[FedCom] Civil Air Patrol Expanded Nextel Use?

[HornSmoke]

Sprint/Nextel blows major chunks here in Maine with virtually no 
coverage outside of the I-95 corridor and north of Brunswick. The CAP 
folks here use the standard VHF-hi freqs, backed up by individual cell 
phones (if necessary.) Primary cell service north of Brunswick/Augusta 
is mostly covered by Unicel and US Cellular. Verizon has some new towers 
in Central Maine, as does T-Mobile. Cingular leaches off Unicel's GSM 
network. Most of the non-Unicel/US Cellular companies only have selected 
towers up the I-95 corridor, if that.

VHF-hi still "reigns supreme" here in "mountainous" Maine.

Good thread, BTW.

Loren
N1UMF

Dave J wrote:

>Hmmmm
>
>If so it'd have to be very limited as Nextel doesn't offer much nationwide
>coverage.
>They seem from here to be primarily a big city / urban area provider.
>And this is ~not~  the description of an area where CAP would have extended
>SAR operations (grin).
>
>Indeed, almost no Nextel service in ~this ~ state at all.
>Just a tiny bit in a very close area around Sioux Falls.
>
>Dave J
>sd0044 at gwtc.net
>  
>
>  
>