Subject: Ham-radio is a hobby not a service
From: JJ
Date: 3/19/2004 7:31 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:
William wrote:
Yet you greatly discredit the impact that cellular telephones have
made on emergency communications.
Because in a major disaster calling for emergency comms, the cell
network will be, far all practical purposes, useless. The emergency
officials will not rely on the cell network for major comms during an
emergency. In addition to the communication ability of military and
civil services, they will rely on Amateur Radio if it is needed, and
Amateur Radio will be there if needed. If a service is needed to
suplement other comms, they will not call on or count on the cell phone
network, they will call on Amateur Radio.
I just spent my weekend sitting in the TEMA/FEMA EOC in Nashville
All I can say is...WHEW!
I know Brainless and Lennie will discount any likelyhood of my
objectivity, however I was impressed with TEMA's communications facilities.
Yes, the FEMA folks each carry a cellphone with them. There are NO
seperate cellphone facilities in the EOC, however.
The EOC has the capability of accessing any frequency from 1.8MHz to 2GHz
in a plethora of modes, secure and unsecure, to include military if necessary.
Many commercial assets can be accessed if required. Off-site remotes are
situated with almost all of the same capabilites in case of an attack or other
loss of use of the prime EOC.
There is a dedicated Amateur Radio packet station, HF station, two V/UHF
operating positions and third UHF position dedicated to the MTEARS net (Middle
Tennessee Emergency Amateur Radio Service) which is directly tied to NOAA and
carries the bulk of SKYWARN traffic in western and middle Tennessee.
Thier own HF facilites include operating positions for SHARES, FEMA's own
nets,
A dedicated position for CAP (Civil Air Patrol) is being added to "the
pit". Communications assets for CAP will eventually include HF, VHF,
air-to-ground, and a digital imaging site for the HSI (Hyper Spectral Imaging)
package CAP aircraft are being equipped with, as well as VHF slow scan video.
With the exception of two "cordless" telephones, a handful of TV remotes,
and three ISR (Intra Squad Radios, the federal version of FRS) HT's used to
talk to the guard shack and garage, there are NO "unlicensed" devices on the
facility. (The only "major" role the ISR radios might play is if they are used
by a commissioned O-4 in the Armed Forces.)
Speaking of "TV remotes", this place would put a lot of those "every
channel of sports" sports bars to shame! They even had channels dedicated to
foreign news services running.
When I asked about "CB" radio or "GMRS", I was told that there were no
plans to use either, that there was not even a usable GMRS repeater in the
area. Any REACT group that presented itself would be "tasked under the ARES EC,
however we would not allow anyone coming here on the heels of something major
to try an wiggle in to an existing plan. We've pretty well got our plans in
place, and there's NO plan for CB radio.
The gentleman that I spent most of these two days with is a member of the
board of APCO, or Association of Public-safety Communications Officials, so I
think I can reasonably assume him to be a bit more knowledgeable than certain
posters in this forum on the subject of "emergency comms"...
73
Steve, K4YZ