Hi Folks...
Search and Rescue member here, telecom expert and host of the SAR prevention AdventureSmart series.
This meme, which has been circulating for years, is dangerously incorrect.
1) if your phone has no signal you can't change your voicemail
2) if your phone is low on battery voicemail is a waste of battery
Instead, please try to call 9-1-1 (or the emergency number where you are like 1-1-2, etc).
Here's why 🧵:
@Hiker_Scott @VeroniqueB99 @gwendolenau as a fmr. firefighter, I second this important #PSA!
Please just disable all power-consuming apps and data/WWAN, WiFi, Bouetooth, NFC.
Keep your phone on low power / energy saving.mode as long as possible.
In some jurostictions (i.e. #NewZealand) in case of disasters, mobile networks will restrict all non-emergency communications in suspected-to-be-affected areas to SMS and will even shutdown or at least downgrade mobile internet to save on battery and enable people in distress to call emergency services and make it easier for dispatch to get location details they can forward to people on the ground...
@kkarhan @VeroniqueB99 @gwendolenau
Good tips!
For people who really want to get into the weeds about communications, the limitations of various devices and systems, we have a video for that too!
@kkarhan @VeroniqueB99 @gwendolenau
Once we launch our winter season, we may be revisiting communications as some of our local carriers are introducing SMS everywhere via satellite. I predict dump trucks worth of misinformation when it launches and we hope to get ahead of it.
Also, one of these seasons I will eventually do a natural disaster preparedness for backcountry users episode... Hopefully before we have the big one. ;)
Scott M. 
Kevin Karhan 