I am Planning a backpack trip with my wife. Now we need an external battery as we don't wanna miss contact with our friends?
I have looked around the (brand name removed). Has anyone tried this brand before?

Here's the thing: you may find some place to backpack where you have cell service. Maybe. But good luck with that.

I have an external battery - a Brunton - that I have used to charge my camera as well as my phone on a longer trip. But I use the Kindle app on the phone, and store a number of leisure reading books as well as a NOLS wilderness medicine book, and was at the time reviewing this GPS app on the phone so needed that to continue working. At no point did I even get reception on the phone. I've been in maybe two parks where there was half a bar on the phone - that wasn't even enough reception to call anyone.

In the past four years of search and rescue volunteering there has been one instance of someone being able to contact us by phone. They had injured a knee within a mile of the trailhead near a popular resort town on the shores of a popular lake. That was a total fluke of chance.

So before you base your purchase on the premise of calling all your friends from the trail, figure out if there's actually going to be cell service there so you aren't totally disappointed.

I don't get cell service in the Smoky or western North Carolina unless I'm on a bald mountain top and that can be very limited depending on which mountain I'm on. My whole point of getting out is to get away from people that annoy me every day. Text messages, phone calls, internet, etc., are the last things I want be wired into when I'm in the woods.. Just me.

If safety is your concern your best option is to leave an itinerary with someone and if you don't make contact, or if you're not off the trail by certain time have that person contact the ranger station to be on standby.

Go with Brunton, Bushnell or Solio.

Cheers,

This guy has posted on a number of other forums and included links. Suspect this is merely spam.

Out here in the Pacific NW, I usually lose cell phone reception well before even reaching the trailhead. Never rely on a cell phone for emergency communication!

Talking on a cell phone can be very distracting while you are trying to make your way over rough ground--as unsafe as using it while driving. And many people find it quite annoying to hear others constantly talking on their phones out on the trail (as happens here in the parts of the Columbia River Gorge close to trailheads--fortunately, once you get half a mile in, especially in deep canyons, reception is gone).

Like ETSU, I go out to get away from all that stuff.

Was wondering that myself--1st post and asking about a product from some obscure company....

On the other hand, this poster does not at all fit the profile of the typical spammer. Believe me, we moderators know all about that! Let's give newbies the benefit of the doubt, please, and welcome them, not chase them off. If they turn out to be spammers, then just flag the offending post and let the mods deal with it.

He wouldn't be the first person who was given a brand name by someone or from the internet and is asking about it!

Maybe a better solution is to forget taking a battery, and take some of the friends instead?

I bring my cell phone, but I keep it shut off, so the battery last for several days.

We get pretty good coverage in the Ozarks and I'm often surprised at where I can pick up a signal. I've watched the coverage increase a lot in the past 5-6 years. You can get a message out from just about any ridge top here now, the hollows are still pretty sketchy, but that's the nature of the beast.

Bringing a cell phone to add a margin of safety is, like so much other gear, is often a matter of location. It makes sense to bring one here. I'm never more than an hour or two hike from getting a signal, and generally much less.

No one will bother you on it if it's turned off. Works that way in the city too.

On the other forums, it was pretty obvious and blatantly spam.

Bill, that's how I operate, too. However, we do have a pocket of woods (not real backcountry, but there is some remote camping permitted) about 20 minutes away; sometimes I go there for a quick weekend - I'll turn the phone back on long enough in the evening to call my wife and tell her goodnight, then turn it off again. I think of the call as a no-additional-weight luxury (the phone goes with me for the same reason you carry yours.)

I checked the IP address from which this was posted and it does appear as if it originated on a dedicated spam server from a one-post newbie - although the server is in San Jose, not Pakistan or China as is so often the case lately.

However, the topic seems be of enough interest to the group that I think it's best to allow the conversation to continue, but with the brand name redacted in the original post.