KØHB wrote:


In an age of high-tech, real-time gadgetry, it's the decidedly unsexy ham
radio -- whose technology has changed little since World War II -- that is in
high demand in ravaged New Orleans and environs. The Red Cross issued a request
for about 500 amateur radio operators -- known as "hams" -- for the 260
shelters it is erecting in the area.

Wonder why they didn't just issue a request for frankieboy and all his
cb "good buddies" to show up? Do you think it could have anything to do
with the fact that they would only add to the confusion of the disaster?

The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for hams to help with its
relief efforts.

Not looking for the "ten fer thar" cb boys to help? For shame.


With Hurricane Katrina having knocked out nearly all the high-end emergency
communications gear, 911 centers, cellphone towers and normal fixed phone lines
in its path, ham-radio operators have begun to fill the information vacuum.
"Right now, 99.9% of normal communications in the affected region is
nonexistent," says David Gore, the man operating the ham radio in the Monroe
shelter.
"That's where we come in."

More bad news for lennieboy, frankieboy the cb king, and an_old_halfwit.


Ham radios, battery operated, work well when others don't in part because
they are simple. Each operator acts as his own base station, requiring only his
radio and about 50 feet of fence wire to transmit messages thousands of miles.
Ham radios can send messages on multiple channels and in myriad ways,
including Morse code, microwave frequencies and even email.

Heavens!! Hams using an outdated mode such as Morse code, what is the
world of ham radio coming to?

Then there are the ham-radio operators themselves, a band of radio
enthusiasts who spend hours jabbering with each other even during normal times.
They are
often the first to get messages in and out of disaster areas, in part because
they are everywhere. (The ARRL estimates there are 250,000 active licensed hams
in
the U.S.) Sometimes they are the only source of information in the first hours
following a disaster. "No matter how good the homeland-security system is, it
will be overwhelmed," says Thomas Leggett, a retired mill worker manning a ham
radio in the operations center here. "You don't hear about us, but we are
there."

Gee, wonder where all that cell phone cabability went to that some claim
make ham radio obselete in times of disaster?


Ham radios are often most effective as one link in a chain of communication
devices. Early last week, someone trapped with 15 people on a roof of a New
Orleans home tried unsuccessfully to get through to a 911 center on his
cellphone.

Oh no, you mean the very system that would make ham radio obselete in
times of a disaster wouldn't work?


The hams also get little respect from telecommunications-equipment companies,
such as Motorola Inc. "Something is better than nothing, that's right," says
Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair teams in the field for its
emergency-response business. "But ham radios are pretty close to nothing." Mr.
Screeden says ham radios can take a long time to relay messages and work
essentially as "party lines," with multiple parties talking at once.

And a Motorola system that isn't working, such as the ones in NO, can't
deleiver a message at all.