In article , "Jim Hampton"
writes:

If you go back into the 50s and 60s, amateur radio served quite well for
long-haul phone patches and in emergencies.

Service in emergencies goes back much farther, of course.

Very localized emergencies,
such as an auto accident would largely be reported by normal telephone.

Also by hams equipped with mobile rigs if telephone was not immediately
available.. This is documented all the way back to the beginning of mobile
operation by hams. Of course, the number of mobile-equipped hams limited the
chances that there would be a ham in the area when such a localized emergency
happened.

In
the 70s, the cb craze took hold and certainly I would expect that cb was
sometimes used to report the accidents. The small number of amateurs would
preclude them being involved very often in such a situation.

I disagree on that last point. That same time period was the boom time for
amateur repeaters and autopatching. At least in the areas I'm familiar with,
such service by hams was very common.

Voilla, cb is
more important than ham radio.

Certainly more numerous in those times. Questionable today, though.

Fast-forward to today. Cell phones are likely the primary means of
reporting those accidents. Who needs the hams? Some hams will say "who
needs cb?"

As long as the cell phones are avaialble, they are obviously the preferred
method because anyone so equipped can push 911 and report directly.

A lot of folks state that amateur radio isn't a service; it's just a hobby.

That's a roundabout way of saying that a bunch of things.

Few take into account how fragile that infrastructure of cell phones,
telephones, and internet can be when a large area is affected. That nasty
ice storm in the North East (was it 1997?)

Yes

affected areas for hundreds of
miles. There were no cell phones as the cell phone towers went silent after
power had been out for days. No electricty, no heat, no telephones for
hundreds of miles. A relative of mine in Gouverneur, NY, had no heat,
power, or telephone for two *weeks*!!!

That storm also involved damage that close roads and made simple things like
getting fuel for generators very difficult.

One amateur repeater was pressed into service for the police. I do not know
if the repeater was reprogrammed or they simply moved the police repeater to
the amateur site. The amateur site withstood the ice and they had generator
backup with a *lot* of fuel available.

If it happens, it must be possible.

I don't think it is as important "how" something is done as opposed to the
fact that it gets done. If someone is assisting at a shelter cooking meals,
that individual is *doing* something. That, to me, is more important than
all of the useless crying that goes on around these parts from time to time


I agree 100%!

But some folks deny *any* significant contribution by amateurs.

BTW, during that ice storm, the calls were going out for batteries,
flashlights, generators, blankets, food, coffee, and mobile amateur
operators with HF capabilities. If you have nothing working for well over
100 miles in the N.E. U.S. and Canada, you will likely not get it done on
VHF/UHF or cb.

And during that storm, significant traffic was passed by CW because it was the
*only available mode* that would get through.

Some more data points from this area (suburban Philadelphia):

- A heavy snowstorm dumped about a foot of snow on the area one day. The
weatherfolk simply messed up, and did not predict anything like what really
happened. While there were no major problems involving loss of life or
property, many vehicles and people were stuck or seriously delayed, including
school buses full of kids. One of the first "casualties" of the storm was cell
phones, which were simply overwhelmed by the enormous volume of calls.

- Hurricane Isabel pounded through here some months ago and left hundreds of
thousands without power, and in some cases telephone service. Some if us were
out for days. The interesting thing about Isabel was that the outages were very
local in nature - one side of the street had power, the other did not, etc.
Some folks lost power *after* the storm because repair crews had to turn off
the power to a larger area to fix downed poles and lines. Cell phone coverage
was better than during the snow storm but unreliable. Again, no major problems
involving loss of life or property, but the cell system capacity was
overwhelmed at times.

73 de Jim, N2EY