mschwett 

maybe by “default” he means the owners defaulted on loans, or the property was otherwise acquired by the state from defunct or near-defunct resource companies? a huge amount of the catskills and adirondacks are state forest land, protected in perpetuity, and the state has been acquiring more. but not for free, typically!

BTinNYC 

I can speak knowledgeably to the 2,500 acre State Forest adjoining my place. The land was lost due to non payment of taxes during the great depression. My guess is the local governments couldn't take on any extra anything. A CCC camp was then built in the middle of the area and for years the CCC planted all the open spaces with Norwegian Spruce.

This area north of the Catskills and south of Route 20 was, and is, generally bad farming land ("There's two rocks for every dirt''), it doesn't surprise me that so much of it got abandoned.

biker128pedal

Motorola offers a satellite tracker now. Not sure how it works. I may be looking for one with a distress button so SO can track me since I retired. I have not looked in awhile but I think the Spot includes owner evacuation. I think the InReach has it but cost extra.

The Apple and Garmin watches also have fall detection. Oh. Just remembered Apple just added Satellite capabilities to their new iPhone. Wonder if this would help. Or cost lots. May be time for a new iPhone.


https://www.motorola.com/us/motorola...tellite-link/p

rm -rf

The satellite trackers don't appear to be a continuous update.
For example, Spot Trace plans:
"basic tracking: 5,10, 30 and 60 minutes". ?? wouldn't it just keep each location data, every 'x' minutes?
"extreme tracking 2.5 minutes" for $6.25. !!

~~~
Cell service coverage in SW Ohio:
I still find it a bit surprising when I stop in a local valley and see "no service". I'm 40 minutes from downtown!
Sometimes, AT&T has service, but Verizon doesn't, or the reverse situation.

I do usually get cover fairly soon, climbing over a ridge line, etc. Then the phone trackers will update the tracking map. Perhaps that's good enough for a spouse?

~~~
iphone 2008 or 2009 era:
I was one of the group ride leaders, using cue sheets for navigating a new route. We expected a side road turn soon, and a narrow road appeared, with a broken off street sign. Is this it, it might be a private farm road? One of the riders pulled out his new iphone, and verified the street name on the map. None of us had ever seen anything like this! Amazing!

ridewithgps origins
My oldest route on rwgps is dated March 2010. The URL route/ride number is in the 40,000 range. (It's now at 45,500,000.)

We've gotten used to this so much now.

pdlamb

Interesting reading in Wikipedia. It's more like a national forest than a national park as far as land ownership.

Barry2 

"GPS" are satellite transmitters, you use a receiver (Bike computer, phone, watch) for these transmissions and by comparing the signals that receiver can determine where you are.
If you wish to share that location with another person you need a transmitter to do so.
Most economical is to use your phone, but obviously this requires cell coverage.
More costly are the GPS tracking devices that transmit your location to another satellite.

Coming to a Cell phone carrier near you (soon'ish) and currently being tested.
Satellites are now in orbit that act as a cell tower.
When your cell phone is out of regular cell coverage, it will utilize satellites for cellular communications.
Are they going to give this away for free..... I suspect not.

But it is coming as an option.

Barry

Steve B.

The ADK and Catskill “parks” were land acquired by the state after an amendment to the state constitution that allowed NY to take possession of the land so as to protect the forest and rivers. Late 1800’s. In recent times the state has been adding parcels of properties in generally two methods. 1) They outright purchase. Part of the Whitney Estate property as sold to the state by the owner to create the Whitney Wilderness is an example. 2) An outside organization purchases from the land owners and in turn sells to the state. The Essex Chain property and Boreas Pond property are examples where the Nature Conservancy purchased from the lumber company Finch-Pruyn and subsequently sold to the state. A private owner can and has deeded unused properties directly to the state. The assorted properties known as Rocky Point and Sarnoff Woods, in eastern Long Island were owned and used by the RCA corporation for long distance teletype transmission and reception into the 1960’s. When technology advanced, these systems were obsolete, RCA had no use for the properties and gave them to the State of NY, taking the properties off the tax rolls as result. The state has opened these huge wooded areas to recreational activities and hunting.

I have never heard of the state gaining possession of a property as a result of abandonment of a property, Typically, a private property owner pays real estate taxes to a county and/or town. Failure to pay results in that property becoming possessed by either the town, but usually the county. A local example of this is the so-called Vanderbilt Parkway, a paved race road built by Cornelius Vanderbilt and friends in the early 1900’s as a linear highway from Queens, NYC to Suffolk County, NY. They raced their private race cars in this, till deadly accidents involving spectators forced them to stop. They subsequently abandoned the entire road and property and failed to pay taxes at which point the 3 counties gained possession and in some cases still own. In general and here in NY AFAIK, a private property does not pay real estate taxes to the State, thus the state has no right of possession upon failure of payment of taxes owed, anybodies guess what happens to the properties mentioned in this post. Possibly got possessed by the county who deeded to the state.

unterhausen

I have a spot tracker. It turns out that there is no cell service just over the next mountain, only about 10 miles from our house. On my spot, there are 3 buttons, which I will call: "sos", "oh crap, come get me", and "check in Okay." Unfortunately when I had a medical issue just over that mountain, I only had the "oh crap" button set up to send an email, and my wife wasn't checking her email. I was really reluctant to push the SOS button, because it didn't seem like I really wanted emergency services. In retrospect I probably should have pushed it. When I got home, I immediately set up the oh crap button to send texts, and it does work. It sends a message and your gps location and also a link to a map on the spot site showing your location.

So I'm pretty happy to have a spot, even though when I really needed it I hadn't set it up correctly. The version with text service probably would be better, but I have no experience with that.

Tourist in MSN

My backpacking trip this coming summer, 10 of 15 days will have no cell coverage. And my 9 day canoe trip will have no cell coverage. But, that is typical for me.

My two international bike tours, I did not get around to buying a local sim card, my cell phone was a wifi only device on both of those tours.

Steve B.

When I know I will be cycling or kayaking in an area where there is no cell service, I activate and pay for service for my Garmin In-Reach. I have no use for it most of the year but It’s good insurance when I am alone and in a remote area.

njkayaker

No.

The issue is getting your location to her.

There are two options for that:

1. cellular (which you don’t have).
2. satellite (which requires a subscription).

Your best option is the satellite tracker.

Another option is a compromise. If cellular is spotty, it might be good enough to get a sense of where you are and whether you are moving. If that is good enough, you can just use your phone (no AirTag necessary).

If it’s a case that there’s no coverage for your cellphone network but there is coverage for other networks, then an AirTag might be useful since it could possibly be picked up by another phone that uses the other network. Still, this wouldn’t be something reasonable to rely on. AirTags really work in places with a fair amount of people (with iPhones) around.

njkayaker

Airtags require a phone to be nearby and the phone to have cellular access (which he says he doesn’t have).

If an AirTag would work, the phone he already (presumably) is carrying would be sufficient (that is, the AirTag isn’t needed at all).

The AirTag could be better than just his phone if there is cellphone coverage for other networks (other than the one he uses) and there are a sufficient number of iPhones around (but this doesn’t seem likely).

In any case, AirTags really work in places with a fair amount of people (with iPhones) around.

njkayaker

It is every ‘x’ minutes.

You can choose the rate. Every 5, every 20, etc.

Longer periods might provide longer total runtimes for the device.

njkayaker

It seems like he’s riding in a fairly remote place where none of this would really work.

njkayaker

To be clear, it seems like the best option for the OP is to have a satellite tracker.

AirTags (or any similar device) aren't really a good option for this sort of use.

The tracking information one gets from theses is quite spotty. Even in fairly favorable situations, one might only get updates every 20-60+ minutes. This might be OK for tracking things that don't really move much. But it really isn't going to be confidence-inspiring for tracking a moving person.

AirTags use Bluetooth to connect to an iPhone (or whatever). BT has a range of about 30 feet (maybe, less if it has to go through car doors). The iPhone then relays the tag information via the internet (usually, this is going to be cellular).

(I've actually used AirTags. They kinda work and are interesting but they don't work as well as some people appear to believe.)

njkayaker

Because they sell your location (though they backed off on selling your precise location data).

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/01/life360-sued-for-selling-location-data

And it requires access to a cellular network (the OP said they need tracking in an area that they don't have cellular).

Deal4Fuji

Yeah I realized after posting I overlooked that detail, at least I wasn't the only one

Troul 

just have her review your ride log off the bicycle's computer. She'll be able to see where you've been, been stagnant, in motion, & it'll even show MPH to tell her how much of a priority you were making it to be on time.
With that said, I'd question if some sort of trust issues exist!

Steve B.

“I think she kinda wants to see that I'm still moving when I'm late.”. Describes a concern when she knows he’s in an area with no cell coverage,

njkayaker

Whut?

znomit

I bet she wants to precisely know his ETA so she can have his warm slippers, cold beer and freshly ironed newspaper ready the moment he steps in the door. Which she is holding open for him. What a keeper.

We're about two years away from ubiquitous planet wide satellite based cell phone text coverage. Unfortunately.

Troul 

uh huh?

BikeLite

https://www.pcmag.com/news/cat-phone...ut-of-business

Manufacturer of Motorola device going out of business. Another company may be in works to take over.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks for posting. I am happy with my existing phone, but had been thinking when I upgraded I would buy one of those phones that now appear will not be made any more.

I have been resisting getting a satellite tracker that I could use to send text messages, I was thinking instead that phone would better meet my needs. Bummer.

Barry2 

iPhone 14 &15 have emergency only satellite texting built in.

I’ve made sure my family knows how to use it.

Barry