"andrei" wrote in message
om...
A long range radio, with just a few channels, is going to find very
congested conditions.
A short range radio, with fewer channels, is likely to be very usable.

OK, but can you reccommend a model? What are we taking about here?
Surely not an FRS radio? Then what?

FRS will allow you to keep your group in contact over short ranges.
I would expect 1-2 miles.

Look at what happened during the backout in New York: cellphones had a
very time working because of powerfailures and saturated circuits. So
I would not count on cell phones too much in case of problems.

Absolutely.

Which channels do would make it possible to call the police or the
coast guard? Are there other, non CB, emergency radios out there?

Ham radio solves my needs, with bands from 2MHz through 24GHz.
The 2 meter band is the most popular, and is supported by repeaters with
large coverage areas (10 - 50 mile diameter coverage into a handheld
depending on antenna and terrain)
You need a licence to play though, and that seems to upset people,
especially in CB land.

We use ham radio here in conjunction with Skywarn, to warn of severe
weather, like tornadoes.
Cell phones flake out immediately, as the network overloads with everyone
calling everyone else to see if they are ok too, and the first hit of bad
weather usually takes the sites offline entirely when the power drops. Our
repeater has battery backup, and we have an alternate repeater site a few
miles away that we can activate in case our primary is taken out by
lightning.

Starter radios can be had on ebay for $50 and up, with reasonable features.

As for calling police, that's still an iffy proposition. In our county, when
severe weather hits, or some other widespread problem is happening, our
people are in at the county EOC, and a call on our repeater for any
emergency services will result in a note passed down the hall to the 911
dispatchers. Many counties have similar groups in place, and the more urban
you are, the more I would expect that to be the case. One of the most
active groups in the country is in Orange county California
http://www.ocraces.org/ We're not that big here

Calling ham radio an "emergency radio" is doing it a dis-service though. I
use it almost every day, mostly just to chat with others in our group while
driving, and keep up on current events.

My particular vice is called Slow Scan TV, which allows me to send a picture
in about 30 seconds, over a range of about 20 miles with simple low cost
equipment on the 2 meter band, and worldwide on HF like 14.230 MHz
http://www.kenwood.com/i/products/in...teur/vch1.html is what I use in
the car, and at the EOC we have a computer running MMSSTV, a sound card
program to send and receive SSTV pictures. It's freeware, which is nice, and
any laptop with a sound card can play. Simple interface cable required, but
that's easy

We also can do conventional TV on the higher bands (we call it "fast scan
TV") but the power and equipment requirements are much higher to get any
real range, that's just the nature of the mode.