"William H. O'Hara, III" wrote in message
.61...
Kim,

I don't think that you mentioned the
only practical use for CW, today. In
an emergency operation one can use CW
almost as a cipher. If Newsreporters, whom
possess "investigative skills", were to
attempt their intercepts by a scanner,
then they would simply have no
comprehension.


With all due respect, William (or is it Bill), seems that deliberately
coding/encrypting on the amateur bands is contrary to the R&R, if ya know
what I mean. And, it also seems to me that any reporter with really good
investigative skills would be well aware of your scenario, above.

However, CW is definitely a practical skill, and a needed one, in EmCom.
I've never, ever disputed that. And, I encouraged openings and training for
CW whenever I have been in a position of leadership in the EmCom world.
I've also encouraged and trained with openings to HF, etc. The only thing
we never were able to accommodate is SSTV and ATV. We had every other
check-in. We would call from FM (2M *AND* 70cm) to the net participants we
knew had HF points. They would call to all net participants on all bands we
could cover at any particular training net; then those individuals would
relay to CW for any CW net participants. Then it would all be relayed back
into the 2M/70cm nets. What would have happened "in an actual emergency"
(GRIN), was all FM operations would have then become tactical with local
Emergency Services; and we--as amateur radio operators--would "set up" the
rest of the operations, as needed, for net operations.

The goal was to have all H&W set up and operating via relay (on different
freqs than the local operation freqs) from FM to HF/CW capability. We also
had PSK ops in that arena. For "relief" portions of the net (those ops that
would be looking for food and refreshment, extra batteries, more equipment,
more cars, chainsaws...what-have-you) was relayed from FM to FM capable hams
that also had FRS/GMRS, etc. They would relay those ops needs out to
non-hams (we called it the auxilliary service) and that included, by the
way, anyone who needed babysitters, animals fed, home needs. It was our
desire to have as much of the community/families involved as we
could--regardless of their amateur radio license status.


At a EMA ARES training session, the
one of the ARES officials told us
that CW should be considered for
passing of vital information solely
to keep the opsec tight.


I understand the concept, and I know that in an emergency the R&R may very
well go out the window--as you know, all that is debatable. BUT, that
given, there are ways to handle sensitive information by using other means
than CW; although CW is a fine choice also!


Opsec happens to mean Operation Security.
I guess that everyone loves Delta
Force and the terms endeared by SFOD-1D.


We were "aware" of any lingo that might be used by our served agencies (that
was also done and learned by actually visiting the served agencies and
seeing/learning how they operate). However, on the support ops part of the
net--we didn't get into using all that fancy stuff, we pretty much used
plain language.


At the Boston Marathon I was given
a code key for authentication purposes.

Bill
KB1IUB


Uh, you mean strictly to "please" some public service official, or because
you actually used it? Honest question.

Kim W5TIT


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