RadioBanter - View Single Post - Amateur Radio Newsline(tm) Report 1387 March 12, 2004

March 16th 04, 05:46 PM

(Brian Kelly) wrote in
om:

JJ wrote in message
...
Radionews wrote:

HAM RADIO ADVENTU COMMUNICATORS NEEDED FOR CAVEING EXPEDITION

Gulf Coast United States, along with Caribbean, or South America
base station operators are needed for communication on the ham bands
with a scientific expedition. This, in July through August time
frame.

The 60 day expedition will explore deep caves in the high Andes
mountains and jungle in the western Amazon area of South America.
Expedition access to the remote areas is via trekking on foot and
pack animal. The expedition will use a solar and battery powered 20
Watt backpack transceiver. Antennas will be a wire dipole or
vertical. A miniature notebook computer will be along for digital
operations.

Communications will consist of position reports, some short messages
with families of expedition members, and any possible emergency or
medical messages. All operation will be non-commercial.

Operators with good base stations, efficient antennas and low noise
locations are needed on the 40 through 15 meter amateur bands. The
operations will use SSB, CW and a variety of digital modes. If you
are interested, e-mail Bonnie Crystal, KQ6XA, at
. (KC5FM, KQ6XA)

Oh wow! I would think that something like a scientific expedition
would want some reliable communication that you can use anywhere and
count on at all times, like cell phones. Right witless willie?

Uhhh . . don't particularly mean to bust yer stones here JJ but how
many dialup cells do you suppose Verizon and/or AT&T or any other
telco has up and running in the headwaters region of the Amazon?

w3rv

I went with a group of scouts to a ski resort (didn't ski, but my son did).
They had this marvellous plan to communicate with cell phones instead of
moving around the resort together as a group. Guess what? No coverage.
Nobody knew where anyone else was for 80-90% of the time.

I was the only ham there, so I'm not suggesting that ham radio would have
been a solution. However, if there had been some sort of HTs (FRS or the
like) that would have worked where cell phones failed altogether. One
family did bring a pair of FRS radios and were able to stay in touch. And
yes, there are other solutions to coordinating groups of people that don't
rely on radio atall, but once you actually rely on radios they better work.

My point? Even in the absence of a disaster cell phones are not the answer.
In an actual disaster situation relying on cellular is foolish. Yes, it may
work. Or not ...