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[at-l] Cell Phones -- Perception



At 03:06 PM 1/20/2005 -0500, RoksnRoots@aol.com wrote:
>I'd like for Bullard to explain how that innocuous cell phone
>hidden in his pack would work without them [towers].

RnR, it doesn't and that is the point. While you worry about whether people 
carry a cell phone because  seeing/overhearing a cell phone call diminishes 
your sense of wilderness, the drive to build more towers and the choice of 
location is not from their use by hikers. It is from those who want to use 
them to call from one populated area to another on the other side of the 
wilderness.

But I thought I already said that. Perhaps you didn't read it all. To 
return to the point (hopefully for the last time) while you are worrying 
about your "sense of wilderness" being disturbed by what is in my pack for 
use at trailheads or someplace down the road where I can get a signal to 
let my wife know I've gotten out of the woods okay so she won't worry (pay 
phones are almost non-existent around here now), I'm more concerned about 
the cell service provider for Eastofwildernessville wanting to connect to 
their users in Westofthewildernessville by building towers on the 
mountaintops in the middle. There *are* enough customers in the population 
centers to make that an economically viable project. The occasional calls 
made by hikers *aren't* enough to pay the cost of towers, nor are they ever 
likely to be.

I don't care that the phone doesn't work everywhere in the woods. I DON'T 
WANT IT TO! But the mere fact some people (including sometimes me) have one 
in their pack isn't enough to spoil my enjoyment of being in the woods and 
the occasional loud, obnoxious cell user in the woods is much less 
bothersome to me than the clods who litter the place with disgusting stuff 
I have to clean up. OTOH encountering a tower several hundred feet tall 
surrounded by chain link fence with electric lines running up the mountain 
to it alongside an access road puts a real dent in the sense of wilderness. 
Is that clear enough? I hope so. I'm sick of this thread.

Shane, so far as I know there are no satellite based cell systems in the 
US. Personally, I'd prefer that to the towers although the number of 
satellites up there already annoys the purist astronomers so I guess you 
can't make everyone happy. BTW as a landscape photographer I *hate* 
electric and phone lines on poles. I wish they'd bury them all but... that 
is very expensive and I'm sure it would upset somebody.

Sighing Saunterer