Have any of you have see "Alone in the wilderness" with Dick Proenneke on PBS ? Would he have been able to set up a HF rig and get signal to civilization from where his cabin was ? He was surrounded by tall mountains and the nearest town was 40 miles away.

I love that documentary!!

He never did talk about it or show it inside of the cabin, but it wouldn't surprise me.  

Not sure how he would have powered it back then though.  Solar wasn't really popular/available as it is now.  

-Emt1581

Can you see his antenna in outside shots of his cabin? That would provide some clues. NVIS is supposed to be good for getting over mountains out to around a few hundred mi.

I have a DVD. Love it. You can't do something like this anymore unless you move to a remote area in Eastern Siberia or marry an Eskimo woman in Alaska. Dick had no power in his cabin. Back in the days, radios were not as energy efficient as they are now. Solar panels were not easily available either.
I've been watching Alaska The Last Frontier on Netflix and thinking the same thing. HAM radio would be ideal for someone living remotely in the wilderness. They call a local radio station instead to pass messages to their neighbors.

Own the DVD. What a soul. He did'nt need no stinkin radio. If he did he would have built it himself...

Dick didn't have a radio. That is a fact. I am just asking if it would be possible to get a signal out of where he was if so inclined.

Very easily. He would need an NVIS on 80 or 160M to talk to locals. No problem with anything else on HF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Vertical_Incidence_Skywave

He most certainly could have used a HF radio from a remote location surrounded by mountains to contact someone.  As mentioned before, NVIS.
I made a contact from deep in a canyon surrounded by 1000 to 2000 ft canyon walls and made a contact to a station about 300 miles away in Albuquerque on 40 meters.  I used a 100 watt mobile, antenna tuner, and about 65 feet of 14 ga. wire strewn on top of short mesquite/palo verde trees about 8 ft off the ground.  Nothing uber special.  I just wanted to see if I could do it, and I did.
And when I say canyon, I meant this (not my pic but actual location Fish Creek on Apache Trail, AZ):