, Part III: Management

While not specifically a smartphone application, in this installment I'll discuss a tool that you may find helpful for incident management and team administration. Incident management is an interesting problem for technology. On one hand, incident management is well adapted to techological solutions for word processing, mapping, and communications. On the other hand, we operate in envrionments that don't lend themselves to easy techological solutions. Cell coverage is spotty or non-existent, power is not available or reliable, and often the command post is the front seat of a pickup truck. For this reason, my preference for technological solutions are those that work in the developing world. They must work with older computers in areas with compromised cell coverage. Keep in mind, however, that technology marches forward, so what is new today is "older" in a year or two. Also, cell coverage in the "wilderness" grows every year.

Team Administration

For the past two years, the Cave Team has used a handy tool tool to administer the team. We use it to track hours, certifications, calendar RSVPs, and gear. One of the great features of this tool is that it is free, and maintained by a fellow SAR commrade in San Diego. The tool is called Mission Manager, and it is more than a team administration tool; as its name implies it can also be used for mission management. Mission Manager is a cloud application, so all that you need to access it is a web connection and a web browser. Since we use it primarily for team administration, I will expand upon these features. Visit the link above for a comprehensive overview of its features.

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Smartphones and the SAR Mission, Part II: Land Navigation [Android]

In the last installment, I discussed options for keeping your phone going throughout a SAR mission. Now, let's put it to work to keep you going in the right direction. Your smartphone is chockfull of a variety of sensors. It is probably the closest thing that we have to Dr. McCoy's "tricorder" from Star Trek. Aside from a GPS, most smartphones also have a compass, accelerometer, barometer, proximity detector, gyroscope, and light sensor. For land navigation the GPS, compass, gyroscope, and accelerometer are all used.

As SAR team members, our needs differ slightly from most recreational GPS users. For us, the typical GPS use case involves entering a number of waypoints and searching a particular area. Along the way, we will keep a tracklog of where we went, and mark clue locations or other waypoints along the way. For many, many years I longed for an inexpensive GPS with a simple numeric keypad. If you have ever had to enter a waypoint using the up/down/left/right keys on a typical GPS, then you know the tedium! GPSes are much better adapted to the recording of waypoints than they are for entering a remote location. Enter the smartphone. Now, we have a GPS platform that has a terrific keypad, where entering numbers and letters is a snap. Couple this with a fancy display, and voila! You can easily overlay your position on a map.

Before we go further, it is important to point out, that SAR team members need to have a GPS that can easily be configured for different map datums and coordinate systems. Sure, many maps are NAD83 or WGS84 nowadays, but there are still plenty in service that used NAD27. As such, we need the ability to move between at least these datums. Likewise, when using paper maps we use the UTM coordinate system, but when talking to air resources, we often need to use DM.M or DMS. Moreover, some e911 and CAD systems use decimal degrees (D.DD), so that is also handy. I was on a mutual aid search a few weeks ago where the coordinate system in use was MGRS, so that should be an option too. For me, any apps for land navigation must be coordinate system, and datum agile. This is what separates SAR-worthy apps, from those that are handy for tracking your mountain bike adventure or road race. One more thing...I am an Android user, and don't own an iOS device. As such, the apps mentioned below are Android apps that I have used on actual SAR missions. I suspect that there are iOS equivalents, so please let me know of your iOS favorites in the comments below.

Lat Long Calc ProIf you are looking to record waypoints, and quickly convert locations to different datums and coordinate systems, then Lat Long Calc Pro is for you. You can simultaneously show your current location in a variety of formats, and you can use this tool to convert between formats and datums, store waypoints, "go to" a waypoint, and measure the distance between two waypoints. The pro version includes neat functionality that allows you to email or SMS your location to somebody, where it sends all the position formats in one shot as well as a link to your location on Google Maps. The only criticism that I have is that the user interface can take a while to master. The "pro" version costs $1.99, but there is a free version that maintains most of the functionality. As a rule, I always prefer purchasing the pro versions of software so that I can help support the developers of such cool tools.

SAR missions occur mostly in wilderness areas. This means that for aBackcountry Navigator tool to be useful under all conditions, it should be able to be used without a data connection. Currently, Backcountry Navigator is my favorite land navigation app. This tool has all of the features of a typical GPS and allows for offline topo map use. Also, you can export your GPS tracks to .gpx or .kml format, so that you can give them to the command post and/or import them into Google Maps. This tool allows for switching between WGS84 (same as NAD83) and NAD27. Also, waypoints can be quickly entered and viewed in a variety of formats without having to hunt through settings. Aerial photography is also available for download, which can often be handy for finding landmarks not shown on a typical USGS topo map. Backcountry Navigator also has the ability to import additional, premium, map sources for additional cost. While not free, this app is well worth the price.

I have found many of the compass apps to be more novelty than tool, but this is not the case with the compass that is available in Backcountry Navigator. It is a completely, field-worthy compass that I have used to complete a BSAR Skills check-off on a couple of occasions. It functions the same way as your typical orienteering compass, and with proper calibration, yields similar results.

Other mapping/navigation apps with similar functionality that I have used are Trimble Outdoor Navigator and MyTrails.

Finally, I wanted to take a second to mention a tool that I use regularly in rope rescue operations: a pocket theodolite. A theodolite is a device that is used to measure horizontal and vertical angles. When you couple this with a camera, compass, and GPS, you have an interesting tool. I mention it here due to its compass and GPS features, but I find it is most useful as an inclinometer. In rope rescue, determining the angle of a slope is important when it comes to calculating loads on your anchors and equipment. GeoCam is a tool that makes the measurement of slope angle very easy. Using the camera as a "viewfinder", you aim the phone at an appropriate landmark, and your vertical angle is measured. You can also get a compass heading, and GPS location at the same time. Check out the image below that I took during a recent litter evacuation.GeoCam

 Sorry about being so Android-specific, but this is the only platform with which I have direct field experience. Please let me know your favorite iOS apps in the comments.

Stay tuned for the next installment where we will discuss apps useful to the incident manager.

Smartphones and the SAR Mission, Part I: Portable Power

For the past several years I have found a smartphone to be invaluable in my work as a SAR team member. It can function as a geo-tagging camera, notepad, inclinometer, compass, GPS, map, calculator, as well as a communication device. Anymore, unless the weather is very poor, I hardly use the GPS that sits in my pack. I wanted to take a few moments to share some of the Android applications and web services that I have found useful in discharging my SAR duties. I have previously mentioned tools to use your phone as a pager, but I will begin this series with extending your battery life.

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Using Your Android Phone as a SAR Pager

Updated on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 12:34 by Jeff Lehman

One of the great things about pagers is their optimization for doing a single thing. They sit there silent until they are called upon to roust us out of whatever we are doing. Contrast this with your smartphone. A device that is used to check email, make phone calls, surf the web, and play games. It is the antithesis of your trusty pager. With all of its fancy features, most smartphones are not well-adapted to making sure that they make enough noise to wake up up in the middle of the night, or alert you if you happen to miss the anemic tone they emit. To press them into pager duty, we will have to download additional help. A non-smart (dumb?) phone can also receive the messages mentioned here, but applications cannot be installed on these sorts of phones.

First, the ideas presented here require that your team use some sort of text message callout system. Such a system sends everybody a text message with a common text string. [By the way, ALL county teams have access to this functionality. It has been used in the county for 10 years, and you can read about it here.  Contact Jeff Lehman for info]. For example, on my team all callout messages have the string, "[Callout]" in the subject. This is automatically placed there by the mail list that is used to distribute the messages. Having this string enables you to set up your phone so that only messages with "[Callout]" in them make your phone ring at all hours of the night. This keeps you from being shaken awake by an SMS (text) spam message in the middle of the night.

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