From: Jim Hampton on Aug 31, 5:08 pm

wrote in message


Doesn't matter about MODE...all good morsepersons know that
all amateur radio SURVIVES all possible emergencies, floats
on water while the hams walk on water...:-)

Of course not Len. Not everything survives; the portable and mobile stuff
will survive far better than the cellphone towers, police towers and even
amateur towers. The smaller towers (usually amateur), however, do have the
one advantage of a much smaller windload to carry.

Really? :-)

Maybe you're right. Amateur radio towers are kept up by FAITH.
Busy gal that Faith...

Hmmm...looking at the terrible scenes in Louisiana and
Mississippi, I couldn't help but notice a few police officers
about (in New Orleans) with one talking on his police HT. Then,
on NBC news with Brian Williams, a video clip showed an antenna-
laden Humvee of the Mississippi National Guard. Oh, and the
USCG with all those helos and the hoister guy talking with the
loader-into-the-basket guy on some kind of radio. Presumably
the helo pilots can talk to their base of ops by radio. Oh,
and all the news commentators in shirt-sleeves doing their
video-audio reporting from on-scene...and various folks
telephoning in audio stories. Yup...the whole INFRASTRUCTURE
went totally kaput at the end of the Mississippi River!

The biggest difference might just lie in understanding how things work.

ESPECIALLY everyone's local INFRASTRUCTURE, communications-wise.


I've been involved in exactly two emergency situations. One was on ssb with
Hans K0HB and the other was on 500 KHz. Yes, the cw is old, but the
situation involving Hans can happen at any time. Amazingly, that huge coast
guard tower did *not* survive the typhoon. An hf amateur rig could load a
chain link fence and provide reliable communications.

So, do tell us your experiences with emergency communications and why you
know that amateur radio will always (or never) float.

1994 Northridge Earthquake. TOTAL loss of electrical power to about
10 MILLION a few minutes after 4:30 AM. [53 persons died as a
direct result of that quake] Some places had severe structural
damage, gas main in Northridge ruptured, caught fire, various
utility poles and their lines down in many places, a few
collapsed freeway overpasses.

LAFD and other professional FDs had leased lines that went straight
to stations, didn't go through the switching centers of telephone
offices. All of them followed the pre-existing emergency plan and
rolled out. A few answered radio calls to fires that had broken out
(FDs have back-up electrical power for their base stations). PDs
were in constant contact by radio, their bases also having backup
electrical power. The hospitals of course had their emergency
electrical generators going and most of the ambulance services not
a part of hospitals were able to communicate by their radios.
TOTAL street blackout except for headlights of vehicles, that way
until sun-up (late, it was January 17th). Utility companies had
the greatest workload of all, but they had their radios and could
communicate...just too many places to go to to fix things all at
once...but they managed to contact all able employees to get them
to work (some going direct to repair sites).

Electrical power restoration didn't come back until shortly before
noon, a sequential area-by-area turn-on necessary to keep the AC
frequency constant. Got my residence power back at 2 PM, could see
the TV scenes (TV broadcasters long ago had backup electric power).
FEMA was on the scene the next day, doing the first real trial of
their flyaway terminals...and set up VIDEO bulletin boards so that
folks here could post things for faraway family and friends. About
2:30 PM on the 17th I got a telephone call from my uncle and aunt
in Florida, worried call; we were okay and we talked at some length.
They had no problem getting through. I got a call about 10 AM (give
or take) wanting me to help out with a utility company the next day;
no problem getting through to my residence phone.

Was there any amateur radio activated here on that 17th of January?
I'm not sure. Haven't heard of any locally. All I know is what
I've seen of the Greater L.A. Emergency Communications System and
its periodic drilling, refining of procedures, etc. Amateurs were
not a part of that in 1994. That system worked just as it was
expected to, even if it was part of the INFRASTRUCTURE that "was
supposed to fail."

Ham equipment can "float?" Haven't seen any yet with floation
devices. I'm sure someone can jury rig something for them.
National HROs and Halliscratchers are all boat anchors and will
dutifully go to the bottom of the water. Larry Roll once
postulated a Ten-Tec that "floated ashore" to a hypothetical
desert island after a hypothetical ship sinking and he used
that to send hypothetical messages from that by hypothetical
morse code (which didn't require any hypothetical electric
power..."CW gets through when nothing else will" and stuff
like thet there). Larry had too many hypos perhaps and
departed the newsgroup on April 15 last year. My house
is 830 feet above mean sea level; am NOT worried about
flooding.

Now, I'm absolutely sure that amateur radio CAN be a definite
help in a big disasterous emergency. Sometime. Besides the
documentary film about invading space aliens, that is. I'm
just NOT convinced that the INFRASTRUCTURE is going to FAIL to
such as extent that amateur radio is "the only possible savior."

From what I've seen on the TV news of the terrible destruction
from hurricane Katrina, the average amateur radio station in
the average New Orleans residence is not only submerged to the
roof line, but the electric power to it is out and any emergency
generators that might have been at those stations are completely
under water. If the shingles of a roof can blow off completely
in the downwash of a USCG helo (as has been seen by millions of
viewers), you'll have a hard sell to me on saying "amateur radio
towers have less wind loading and will survive" because I ain't
gonna believe some rinky-dink wire antennas I've seen can hold
up under 100+ MPH winds. I WILL believe an NG Humvee with VRCs
can do their nevis thing (cloud-burning) and get through to the
horizon IN such winds.

With most kindest warmest kissy-poo regards,