On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 21:47:19 GMT, Its (The Dawn
Soliloquy) wrote:

Dear cell phone warriors, as evidenced by the unfortunate circumstances
afflicting NY, Detroit, Cleveland, Erie, etc, one can now see why HAM radio is
a necessity.

As these areas have lost power, the cell phone networks have failed.

I just finished a four-hour activation of our emergency comms team at
the request of city Emergency management.

One of the assistant directors of city emergency management was
"caught" at the county fair in the neighboring county when the power
went out. He made the trip back to the city, walked into the EOC, held
up his cell phone, and said to me, "This thing is the most useless
f___ing piece of %^&*#! I've ever owned."

"I've been telling people that since Day One," I replied.

"Remember the ice storm? Same thing happened," the other assistant
director of emergency management pointed out.

Some of you that post to this group have suggested that Amateur Radio is a
thing of the past, with world wide communication available to anyone in the
terms of cell phones.

Sure it is...until the proverbial merde hits the proverbial
ventillateur, at which point either (a) the cell sites go down, or (b)
the network becomes overwhelmed by the volume of calls, or (c) both.

This is why Amateur radio is a must, that the operators should be praised for
their continuing engagement in a hobby that has great potential for the
benefit of our society. Disaster communications is a specialty of HAMs, maybe
not in this circumstance (maybe so), but throughout the history of Amateur
radio this certainly has been true. Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes,
anything sufficiently destructive to damage or destroy common modes of
communications, such as that used by the cell phone networks, and even the
established communication systems used by the police, fire, etc. Our police
communication system in Pittsburgh is commonly knocked out by lightning. HAMS
have the versatility to create impromptu communication systems second to none.
No one else has the tremendous supply and distribution of radio systems.

I urge people to pursue the hobby of Amateur radio, to become proficient in
it, and to be respectful of it. Besides, it's fun.

Regards to all those in afflicted areas, though you might not be able to read
this at this time.

Power went out here at about 4:15 PM, came back on at about 6:30 PM.
However, two blocks from here, the power still isn't on yet, and as
I'm writing this it's now past 11PM. On my way home, saw lots of folks
sitting out on their porches with gas lamps. Some of them even think
the phones aren't working. If they tried a real phone instead of their
$5 drugstore cordless whose base unit is without power, they'd find
that the phones are working just fine - the landline phones that is.
As for the cell networks, well...see the remark by the assistant
director of emergency management, that I quoted above.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ
Co-Coordinator
ARATS Emergency & Public Service Operations Team
North Tonawanda, New York