) writes:

While I am more than willing to test this setup out for my brother on a
pair of CB radios, I told him I might need an STA from the FCC to
communicate data on CB channel 40. He tells me that in an emergency,
anyone can use any frequencies they want, any power, any mode.

I think this is a misreading of the rules.

Yes, if someone's ship is sinking, or someone is lost in the mountains,
it is far better to use what's available than die. But, I seem to
recall some cases in the US where someone just blasted away, and it
was deemed later that the emergency was not serious enough.

But, the scenario you are talking about is not the same thing. You
aren't talking about someone trying anything to save themselves, you
are talking about organized emergency work. And once that starts happening,
you can't have anything goes, for the same reasons that there are
rules to regulate radio under non-emergency conditions.

If you blast away at any frequency or any power, then you could
so easily interfere with some other legitimate emergency communication.
Your communication may not be more important than someone else's, and
hence frequency coordination is just as important.

It has been long argued that one reason to keep amateur radio around
is that in the case of a big emergency, it's relatively easy to put
amateur radio to rest, and then you get some big chunks of spectrum
that won't be used for necessary or emergency communication. IN other
words, using amateur radio frequencies is one scenario that is already
planned if the emergency is important enough (aside from it being
used as auxiliary communication with hams using their existing
equipment.

But, life goes on, and you can't superimpose a lot of communication
onto frequencies that are needed for existing communication needs
which won't go away when an emergency comes along.

And on a completely other note, as others have pointed out, even
if an existing communication band is the only choice, there are far
better choices than the 27MHz band. A big problem of that band
is that when the skip is in, it's made fairly useless because
distant stations come in nice and strong. And likewise, you
want a band that's good for local communication, and the fact
that you can get great range under good conditions on 10meters
is not the same as getting good reliable local communication.


Michael VE2BVW