AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:36:39 EST:

When a member noted that the ARS
frequencies were there for use after the normal comms weren't working,
he replied " Every thing we do is a matter of life and death, so we can
use your frequencies any way we wish".

That was not only wrong, but scary that people that think in that manner
are coming into the hobby with such an attitude.


That person was more right than wrong. If one bothers to look,
the small-number Parts of Title 47 C.F.R. state clearly that
ANYONE can use ANY radio frequency to call for assistance if
a situation is really life or death...licensed or not. True.

Phil Kane could probably quote the Part and wording off the
top of his head but, not being an attorney, I would have to
search the Parts (all freely accessible). Besides, someone
in here would want to start a whole steamy argument thread on
that, arguing minutiae on the whichness of the what...:-)
Memory says it is the Part on commercial radio licenses but
undoubtedly someone in here will say 'I am wrong.' [sigh]


It is not as simple as that. What constitutes an emergency? If an
ambulance crew is transporting a 90 year old heart attack victim, it is
certainly a matter of life or death for that one patient. However, if
the ambulance breaks down, they can't commandeer your car. For a
government agency to seize private property (a category that includes
repeaters, transceivers, etc.) for their own use, they must have a
declaration of emergency, declaration of martial law, or, in individual
cases, a court order. The fire department employee who claimed that the
FD could take over an amateur radio club's repeaters anytime that they
wanted to do so was dead wrong.

--
Klystron

On Feb 29, 10:20 am, Klystron wrote:

Michael Coslo wrote on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:36:39 EST:
When a member noted that the ARS
frequencies were there for use after the normal comms weren't working,
he replied " Every thing we do is a matter of life and death, so we can

use your frequencies any way we wish".

It is not as simple as that. What constitutes an emergency?

"Imminent danger of loss of life, serious injury, or damage/loss of
property". Or verbiage something like that.

If an
ambulance crew is transporting a 90 year old heart attack victim, it is
certainly a matter of life or death for that one patient.

Agreed. But what if they are transporting several people - say, a
young family that was in a serious auto accident? Or suppose they were
transporting desperately-needed medicines, blood, etc., during an
epidemic?

However, if
the ambulance breaks down, they can't commandeer your car. For a
government agency to seize private property (a category that includes
repeaters, transceivers, etc.) for their own use, they must have a
declaration of emergency, declaration of martial law, or, in individual
cases, a court order.

I'm not sure what the ultimate legality is, in a case like that or the
others I described. I suspect that government folks would not seize
private property for emergency use unless they were desperate, because
of the possible liability.

OTOH, would you want to have it on your conscience that a person or a
family died because you wouldn't let the ambulance folks use your car
when it was desperately needed?

The fire department employee who claimed that the
FD could take over an amateur radio club's repeaters anytime that they
wanted to do so was dead wrong.

I don't think the FD person wanted the repeaters. He said they could
use the frequencies, not the repeaters. And the frequencies are public
property, after all. An amateur or club might own the repeater but
they don't own the frequencies.

Further complicating the situation is the fact that many if not most
amateur radio repeaters aren't installed on the owner's property. For
example, one of the repeaters I use is on top of a local hospital,
where its antenna shares rooftop space with antennas for other radio
services. (It's an excellent location and gives very good coverage).
It's connected to the hospital's backup power system, too. The
repeater club pays a nominal fee for the electric power and rent.
Given that level of community support, don't the repeater owners have
some responsibility to the community?

Like the situation of the broken-down ambulance, would any radio
amateur want it on his/her conscience that a building burned down, and/
or people died, because s/he wouldn't let the emergency service people
use an amateur radio repeater in an emergency when it was desperately
needed?

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article ,
Klystron wrote:

AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:36:39 EST:

When a member noted that the ARS
frequencies were there for use after the normal comms weren't working,
he replied " Every thing we do is a matter of life and death, so we can
use your frequencies any way we wish".

That was not only wrong, but scary that people that think in that manner
are coming into the hobby with such an attitude.


That person was more right than wrong. If one bothers to look,
the small-number Parts of Title 47 C.F.R. state clearly that
ANYONE can use ANY radio frequency to call for assistance if
a situation is really life or death...licensed or not. True.

Phil Kane could probably quote the Part and wording off the
top of his head but, not being an attorney, I would have to
search the Parts (all freely accessible). Besides, someone
in here would want to start a whole steamy argument thread on
that, arguing minutiae on the whichness of the what...:-)
Memory says it is the Part on commercial radio licenses but
undoubtedly someone in here will say 'I am wrong.' [sigh]


It is not as simple as that. What constitutes an emergency? If an
ambulance crew is transporting a 90 year old heart attack victim, it is
certainly a matter of life or death for that one patient. However, if
the ambulance breaks down, they can't commandeer your car. For a
government agency to seize private property (a category that includes
repeaters, transceivers, etc.) for their own use, they must have a
declaration of emergency, declaration of martial law, or, in individual
cases, a court order. The fire department employee who claimed that the
FD could take over an amateur radio club's repeaters anytime that they
wanted to do so was dead wrong.

Well actually AF6AY, and Mike are reading more into those passages of
Title 47 than they were, and are, intended, by the Commission. Phil,
being an ex FCC Lawyer can expound on the intent, but when I was a
Resident Field Agent, it was understood within the Commission, that
Amateurs, operating within their Licenses, are NOT restricted to
Frequencies, modes, or just about any other restriction, of operation,
during Safety of Life situations, that are authorized by the PART 97,
but this does NOT Allow them to use Frequencies NOT Authorized under
than Part.
The same is true for Licensees operating under other Parts like 90, 87,
and 80, where that Specific Language is used in the Part. The fact of
the matter is, that you only get in trouble, IF someone complains, or
has a problem with your operation, and is willing to go on the Record
with their objection with your operation, and Force an investigation, of
the incident. Sometimes Common Sense does prevail, but sometimes it
turns into a very BIG Deal.
Case in Point, a few years back, there was an incident in California,
where a young fellow used his Mod'ed HT to beak into the Local Sheriff's
Frequency to report an injured Hiker. The Sheriff took offense to that
intrusion, and there was a GIANT BrewHAHA, that as I recall, Phil was
involved in. We had quite a discussion about the situation, between
ourselves about the incident, and again, as I recall the issue was
settled out of HQ by some of the BIG GUN Lawyers back there.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

On Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:20:00 EST, Klystron wrote:

It is not as simple as that. What constitutes an emergency?

Gee, let's open that can of worms once again!

It's a two-prong test - it has to be a situation involving immediate
safety of life or property, AND no other means of communication are
available.

My job at the Commish' involved reviewing such cases before Violation
Notices were sent out, and in the vast majority of cases, both prongs
were not met. In fact, in one notable case, the radio tech of the law
enforcement agency upon whose frequency the "wanna-be" came up took
the transceiver that was used to the location and was able to bring up
several repeaters with "9-1-1" autopatch capability.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:36:39 EST:

AF6AY wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote on Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:00:40 EST:

Do we HAVE to 'attract new blood?' Serious question.
We do need new people to replace those who leave for one reason or the
other. I want someone to talk to on the other end, and don't want the
Amateur radio community to become closed and eventually die out.

That seems a tad premature to me. At present there are 722K TOTAL
licensees and the expiration rate is roughly 27K/year. If that
keeps up without any newcomers, it would be 26.7 years before all
were gone. [of course there will be newcomers...but how many
depends on the attitude of the old-timers they come in contact with]

... We are NOT required to DO certain
things in the hobby just because some old-timers say we MUST
do those besides the regulations that all must obey.
I'm fortunate that I never had that experience. Of course, if someone
ever did tell me how I was supposed to use my time in the hobby, I think
I would politely decline, and go do what I wanted to do. 8^)

Well, from my experience (at work or at play) I've had some
who INSISTED on telling me what I 'should' be doing. Some
of those got rather antagonistic about it. "We don't DO that
kind of thing in fill-in-the-blank" kind of comment. It was
so prevalent among amateur radio licensees that I encountered
that it turned me off of bothering to get a license for a long
time. That's been my experience over the last half century and
I spent that time working IN the electronics industry.

I'll have to say that the above attitude was reflected in the
older amateur-radio-interest newsgroups and was partly due to
the creation of rec.radio.amateur.moderated.

... I don't know if you were watching
the group a few weeks ago, but I related a story about an emergency comm
person speaking at a club meeting.

I was 'reading the mail' but didn't bother with it much. :-)

When a member noted that the ARS
frequencies were there for use after the normal comms weren't working,
he replied " Every thing we do is a matter of life and death, so we can
use your frequencies any way we wish".

That was not only wrong, but scary that people that think in that manner
are coming into the hobby with such an attitude.

That person was more right than wrong. If one bothers to look,
the small-number Parts of Title 47 C.F.R. state clearly that
ANYONE can use ANY radio frequency to call for assistance if
a situation is really life or death...licensed or not. True.

It has to be life and death, and keep in mind that Law enforcement is
happy to make that determination after the fact - and has in some cases.
The thing that had people concerned in this case was the "anything" message.

some snippage

Radio amateur licensees are not bound JUST to what Part 97
says. The whole of Title 47 applies, even if 99+% has nothing
directly to do with the amateur radio service. But, with REAL
life-and-death situations, anyone can use any frequency at any
time with or without any license.

He (and some like him)
come in to talk to the people who will be building and maintaining
repeaters and infrastructure, and lay one like that on them?

Let's take that IN context. Consider that the attending radio
amateurs might ALSO have an 'attitude' going. Consider that
lots of government infrastructure radio facilities are kept
going 24/7 expressly FOR the purpose of life-and-death comms
needs. Amateur radio repeaters aren't. Amateur repeaters
are there primarily for the benefit of other amateurs.

One of the issues that has come up in the post Katrina world is that a
number of public service agencies have had their employees get Ham radio
licenses. All well and good, and probably an end run around getting
hobbyists to help, since the employee hams will already be on the job.

Problem is, the new hams in many cases are just looking for another
communication channel, and are not interested in radio as radio. Even
this is okay. But.. The problem that arises is that there is an
expectation the people who are interested in the hobby and its technical
issues are going to keep everything up and running.

Even then, many of us with that ability are willing to pitch in.


But the big question is who becomes liable if that repeater fails? I
think that in many ways, Ham radio emergency operations are tending to
become employees who also have a ham license. And their interests are
more in the line of what they do best - save lives, not put up repeaters.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -

Kudos to those working to bring new folks, young and old, to ham
radio.

Some observations from a ham who started out in ham radio at the age
of 13 (in no particular order):

1) Don't just go for high schoolers. Middle-school and even
elementary schoolers can be hams if they're interested enough.

3) Don't try to sell amateur radio as a substitute for cell phones,
the internet, or other communications methods. Sell it as a unique
activity with its own unique attractions and rewards.

4) Scouting has a long history of connection to amateur radio. Some
councils have pretty serious amateur radio programs, and always need
more help.

5) Don't assume what parts of amateur radio young people will or won't
be interested in. Emphasize the wide variety of activities hams do,
and how much choice there is.

6) Don't assume that younger hams only want to associate with other
younger hams.

For me, part of the attraction to amateur radio was the opportunity to
be part of a community where one's age, gender, income, etc. are not a
factor. Morse Code operation made this possible - on the air with that
mode, nobody knows how old you are. You can interact with other hams
of all ages. You're judged by your skills and signal quality, not how
much you spent on your rig, etc.

73 de Jim, N2EY