|
|
|
Cho Oyu Summit - An Invalid Position - take two
18:26 p.m. EST Oct 5, 2004
Last week we ran the story about many of the Thuraya phones losing their bearing close to Cho Oyu summit. The problem seems to start somewhere around Camp 3, where the Thuraya stops saying it’s in China and instead displays “Invalid Position”.
The problems continue as climbers move back to Base Camp. It’s reported that the “Invalid Position” stays and/or that it switches back to “China” - in any case it's no longer possible to make data calls.
Here's an update from David Morton, 2004 Cho Oyu expedition leader for Alpine Ascents:
"I spoke to at least 4 people having the same problem at Cho Oyu ABC with Thuraya phones. At some point after being in ABC for a while all of the phones switch to operating with the 'Thuraya Thuraya' display/network rather than 'Thuraya China'.
It seems to take a while for this change to happen but all that were there had this happen. The Singapore team's Thuraya that had been successfully changed back - they called their salesperson in Pakistan and had them work on trying to get it switched back and it was a success after about a week. Two sherpa sirdars who own Thurayas purchased in Nepal said they always have that problem in China.
My phone that is not data enabled and never used for data never switched over. The other interesting fact is that once the phone switches over to the 'Thuraya Thuraya' display/network you can make voice calls out of China but you cannot make calls within China. Sherpa were trying to call Lhasa on our phone and calls wouldn't work but would work anywhere else - Nepal, US, etc.
Each person having the problem called their various support numbers and everyone was told that all that needed to be done was to reset the GPS and other solutions that didn't work. The support people are all dumbfounded by this too. Perhaps it's a Chinese scrambling thing?"
When the display shows “invalid position,” the Thuraya handset needs a little help to fix the position. Try the following:
Menu>GPS Manager (8)>Current Position(1)
Wait up to several minutes. The Phone will search a new GPS fix and hopefully start working again. You can quickly acquire position by hitting “Menu 81”. At least one of the expeditions got their phone back to working order by following this instruction. We still don’t know if it would work at the summit itself. Thuraya Support: Dial Thuraya Support direct form the phone for half the normal call cost (app. $0.5/m). The number from the handset is 100.
Image of the view from Cho Oyu summit and the Thuraya sat phone display compiled by ExWeb. Cho Oyu image by Jamie McGuinness, Project Himalaya.
|
