an_old_friend wrote:
Warren wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:51:04 +0000 (UTC), (Geoffrey
S. Mendelson) wrote:
Buzzygirl wrote:
Whose fault is this? And more importantly, how it is best remedied?
I'm not sure it's as necessary as people think. The whole purpose of
the "Amateur Radio Serivce" in the U.S. was to provide a pool of already
trained, ready to use radio operators in a war or emergency.
That's what hams did in NO when ALL other types of communication
failed.
when was that? I watched a lot of katrina coverage never was their a
time Foxnews had any trouble transmitting into or out of NO
CW operation has no place in either.
What about when ther is NO power!
no uqual s no radio
Low powered CW rigs get through
when everything else fails. It has been demonstrated time and again.
when was the last nothing but CW got trough? certainly not in this
century
They can use battery or solar power better than voice rigs because of
their low power draw.
so
The comm guys involved in emergency response don't really have a use
for ham-based communications. Getting the people who can really
provide some assistance to victims of a disaster to communicate with
one another is difficult enough. Tying in hams would only bring chaos
to an already hectic situation.
In several hurricanes I've monitored the hams did little more than set
up the usual nets, read NOAA weather reports and check in with one
another. No emergency comms were made. In one memorable hurricane in
the late 1980's the 14275 net was able to make contact with one ham on
the impacted carribean island. It was chaos as guys tried to talk over
one another in voice and cw all at one time with that poor guy.