"brad" wrote in message
. ..

I'm sure you cell will do fine for you. They worked great in seattle
during
the earthquake we had- as long as you did not need to communicate with
anyone.

yeah, I've already 'heard' about that one, they were down for 4 or 5 hours,
hardly a big deal. Usually when they are going to be out longer than that,
they bring in portable cell sites ( generator powered ), and can cover the
majority of the effected area.

Don't think it really hurt anyone to wait for the few hours to call
relatives,
and tell them they were OK.

And from what I understand, the Red Cross and some other agencies had
'hams' operating their ( the agencies ) radio equipment since they were
short
handed, and assumed that the hams already knew how to operate a radio.
( which is a really HARD job, considering, you just push a button and talk,
then release the button and listen ) Its not like the old days when HAMS
really knew how to build, work on, and actually OPERATE a radio
( which years ago was actually some what complicated ). As it is now,
90+% of hams BUY a radio, take it out of the box, and if it needs service,
they take it to the service tech.

Amature radio contributed alot, in years past, many new radio designs were
credited to ham's, when there was JUST land lines ( and they were poor ),
if they went down, hams could call to the next city, county, or state.

But like I posted earlier, its like the mail service ..... its outdated.