Mobile Cell Mobility

My idea is pretty simple: I've seen just how fast a cell tower can be installed in a neighborhood. I've also read in the papers how this guy or that group got lost / fell off a cliff / froze to death etc. but had working cell phones.

Partly this relies on the individual needing rescue to have done a little planning: notify someone where they're going, how long they expect to be there, when to set rescue activities in motion. When rescue activities are underway is when my idea comes into play.

There are two approaches:

1) Mount a cell phone repeater in a helicopter or other search aircraft. I don't know what they weigh or how big they are, but I'm guessing that a transceiver with enough juice to pull a signal from the ground, to a groundbased tower, and back to the ground, wouldn't have to be very big. Its coverage would actually be pretty big, since tower height need only be limited by the performance of the aircraft.

2) Drop a tall, temporary tower with its own power source in the area where searches are being conducted. When the search is over, pick it back up again and haul it away. If we assume installation will be done via a helicopter drop with a useful payload of a ton, we could design a tall tower with a broad "parachute" sort of base that would rest on top of the tree canopy (a more standard tripod base for areas where there are no trees) and raise the antennae above the treetops.

3) Man-portable units not unlike what the military uses, but geared to civilian telephone bands.

I keep reading about disasters in the Great Smoky Mountains where people had to rely on park rangers relaying messages from one to another, since their radios can only reach so far and cell phone coverage in the park is virtually nil. (There's excellent reception on top of Clingman's Dome, but that's the highest point in TN, so there are quite a few towers in line of sight, if you can actually see that far) This idea would eliminate that without causing permanent damage to the parks.