Hi All-
I’m headed to Snowshoe with 6 families
next weekend. Haven’t been in a couple years. Is the cell phone service still horrible there? Any suggestions on how to communicate with group? Thinking we could buy walkie talkies? Anything tried something that has worked well? We have 30+ people in our group.
thank you!
One of the reasons cell service has been poor at Snowshoe Mountain Resort is that they're neighbors with the Green Bank Observatory just down the hill, a series of radio telescopes that can experience interference from any nearby radio signals. To mitigate interference problems, towers at Snowshoe were designed to be very directional/localized.
I'm not sure whether walkie-talkies on the mountain could interfere with experiments at the observatory, but imagine that could be a problem so thought I would mention it. That whole area is a National Radio Quiet Zone.
Here's an interesting article about this, although it's a decade old:
Cell phone service is still very poor at Snowshoe, especially for Verizon customers. Buying walkie talkies is another option. Btw, you can try offline apps like bridgefy.me or firechat.
If you're wanting comms while skiing or riding chairlifts, cell coverage is still very spotty at best. AT&T seems to work better than Verizon. When you're near the village you can also access the free wifi. You can use walkie-talkies without concern about the neighbors at Greenbank.
Embrace being disconnected. The mountain isn't that large. With 30 people you won't have a hard time finding each other.
I agree with what Bonzski says. Should some of you decide to carry walkie-talkies the best signals will be from top to bottom of lifts and to a few runs off them.
Don't expect to communicate from the top of Soaring Eagle to many locations to the north (Ballhooter lift area). However you might be able to touch base when at the bottom of Soaring Eagle to the bottom of Ballhooter.
The walkie-talkies have a limited range and expect others to goof around with you talking over your communication. 🤣. Have fun while you're at Snowshoe!
SeniorSki wrote:
I used Walkie Talkies there a long time ago. The biggest problem was the ski patrol was on the same channel and heard there chatter all day. If you use talkies you will need to buy or rent? Expensive model, one that has the ability to have multiple channels.
Patrol now uses radios on a private digital trunked/repeater system outside the walkie-talkie frequency band. You won't have problems with interference.
Bonzski wrote:
SeniorSki wrote:
I used Walkie Talkies there a long time ago. The biggest problem was the ski patrol was on the same channel and heard there chatter all day. If you use talkies you will need to buy or rent? Expensive model, one that has the ability to have multiple channels.Patrol now uses radios on a private digital trunked/repeater system outside the walkie-talkie frequency band. You won't have problems with interference.
Well there ya go, problem solved.
