hand crank cell phone charger

[Sam5]

I’ve been watching news reports about the mountain climbers lost and stranded on Mt. Hood in Oregon. One report said the FBI was listening for cell phone pings. These pings occur when a message is sent in or out or when the cell phone searches for the nearest tower. The report said that the hikers’ cell phones all appear to be off or have dead batteries.

This, after the search for the family lost in the snow last week, when they were finally found by a cell phone company locating their cell phone pings.

Quite a lot of hikers are lost every year in my state, and their cell phones help many of them to be found.

So I was wondering if there are any hand-crank devices that can be used to keep a cell phone battery charged up. Turns out there are several. These can be found on Google by using search terms such as: hand crank cell phone charger

So with one of these, apparently a person can keep his cell phone battery charged as long as he is alive.

http://www.soscharger.net/

http://www.21st-century-goods.com/page/21st/CTGY/HCKP

Here is a hand-crank gadget which is a radio, flashlight, and a cell phone charger:

http://www.autosportcatalog.com/index.cfm?fa=p&pid=3405&sc=7542

Do you have any other ideas about how to be found when lost in a forest or snowstorm?

[Doodler]

Haven't heard of this in cell phones, but I have heard of a hand cranked flashlight.

The concept is pretty simple, probably not a bad idea. If not a cell phone for hikers and mountain climbers, a nice little GPS Magellan do-bobber with a beacon of some kind might be a nice idea. Use NiCad batteries to act as a capacitor.

[Sam5]

Thanks for the information.

Back in the early 1960s I saw a documentary film about a group of French explorers going deep into the jungles and mountains of New Guinea. The only means of communication with the outside world was with a rather large ham radio and a big heavy hand crank generator of the type used for emergency radio communication during WW II. To use the system, the entire exploration party had to plan to stop for half a day to set everything up, make the transmissions, and wait for replies. Of course there was no GPS back then or small beacons for people who were lost. Today it seems a shame for people to get stranded and freeze to death within a few dozen miles of major towns in the US and Europe.

Near Albuquerque, New Mexico there is a small mountain that people like to climb, but sometimes they fall or get lost and some of them die on the mountain, within sight of the city of Albuquerque. Cell phones have saved a lot of them.

http://cybergata.com/sandia.htm

It’s not a very big mountain.

[aurora]

I recently bought a hand crank flashlight. It uses 3 LEDs and gives off quite a bit of light, and since the LED's don't use much energy the charge lasts quite awhile.

[Sam5]

I recently bought a hand crank flashlight. It uses 3 LEDs and gives off quite a bit of light, and since the LED's don't use much energy the charge lasts quite awhile.

Great. I've got one. I love electronic gadgets.

[Ronald Brak]

It also wouldn't be impossible to include a mechanism similar to a self winding watch that would be powered by the motion of a person's footsteps. However it would only generate a small charge.

[mickal555]

It also wouldn't be impossible to include a mechanism similar to a self winding watch that would be powered by the motion of a person's footsteps. However it would only generate a small charge.

they have them already don't they?

[Doodler]

they have them already don't they?

Yeah, I've seen them in a catalogue somewhere. The capacitors (batteries) are carried in the bottom of a backpack. Mostly for those marathon running types who can outlast their iPod batteries. Not sure what kind of recharge rate they can muster.

[captain swoop]

I have a hand crank phone charger, I keep it in the car, when wound right up it will power the phone for about a minute or so

[Ozzy]

My windup flashlight can also run Nokia phones. Reception is a bigger problem than charge around here ... lots of forest and valleys.


Rule No 1: STay Put. Once you know you are lost dont keep walking. Move to the closest clear area (so plane and satellites can see you).

An old bushy trick is to light a fire. A very smokey one.

[Spacewriter]

I've been looking to get a hand-crank cell charger, too. We have a hand-crank radio and flashlight, plus one of those flashlights you shake back and forth (magnets, coils) to charge it up. Great stuff!

[Sam5]

I just heard a news report that said the ONLY clue as to the exact location of any of the three lost mountain climbers was the “pings” received from one of their cell phones. It was the phone of the one who was found dead yesterday, but the last ping from that phone was received last Tuesday. This, following reports that the only way the police could eventually find the stranded family lost in the NW mountains a few weeks ago was by means of tracking the cell phone “pings” to the location of the car.

There was a case near where I live, a few months ago, where a lady rolled her van off the main highway late at night and ended up at the bottom of a gully. She was injured and trapped and there were three other injured people with her. She had her cell phone and called 911, but it took the 911 people four hours to find exactly where she had gone off the road. During that time one of her passengers died.

May I suggest that those of us who are science minded people should encourage others to use the newer cell phones that have a GPS-related locating system built into them, and encourage people to buy either a hand-crank battery charger, or a spare battery, or some of the new plug-in chargers that use AAA batteries. I hate to see these news stories about people lost within a few miles of a town.

[Fazor]

Okay, I know a lot of you will think I'm cold, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for people like those lost on Mt. Hood. Don't get me wrong; all your survival advice is good and I'm all for it, but there's an inherant danger in doing something like that. Yes, it's a tragedy, but it's also a risk they willingly took. I feel much worse for people like the Kim family, who had no intention of tempting danger. Oh well, I do still hope they find the other two, altho I'm fairly certian they didn't survive either.

[Doodler]

I just heard a news report that said the ONLY clue as to the exact location of any of the three lost mountain climbers was the “pings” received from one of their cell phones. It was the phone of the one who was found dead yesterday, but the last ping from that phone was received last Tuesday. This, following reports that the only way the police could eventually find the stranded family lost in the NW mountains a few weeks ago was by means of tracking the cell phone “pings” to the location of the car.

Feh, a GPS beacon would have been nice, but then so would all the gear they didn't take because it would "slow them down". :rolleyes:

Yeah, experienced climbers doing exactly what they know better than to do because they know what they're doing.

They're men, (MANLY MEN),
they're men on i-i-i-ce.
Don't look for them now,
cuz its gonna snow,
all night!

There was a case near where I live, a few months ago, where a lady rolled her van off the main highway late at night and ended up at the bottom of a gully. She was injured and trapped and there were three other injured people with her. She had her cell phone and called 911, but it took the 911 people four hours to find exactly where she had gone off the road. During that time one of her passengers died.

May I suggest that those of us who are science minded people should encourage others to use the newer cell phones that have a GPS-related locating system built into them, and encourage people to buy either a hand-crank battery charger, or a spare battery, or some of the new plug-in chargers that use AAA batteries. I hate to see these news stories about people lost within a few miles of a town.

Heh, too many possible abuses for people to entertain with the ability to know my location to the +/- 3 meter range. Make it something I can turn off and on at will, then we'll talk.

[Larry Jacks]

If not a cell phone for hikers and mountain climbers, a nice little GPS Magellan do-bobber with a beacon of some kind might be a nice idea. Use NiCad batteries to act as a capacitor.

Sounds like a job for a Personal Locator Beacon like this one. (http://www.amazon.com/ACR-Aquafix-Personal-Locator-Internal/dp/B000208C6M) Not exactly cheap, but they might just save you if you're in trouble in the back country. Unlike cell phones, these devices can be detected by satellites, so they have much better coverage. You only turn them on if you're in trouble. Just don't let the idea of having a PLB lull you into taking riskier behavior than you'd otherwise do.

[captain swoop]

hhm the only time i get lost is when i take the wrongturn in the supermarket