Satellite communication yea or nay?

When you assess any safety measure is worth it there are a few different things at play- the first is how high is the risk?

Assuming we are talking about the risk of dying from any cause whilst hiking that's actually really hard to say- the source you cited said there'd been 15 deaths of thru hikers on the PCT, but that figure then raises a bunch of other questions- firstly, out of how many thru hikers during that period? And how typical is the PCT in terms of risk compared to other trails, bearing in mind for most of the year it is very heavily trafficked compared to other trails. How many of those deaths were capable of being prevented by a PLB? And this is a key question how much does the number of deaths reflect the fact that many thru hikers do carry PLBs at the moment, therefore preventing a certain number of excess deaths?

I have no idea what the answer to any of those questions are, but it seems to

/r/Ultralight Thread Parent