Helping us to locate you should you need help

We are frequently asked about the What3Words service that acts as a location finder, and should you download it in case you need help. Our mountain rescue colleagues at Edale MRT wrote an article providing some advice on how to provide information on your location to Mountain Rescue in an emergency, including the use of W3W. We have combined their article with some additional information below:

In the olden days, a member of a walking or climbing party would have to run to the nearest farm or phone box in an emergency and use a landline to call 999. The advent of mobile phones changed all that.

For a mobile phone to work firstly it needs power. A spare battery pack and cable is a very good idea, as is setting out with a fully charged phone that should be kept for emergencies and not constantly used for mapping and photo / video apps along the walk which will drain the battery.

Your phone also needs a signal and 'handshakes' (communicates) constantly with all masts it can locate. It does this to provide your phone with call and Internet data services, and provide geo-location for apps that use your position.

You are on a walk and you hurt yourself. What happens next?

So, let’s imagine you are driving to the start of your walk and in a deadspot your phone loses signal a mile from the car park. You set off on your moorland walk and shortly afterwards you trip over and hurt your ankle and can’t walk. You realise you need Mountain Rescue and to do this you use your phone to dial 999 and ask for POLICE – MOUNTAIN RESCUE.

Only when you dial 999, your phone will roam to find another network (like it does when you go abroad on holiday), if your phone is in a deadspot with your mobile phone service provider to enable your emergency 999 call. Some new phones also offer an emergency SMS capability via satellite.

Confirm your location accurately will help you to be located quicker.

During your phone call to the emergency services it is going to be really beneficial if you can accurately confirm your location. The more accurate the better. But this is where some mistakes are occurring.

The two most common errors with What3Words are:

the phone still thinks it’s somewhere else (remember when we said your phone had lost signal a mile from the car park ?) … well your phone still thinks it’s in that previous location;
in relaying the 3 words over the phone to the emergency services, an error is introduced by either misreading or hearing incorrectly somewhere along the process.

Most navigation apps (eg Ordnance Survey OS Locate, Memory Map, What3Words etc) work by translating the geo-location data of your phone in to another ‘language’.

For What3Words it is translated in to 3 words (eg ///watching.safest.nudge). The What3Words language relates to a 3 metre square ‘box’ on the surface of the earth.
For OS Locate and Memory Map it is translated into an Ordnance Survey grid reference consisting of two letters followed by either 6 or 8 numbers (eg SK 125 974). The OS Locate language relates to your location according to the UK National Grid. 8 numbers is more accurate than 6 and you can change this in ‘settings’ in the OS and Memory Map apps.

Improve the accuracy of app location services

You can do a few things to increase the accuracy of all navigation apps:

Let your phone settle when you open the app BEFORE you read out the location (give it at least 30 seconds for your phone to establish the most accurate location it can)
Read out the words carefully and clearly, (and numbers if used), spell them out and repeat them to minimise the risk of errors. For example, ///vaulting.swoop.singer is a completely different place to ///vaulting.swoop.singers. This is typically a lot quicker when using OS grid references than the W3W three word system.
The W3W app has a share button which enables you to copy the W3W location and paste into a text message which you can send to the emergency services. This removes any issues with mispronunciation etc. You can send a text message to 999. To register just send an empty text message to 999. You will get an automated response and just follow the instructions. You can do this at any time.
Zoom out on the What3Words app map – this increases the accuracy but also helps you realise if the app has you in the wrong place (ie does it show you next to a big lake when there clearly isn’t one)

Mountain rescue teams in England and Wales use a system called Phonefind and SARloc to help locate you. The MR team will tell you that they are sending a text message to your smartphone and to please open it. Follow the simple instructions and it will inform the rescue team of your location using the mobile phone's location service and an OS grid reference.

If none of the above works you may also be asked to describe your location over the phone to us and maybe even send us a photo of what you can see. We’re quite good at ‘guess the location’ quizzes.

What do mountain rescue teams prefer you use?

As Mountain Rescuers we are more interested in an accurate location than how you sourced it – but we would prefer an accurate 6 or 8 figure grid reference (and the 2 letter prefix) coupled with an accurate description of where you are eg I am at SK 123 456 and I am sat against the corner of the wall wearing a yellow pom pom hat.

Other free apps that will give you a grid reference for your location include ‘Grid Ref Free’ and ‘Grid Point GB’.

Can W3W display an OS grid reference?

Yes. On What3Words you can also send someone your location as a grid reference – to do this go to the W3W app ‘Settings’, then ‘Display Settings’. Scroll down to ‘British National Grid’ then ‘8 Digit Grid Reference’.

Please Note - this article doesn’t cover all of the other aspects of dealing with an emergency out on the hill. Please read up on that subject, gain experience or maybe attend a course.

Please practise with using the location part of your navigation apps BEFORE you need them in an emergency.

For any of this to work you need a powered mobile phone.

Lastly, everyone in Mountain Rescue is firmly of the opinion that a paper map and compass (and the knowledge and experience to use them) are excellent navigation tools. However we are realists and our experience shows that the vast majority of hill goers no longer carry them, hence this article.