What cell phone for rural western hunting?

[hobbes]

I drive from one side of MT to the other on a regular basis. Verizon is what I use. Most places that I don't have signal there is none no matter what you use. The state DOT changed from ATT to Verizon several years ago and most crews that Ive asked are happy that they no longer need to use their personal verizon phones to have service. Ive been in one place between Monida and Lima that verizon didn't work so one guy on the crew was given an ATT phone.

 

[dotman]

Yeah I can understand that, it is getting better but I just can't imagine paying what Verizon charges. AT&T is the worst out of all 4 carrriers.

I've had no trouble streaming Pandora from KC to Durango CO and from KC to Spokane. But I did have horrible Sprint coverage in Great Falls, MT for data.

 

[njdoxie]

I hunt southern CO, some wilderness, some not, I've always had Verizon coverage, so I've never needed a Spot or Sat phone, just my regular cell phone. I bring a few extra batteries, and keep it powered off unless touching base with my wife or elk packer. I love Verizon, I've never not had coverage.

 

[the big Mao]

I have Verizon, but here in the mountains, there's zero coverage unless you're really high up.

 

[HawkCreek]

Spring sucks around central Washington unless you're very near a city. After them I tried AT&T and while they do have more coverage they aren't a whole lot better once you get off the main roads. Hell I drive 45 minutes down a state highway to work everyday and half the drive I'm out of service. Verizon seems to be the best for coverage but there are still plenty of areas where you won't get service.

 

[JDeanP]

I'm going to throw out another option. Tracphone. After managing to go without a phone for about a year, which I loved, I had to get one for work and didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for service plans. Walmart had the best deal last year and I've got unlimited talk, text, and data for ~$45/Mo. The data speeds go down after 5 gigs, but that's not a problem for me (switch to wifi at the home). Tracphone piggybacks off the big boys' towers, so if there is service at all, you'll have it yourself. I can't tell you the number of times my phone has been the only one with a signal. Haven't tried it west of the Mississippi yet, but so far I have no reason to even look at other providers.

 

[tkaldahl2000]

I had a Net10 phone (they are affiliated with Tracphone) and I could not get service in the WMA that I hunt that is 8 miles from town, and only 2 miles from a state highway. Could be just that the phone was really cheap though.

 

[JDeanP]

I got a $200 droid, nothing fancy. You can also buy a sim card and use other phones.

 

[KMT]

No cell phone coverage anywhere I hunt in Oregon, and wouldn't have it any other way.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[Greg Beck]

Around here it's Verizon! Everything else only works while in urban areas. I've had the best reception with Verizon, but not always the best customer service!

 

[Travis Bertrand]

When I was in wild land fire, Verizon was the only carrier that would get service.

 

[ben h]

I live in SLC, UT which has around 1M people and I have T-mobile and the service is terrible in SLC. I had to switch from Verizon because they quit covering our cabin in eastern UT, but T-mobile covers it great. So I now have a carrier, which does a great job of covering a county with 900 residents, but does an absolutely terrible job covering a county with 1M; go figure. Another funny fact is my house in SLC is within 0.5 miles of a T-mobile store!

 

[Akicita]

Any where I travel in country or abroad my Delorme Explorer goes with me for nearly worldwide text messaging communication and emergency notification capability. It has proven to be a valuable asset to any of my kits.

I dislike my cell phone but I have AT&T for coverage when home and out of the Colorado back country.

 

[NevadaZielmeister]

Any where I travel in country or abroad my Delorme Explorer goes with me for nearly worldwide text messaging communication and emergency notification capability. It has proven to be a valuable asset to any of my kits.

Now this is interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I had no idea there was such a GPS system available to the average person. I am familiar with notification systems such a EPIRB and PLB with my search and rescue background, but this is nice to know. My research into this continues.