On Jan 2, 8:03*pm, Tony wrote:
On Wednesday, January 2, 2013 4:54:32 PM UTC-6, Steve Leonard wrote:
On Thursday, December 27, 2012 9:37:40 AM UTC-6, vontresc wrote:

SMS usually works in the air. Last month I was able to get a hold of my uncle in Golden while flying over Monarch pass in a Da-40 at 15.5k. Pete

Call me bad or dangerous, but I have taken calls and texted while flying my Nimbus 3. *When I got out of radio range (not so good crew radio, it turns out), text was the way to communicate with my crew. *Yes, it would work at 10K MSL over west Texas. *Turn it on when a city was visible off to the side, get signal, send message. *Old school phone, numeric keypad.. *Worked. *Have taken calls in flight, too.

you're dangerous Mav.

oh yea, i did the same thing on Kowbell.

I can only plead that the contest organizers who are considering
allowing pilot to pilot coms insist that they are all on an off
frequency. Pilots who ignore the present rules and chatter on the
contest freq are very distracting. Even during non contest flights
the drone on 123.3 can be nearly constant ( you know who you are).
Some people can't hit a thermal without talking about it. The
information is useless or worse. I enjoy talking with my fiends on a
fun flight and try to do it where no one has to listen. If things get
too busy on the common frequencies my inclination is to turn off my
radio so I can get some peace and quiet and do my own flying. This
presents a problem because I won't be listening and hearing possible
safety/traffic conflict information. Even if I was it would be hard
to pick the relevant information out of the chaff. And of course the
pilots who are team chattering on an off frequency won't hear any
warnings on the contest freq. I have no problem with the occasional
remark and have heard some damn funny stuff, but in our wired age,
when everyone can have something to say, way too many do. As the Bard
said, " have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest". I
can get way more grumpy but I'll spare you. I'll go crawl under my
bridge now............Harrumph!