Birdwatcher Hill Fire - chapter 14 fact check -- Spearfish Lake Tales

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

Subject: Birdwatcher Hill Fire - chapter 14 fact check

Author:
Shadowhawk

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 05:43:17 01/01/16 Fri

Thank you for a good new chapter.

That said I have a few questions about veracity of some things.

First is about Jackie and Becca. Would cell phone service be available in the plane flying at their altitudes, and would SpearfishLake have enough cell phone tower coverage? Wouldn't a radio be a better idea? Does the type of plane Rocinante is have a good view down to check the fire - it is not helicopter nor Edgley EA-7 Optica?

Second about beach/sand court volleyball at West Turtle Lake. Do the play it in the nude: because breast bouncing and sand getting into intimate areas would be a problem?

Regards,
--
Shadowhawk

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Re: Birdwatcher Hill Fire - chapter 14 fact check

Author:
Wes
[ Edit | View ]

Date Posted: 10:38:03 01/01/16 Fri

>Thank you for a good new chapter.
>
>That said I have a few questions about veracity of
>some things.
>
>First is about Jackie and Becca. Would cell phone
>service be available in the plane flying at their
>altitudes, and would SpearfishLake have enough cell
>phone tower coverage? Wouldn't a radio be a better
>idea?

A radio on the proper frequency would probably be a better idea but a cell phone is what they have. There would be no need for Rocinante to normally have a radio operating on emergency frequencies (which are pretty close to aviation frequencies, but out of normal range.) Cell phones are line of sight -- but the line of sight is much farther from a plane. They are high enough that they can reach a tower located in Spearfish Lake, which can't be done from the ground. Sure, cell phones work on airplanes. You're not supposed to use them on airliners, but they get used all the time anyway.

>Does the type of plane Rocinante is have a good
>view down to check the fire - it is not helicopter nor
>Edgley EA-7 Optica?

Rocinante is a slow, single-engine, high wing plane so the view down is great. A helicopter would probably be better, but Mark and Jackie have owned their sixty-year-old antique for nearly forty years, so have it available.
>
>Second about beach/sand court volleyball at West
>Turtle Lake. Do the play it in the nude: because
>breast bouncing and sand getting into intimate areas
>would be a problem?

Done all the time, or so at least I'm told. I would not be surprised if the more well-equipped ladies might prefer some support.

-- Wes

[> [> Subject: Re: Birdwatcher Hill Fire - chapter 14 fact check

Author:
Allen McIntosh
[ Edit | View ]

Date Posted: 19:43:17 01/02/16 Sat

>>First is about Jackie and Becca. Would cell phone
>>service be available in the plane flying at their
>>altitudes, and would SpearfishLake have enough cell
>>phone tower coverage? Wouldn't a radio be a better
>>idea?
>
>A radio on the proper frequency would probably be a
>better idea but a cell phone is what they have. There
>would be no need for Rocinante to normally have a
>radio operating on emergency frequencies (which are
>pretty close to aviation frequencies, but out of
>normal range.) Cell phones are line of sight -- but
>the line of sight is much farther from a plane. They
>are high enough that they can reach a tower located in
>Spearfish Lake, which can't be done from the ground.
>Sure, cell phones work on airplanes. You're not
>supposed to use them on airliners, but they get used
>all the time anyway.

I'm not a subject matter expert, but I have worked with people who are. I think that they might tell you that Jackie was lucky.

It is not a given that she would get cellphone reception in the air. An antenna in a base station does not cover 360 degrees horizontally or 90 degrees vertically. It is aimed to maximize coverage on the ground. Any signal that leaks up in the air is wasted. There is likely some leakage, and Jackie took advantage of that. Flying low probably helped, since signal strength drops off significantly with distance from the base station.

Since Spearfish Lake is rural, the carrier may have chosen to go with a small number of higher powered transmitters. This would mean better signal strength up where Jackie's plane is flying. The transmitters would probably be on hilltops to increase their range.

[> Subject: Re: Birdwatcher Hill Fire - chapter 14 fact check

Author:
Leo Kerr
[ Edit | View ]

Date Posted: 15:23:11 01/03/16 Sun

my understanding (on cell phones in the air) is they're one of the things that cell operators hate. A cell phone on the ground has a very short range, and line-of-sight, you might only "see" a very few towers. If you're in the air, however, you might see.. most of the towers in a given area, which means the whole hand-off logistics thing is a lot more complicated -- and the system, thinking you're on the ground -- needs to do it far more often.

The system engineers don't like it, but, at least as of a few years ago, there wasn't much they could do about it.

Leo

[> Subject: Re: Birdwatcher Hill Fire - chapter 14 fact check

Author:
Ellis
[ Edit | View ]

Date Posted: 02:24:26 01/04/16 Mon

>First is about Jackie and Becca. Would cell phone
>service be available in the plane flying at their
>altitudes, and would SpearfishLake have enough cell
>phone tower coverage?

Sure, they're flying pretty low, only a thousand feet up according to chapter four. Private pilots routinely use their cell phones up to 5 thousand feet AGL or so, maybe higher if they get lucky. It has become common to weather updates on your smartphone in GA aircraft.
Try climbing a thousand foot tall mountain and your cell coverage will get much, much better than at the base of it.

>Does the type of plane Rocinante is have a good
>view down to check the fire?

Yes, see Wes' reply. That applies even more so in a gentle turn; the plane banks over, giving a view straight down. That the plane is slow also helps with pinpointing things on the ground.

Cell towers do indeed have directional antennas designed to have the strongest signal near the horizon. It falls off quickly, because if you are next to the tower, the short distance (only the tower height), overwhelms the fact that the antenna is less efficient. Also, real antennas don't go to zero receptivity, just drop probably 50 dB.
10 miles from the tower at 1000 feet up is only 1.1 degrees, well within a cell tower antenna's strongest area.

Leo, my understanding is that you are right, and there still isn't much they can do about it, but that the newer digital towers are much better at dealing with it.
Also, the phone companies complaining to the FCC was one of the things that led to the ban on cell phones on airliners. The given reason is mostly baloney, but it sounds good to the average person. The biggest reason you (any individual) should put your phone in airplane mode is to save the battery. There hasn't been a documented case of cell phones interfering with avionics that I'm aware of, though there have been a few pilot reports that are unsubstantiated and couldn't be reproduced.

-E