Tim, While I agree with much of what you say, I did not get the same impression from the QST comments about not providing H&W traffic.
My understanding was that this was a ARC decision so that it would be more "fair" for everyone since not all shelters had equivalent radio communications available. By denying everyone the service, no one had a more favorable situation. Personally, I can not understand their logic which seems convoluted. I have discussed some of this with at least one ARRL staff member who said they were very surprised that almost no NTS traffic came out of Katrina and they did not know what to make of it. I know they are very concerned about this. 73, Rick, KV9U Tim Gorman wrote: > > The ARRL folks should not be shocked at what has happened. When they > negotiate > agreements with other agencies (e.g. the American Red Cross) that prevent > amateurs from collecting outgoing message traffic at emergency > shelters, what > do they expect? > > The ARRL admitted in one of the latest QST's (Nov I think) that they > AGREED > with the Red Cross decision during Katrina to not let hams collect > traffic in > Red Cross shelters destined for loved ones from evacuees. > > As for routine traffic, there are lots of messages that have a reasonable > delivery time that can be handled by the NTS. The ARRL needs to get > off their > duff and start being cheerleaders for this type of operation instead > of being > only cheerleaders for handling emergency agency operational and > logistical > traffic. > > I disagree that the only way this will work for digital is if it can > be done > on a store-and-forward basis. Your prediction is probably true as long > as the > ARRL and others continue to cast routine traffic as being unnecessary > and a > waste of time to handle. > > Especially in emergency situations, it is being able to get the message > delivered that is important, not that it be done within 10 minutes. > People > waited days to find out about relatives in Katrina. Outgoing welfare > traffic > from that area could have been sent and delivered by hams much quicker > than > that. > > Even routine birthday notices, christmas greetings, and just plain > hello's > don't require delivery within 10 minutes. And for someone that doesn't > remember an email address or even a telephone number, amateur radio still > provides a reasonable alternative. > > psk nets can operate at least as efficiently as the old RTTY nets used > to. I > suspect they can operate better since it is easier to manage > frequencies and > to dispatch sender/receiver pairs off-frequency than during the old RTTY > nets. > > The real kicker will be the number of people that are willing to > dedicate the > time and effort to make such a system work. Even when traffic nets > were valid > alternatives to the telephone system (e.g. late 50's to early 70's), the > percentage of hams that were dedicated to traffic handling, even on a > part-time basis, was small. Since digital operation is only about 10% > of the > total operations today, my guess is that the number of hams willing to > make a > digital system work will be insignificant. > > I suspect that if you did a survey on this list you would get no more > than 1 > or 2 people interested in doing routine traffic handling no matter how > important the traffic is. > > Tim ab0wr > Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to telnet://208.15.25.196/ Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
