Jim Hampton wrote:
No, our repeaters were up and running. There are repeaters around here that
aren't even connected to the mains

btw, cell phones were in trouble, they can't handle all of those calls to
911 "what happened to the power?" - pagers were out, and the local tv
stations were down. I found out what was going on (my e-mail and homepage
were down too) via those repeaters. Funny how that happens just when folks
are convinced that there is no need for amateur radio what with telephones,
cell phones, internet, etc.

Funny you should mention that. At a recent public service event, the
organizers were trying out cell phones for support this year, in
conjunction with the amateurs. They were hoing to replace the hams with
the actual support people that we interfaced with having a cell phone.

Well, most of the race was in areas where cell coverage was not. The
phone my cohort had would ring occasionally, but he couldn't raise
anyone after answering. And for general announcements, HQ had to call
everyone who had a phone, since there was no way of all the cell phone
users getting the message at once. Then they had to try recalling those
who were out of range.

Took about a half hour for them to realize that the cells simply didn't
work.

"can you hear me now?"........now? 8^)

- Mike KB3EIA -