This was an interesting show, and I am looking at the transcription to see what I am missing.   I recently found myself also losing signal, and got it back by cycling in and out of airplane mode to remedy the problem.   This did get me thinking that I should also have a backup, as I travel semi-frequently from Kentucky to the Chicago area suburbs, also because of my family situation.
Depending on which location I travel, it is between 350 and 400 miles.

With this last road trip and also some roads that I wanted to avoid, I started using OSMand, which uses OpenStreetMap in the background.  I would have to read the transcript to catch all your points, which were very interesting.  I will probably be getting at least a handheld CB radio in the near future.

Also, it has been 20 years or so, but I used to print out directions from Mapquest if the destination was somewhat local.

Thanks for your show
- Archer72