One of the Blackberry’s safeguards regarding access to user’s data, phone book, calendar etc is turning the radio off when battery is almost empty. Usually this is when battery goes under 5%. In this case you can not make any outgoing phone calls, neither receive them, as device’s radio turns off completely. This also means no data traffic (emails, texts/sms). But GPS will still work, and all the functions of blackberry that are PDA in nature will work as well. In my opinion this is great, as it enables you to access precious data even when phone’s battery is almost dead.

But in some cases you need to make that one phone call out, and you can not wait to recharge the battery. Stop cursing – we have a solution for you. As Blackberry offers no setting/menu to override disabled radio due to low battery, you will have to apply a trick. And the trick is very simple – just call 911. The emergency call will turn on the radios on blackberry (yes, radioS – also WiFi, even if you had it disabled before) and will give you approximately last 10 minutes of battery life. Therefore use this with care, as once battery dies, that’s it.

It is interesting that only 911 works, while European’s emergency lines 112/113 do not. Something to tell Vivian about. Anyhow, once you dial that 911 be sure to start pressing the red button and disconnect call even before it is placed – otherwise men in blue might visit you and even fine you(?).

On the side note – there is more elegant solution to this, and this means installing a free application that knows how to force turn on the radio. It is called ForceRadioOn, and you can find it here. Good luck!