Lost In The Desert
In the early 1990's, my hot air balloon instructor and I were flying over
the New Mexico desert, in citizen's band radio
contact with our chase truck using handheld transceivers. The
truck became mired in an arroyo so that when we landed
the balloon, we lost line-of-sight communication with our crew.
We spent four weary, hot, dry hours searching for the crew.
A ham friend pointed out that there was a "repeater" up on
the Sandia mountains could have been used to communicate
if only myself and my crew were licensed amateurs.
Four of us (me, Glenna, Megan & Barbi) promptly got
our licenses and now regularly use local 2 meter repeaters
as emergency back-up if we lose line-of-sight between
balloon and crew. Many other amateur balloonists are
following suit.
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Copyright © 1997, Michael R. Mitchell -- Last Revised - (9-26-97)