Craig wrote: I suspect that both ham radio and the federal government are living in the past. The Internet has eliminated much of the traditional ham radio activity surrounding disasters (with the exception of course of local VHF activity), and 24-hour news networks have become better eyes and ears than the "official" government communication channels.
----------------------------- A well-honed system always lags behind the latest/greatest technology. I used to chuckle as I worked on required shipboard CW consoles in a radio room that also had TOR, satellite telephones and, when needed, an internet connection! All within easy reach of the guy at the key, like many of our hamshacks today. The problem with VHF has always been limited range. When repeaters are available, that's fine. But often they aren't. That's where people like the HF Pack ops and others all equipped with a K2 capable of SSB, maybe a buddypole or even a whip stuck in their backpack, and some batteries can get an instant signal out many tens of miles with telephone reliability. Often that range can be in the hundreds of miles. Not that CW couldn't be of critical value in some scenarios, but 99.9% of the time is a voice contact. Where Ham emergency communications provides a valuable resource is in "shadowing" key people when cellular phones are jammed. That allows the person to almost talk to the other end as if he were on the phone. A question gets an almost instant answer, often one that he can hear personally. It's great for filling in where traditional emergency services were swamped. When the Loma Prieta quake hit San Francisco, I was working for a land mobile company. We had some repeaters that were still operational. We suspended all air-time billing and got all the idle cabs we could to key points so they could use the communications system. It was invaluable during those first few hours since most mountaintop repeaters were off the air. Even the emergency service repeaters in critical areas (Mt. Loma Prieta was both the epicenter and one of the most popular repeater mountains). Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
