On Tue, 05 May 2009 17:01:43 -0400, "Daniel L. Fargo" <dfargo5...@yahoo.com> said: > Well the real question is when is the Federal Government going to wake > up and get rid of the no longer need advanced CB radio people! When they > removed the tech from Ham radio it died. And what a gold mine they are > sitting on (frequencies) the government just did it to the tv stations > why are the "CB" people why are they so special! A good example last > evening we lost power not a person on the local repeater to render > assistance. Cell and land line phones also went down for a short time I > think the cell site lost power also. A logger got a three-phase line.
I don't think we want to go that far on this list. We're all here to build Amateur repeaters, and we'll cross any bridge washouts (loss of spectrum) when we come to them. There ARE good Amateurs out there with well-run emergency training and systems. They shouldn't be lumped in with the others. And the FCC and others realize that there's no way to do "quality control" on volunteer efforts that's 100% effective. I don't think it's wise to state that we're "useless" yet, but we COULD learn to show up with tools like IP connectivity and networking experts, along with our 2-way FM systems, and be a hell of a lot more useful to the public safety folks. All it takes is a little forethought -- How can we best serve, and does it ALWAYS need to be on Amateur equipment? How many times have you seen Public Safety folks need QUALIFIED help to put up a temporary repeater. Folks on THIS list CERTAINLY can assist with something like that... if they know you locally and trust you. (This leads back to the quality of installations on our fixed repeaters... if the local PS guy has SEEN that work, and knows you do it right... and has MET you... he'll happily hand you the $15K portable repeater box and antennas, and ask you to drive it up the hill so he can work to get the HT's programmed. We're a pool of TECHNICIANS, not just operators of our own systems... ya know? You show up with proper test gear, and tell the guy "I have a port on a combiner on X hill and you need that coverage really badly right now... let's tune up your portable repeater, and I'll head up there in my Jeep and have it working by nightfall..." that's the type of skill they're BEGGING for out of us. I've SEEN this work in person... the right people tell the right people that the ham standing there with the test gear "knows what he's doing", and the gear goes in the back of the truck and off they go. It's rare, but in the REALLY big events... any qualified help you can get, is utilized if you know they'll do it right. Nate WY0X -- Nate Duehr n...@natetech.com
