In article ,
(William) writes:

JJ wrote in message
...
Len Over 21 wrote:

emergency.

Hint: They will if it is useful for them to do so. Should the
network fail, they will resort to other means.

The military and civil authorities don't even consider the cell network
in there emergency communications plans, they know it is too unreliable,
they do consider Amateur Radio.

How do the civil and military authorities intend to be initially
notified that there is an emergency?

There are several ways for military authorities to notify military
units. For long-distance notification there are "hard" circuits
which route through very dedicated, few-user systems via
military satellites, fiber-optic lines, copper lines, or microwave
radio relay. The VLF alert system for submarines is one such,
not using any morse code but rather encrypted data means.
The USAF has its own network as does the USN and USA.

Lower-level alerts can be issued through the DSN or Digital
Switched Network, in clear or encrypted, voice or data, to most
parts of the world where fixed or semi-fixed bases exist. Most
of the operation and maintenance of the DSN is done by USAF
and USA Signal units. DSN is a combination of plain old
telephone system (POTS in the unofficial acronym) and an
Internet-like data exchange. DSN is what fiction author Tom
Clancy calls "the invisible second telephone system." In that
regard the label is very close to the truth except that it is not
"invisible" on any military base or larger government installations.
Older DSN number directories appear on the civilian Internet
and DSN contact numbers are published openly on military and
government websites. DSN telephones and terminals can call
out to the commercial-civil telephone system with setup
authorization and firmware authenticators but the reverse is
seldom implemented.

NORAD has its own hardened system tied to many and
varied sensors, plus the DSN, as a specific example. Details
on the North American Defense Command are sensitive.

For civilian notification there are many and varied means,
beginning with the commercial-civil telephone infrastructure.
Beyond that is a very large assortment of communications
capabilities that varies with the urban complex arrangement
and local government organization. The fire departments of
the Greater Los Angeles area (all 24/7 professionals) have
dedicated circuits bypassing switch centers to each fire
house carrying alarm signals, voice, and some data to back
up voice sent as primary mode (time, destination, etc.).
Police departments in this Greater LA area also have
dedicated circuits not passing through telephone switch
centers, are not blocked by sudden telephone use.

Send a runner?

In the military that is still the final back-up "system." :-)

A form of this, ususally via land vehicle, has been done in
civilian sections. In the Northridge Earthquake here ten years
ago, utility companies had to send company cars to workers'
homes located in areas of severe damage since the POTS
lines were damaged; many off-duty utility workers were needed
for a quick, massive repair task of restoring utilities. A few
police cars aided in such "runner" duty. Notification that an
earthquake had occurred was NOT needed, however. :-)

Public safety vehicles equipped with PA (all police patrol cars
in this area, the PA also being the siren) are useable as wide-
area, mass notification. Most fire department engines also have
PA facilities onboard. That was done in 1971 in the San
Fernando Valley of Los Angeles after the Sylmar quake to warn
residents in the "downhill" side of the Van Norman Reservoir
to evacuate; officials feared the three earthen-wall reservoirs
might be breached by aftershocks and inundate a large area.

The old, "classical" means of widespread notification through
broadcast stations is still done. Both civil airways FAA centers
and USCG plus Harbor Control bases have done announcements
to all aircraft in the vicinity or all watercraft in the harbor area.
There are several private communications networks of larger
corporations here which can be used for alerting distant
locations of their installations and have done so in the past.
As an example, Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell International
had several kinds of links to the Santa Susanna Field
Laboratories (mostly for test telemetry) as well as to Atomics
International (plant a few miles away plus labs also at Santa
Susanna).

I always had to carry a pager. Cellular telephones have mostly
replaced pagers.

That depends on the local area. Here there is a mixture of both
plus private/commercial paging services. Pager base stations
are relatively narrowband and semi-automated, are relatively easy
to equip with uninterruptible power supplies. Those are quite
common in larger companies that have employees who must
normally work in many areas of a building complex.

Teledyne Electronics in Newbury Park, CA, was (still is,
presumably) rather far northwest along Highway 101 and had
capability to tie into the beginning of the big Condor Net in
1977-1978 on the 222 MHz ham band. Ostensibly that was
for "fire (brush firestorms) safety of the company" but the two
hams (John Memmen, manager, Harry Terraneau, Sr. Tech)
really had "other" uses for the several HTs. :-) That Net
had non-computer tone signalling and switching-routing, still
does. Harry had at least one HT on-charge with the receiver
open some of the time.

HTs in PDs and utilities are quite numerous and some of those
have varied alerting means such as tone signalling or actual data
sent over mobile terminals. The LAPD here has an "extension"
of patrol car radios in the personal body-worn HT with combination
speaker-mike sometimes clipped near the collar. Many LAPD
patrol cars carry data terminals for long, detailed announcements.
Usually used in ID of vehicles and drivers, those are useful for any
information that needs to be kept handy for referral.

Back a few decades when RCA Corporation was still in existance,
they had dedicated corporate lines locally tying four local RCA
complexes, one of them NBC western headquarters in Burbank.
Those were used for Teletype and a special PBX tie-in to the
telephone system for communications with RCA locations in the
eastern USA. Since RCA was also under contract to Bank of
America for data handling, they also had dedicated lines to San
Francisco B of A Hq. "Dedicated" lines do not pass through the
switch centers of POTS. That was in 1975 and some time in the
past but other corporations of today have extensive private
network facilities that are all useful for notification in real
emergencies. The General Motors assembly plant (last used
for Camaros and Firebirds) in the middle of Van Nuys, CA, had
its own network to component assembly plants elsewhere in order
to expedite manufacturing logistics. [closure by GM was due to
other economic reasons, nothing to do with communications, the
location is now a new mall area referred to as "the plant" - :-) ]

The number and variety of communications means, all useful in
an emergency of today is large and extensive. Details of the
civilian side of it can be discovered by anyone who cares to look.
The Auxilliary Communications Service (ACS) of the California
state Office of Emergency Services takes that into account as
does the OES itself. Any and all means of communications that
survive the onset of any emergency are all useful.

LHA / WMD

(William) wrote in message . com...
(Steve Robeson K4CAP) wrote in message ...

Oh NO, Brain, I am quite clearly #2

I never doubted it.

What? No argument?

JJ wrote in message ...
William wrote:
JJ wrote in message ...

William wrote:


JJ wrote in message ...


William wrote:



JJ wrote in message ...



William wrote:




I would hazard a quess that the average American Citizen DOES know
someone with a cell phone. Cell phones are almost ubiquitous, so much
so that they are annoyances. 100 million subscriptions, 265 million
people. You do the math.

And the network becomes useless in an emergency,


Stop right there.

In every emergency ever, the cell network always becomes useless?

As far as millitary and civil authorities are concerned for official
emergency comms... a big *yes*.


Are you the SECDEF? Are you the Director of FEMA?

You paint with a broad brush and without authority.

That makes it grafitti.

I suggest you call NORAD/NORTHCOM, FEMA, The Red Cross, Civil
Defense,and other emergency agencies and ask them how much weight they
place on the cell phone system for emergency comms in times of a major
disaster.


I suggest you tell Average Citizen that he or she needs to have an
amateur radio operator strapped to their hip for emergency purposes.

Where did I speak of the average citizen?

That's who I've been speaking of all along. Do try to keep up.

Until they buy into your argument in large numbers, cellular
telephones will continue to eclipse amateur radio for Average Citizens
emergency communications.

So they may, but in times of emergency, the military and other civil
authorites will not rely on cell phones to handle major emergency
communications.

And it's always about the military and civil authorities, isn't it?

I am no longer an instrument of national policy. Are you?

They will rely on Amateur Radio if the need arises and
AR can supplement military or other civil emergency comms, but they will
not rely on the cell network.

They do and will continue to rely upon cellular telephones and pagers
for notification. Get used to it.

William wrote:




And it's always about the military and civil authorities, isn't it?

That is who will be handling the major comms during a major emergency,
not the AC with a cell phone on his hip.


They do and will continue to rely upon cellular telephones and pagers
for notification. Get used to it.

But they will not rely on cell phones to carry communications during a
major emergency, but they may rely on ham radio if needed, get used to it.

JJ wrote in message ...
William wrote:

And it's always about the military and civil authorities, isn't it?

That is who will be handling the major comms during a major emergency,
not the AC with a cell phone on his hip.

For what purpose are they handling the major comms?

They do and will continue to rely upon cellular telephones and pagers
for notification. Get used to it.

But they will not rely on cell phones to carry communications during a
major emergency, but they may rely on ham radio if needed, get used to it.

I've been used to that. But there's a new technology on board now. Get used to it.

Subject: Ham-radio is a hobby not a service
From: (William)
Date: 3/19/2004 6:21 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

JJ wrote in message
...
Steve Robeson K4CAP wrote:


But NOT for the types of communications that were supported by
Amateur
Radio...that's the PURPOSE of Amateur Radio...to relieve those other
services
of having to worry about that.

Lets see if in the next emergency when another service is needed to
relieve other services, which the emergency officials call on first for
relief, lenny and witless william with their gameboy cell phones, or ham
radio.
Try as they may to discredit ham radio's usefullness in such times, the
military and civil authorities consider ham radio to be viable means of
communications in emergencies, but not the cell network.

JayJay, I happen to be an amateur. I have equipment. I have been
trained.


You are licensed. The FCC says so.

You may have equipment. Anyone can buy it.

From the nature of the posts you have made ehre, I doubt that any training
you have had has been anything anyone would call "adequate".

I am available should the need arise.

I will go to bed comforted tonight knowing you're out there, Brain.

I do not discredit amateur radio's usefulness in such times.

That is not the truth. You've made grossly disparaging remarks in this
forum on several occassions.

Yet you greatly discredit the impact that cellular telephones have
made on emergency communications.

The point remains: The "emergency agencies" continue to make plans for
the use of Amateur Radio to help provide communication needs in the advent of
loss of regular telephony services...Not to use telephony if Amateur Radio
fails.

Steve, K4YZ

Subject: Ham-radio is a hobby not a service
From: JJ
Date: 3/19/2004 7:31 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

William wrote:

Yet you greatly discredit the impact that cellular telephones have
made on emergency communications.

Because in a major disaster calling for emergency comms, the cell
network will be, far all practical purposes, useless. The emergency
officials will not rely on the cell network for major comms during an
emergency. In addition to the communication ability of military and
civil services, they will rely on Amateur Radio if it is needed, and
Amateur Radio will be there if needed. If a service is needed to
suplement other comms, they will not call on or count on the cell phone
network, they will call on Amateur Radio.

I just spent my weekend sitting in the TEMA/FEMA EOC in Nashville

All I can say is...WHEW!

I know Brainless and Lennie will discount any likelyhood of my
objectivity, however I was impressed with TEMA's communications facilities.

Yes, the FEMA folks each carry a cellphone with them. There are NO
seperate cellphone facilities in the EOC, however.

The EOC has the capability of accessing any frequency from 1.8MHz to 2GHz
in a plethora of modes, secure and unsecure, to include military if necessary.
Many commercial assets can be accessed if required. Off-site remotes are
situated with almost all of the same capabilites in case of an attack or other
loss of use of the prime EOC.

There is a dedicated Amateur Radio packet station, HF station, two V/UHF
operating positions and third UHF position dedicated to the MTEARS net (Middle
Tennessee Emergency Amateur Radio Service) which is directly tied to NOAA and
carries the bulk of SKYWARN traffic in western and middle Tennessee.

Thier own HF facilites include operating positions for SHARES, FEMA's own
nets,

A dedicated position for CAP (Civil Air Patrol) is being added to "the
pit". Communications assets for CAP will eventually include HF, VHF,
air-to-ground, and a digital imaging site for the HSI (Hyper Spectral Imaging)
package CAP aircraft are being equipped with, as well as VHF slow scan video.

With the exception of two "cordless" telephones, a handful of TV remotes,
and three ISR (Intra Squad Radios, the federal version of FRS) HT's used to
talk to the guard shack and garage, there are NO "unlicensed" devices on the
facility. (The only "major" role the ISR radios might play is if they are used
by a commissioned O-4 in the Armed Forces.)

Speaking of "TV remotes", this place would put a lot of those "every
channel of sports" sports bars to shame! They even had channels dedicated to
foreign news services running.

When I asked about "CB" radio or "GMRS", I was told that there were no
plans to use either, that there was not even a usable GMRS repeater in the
area. Any REACT group that presented itself would be "tasked under the ARES EC,
however we would not allow anyone coming here on the heels of something major
to try an wiggle in to an existing plan. We've pretty well got our plans in
place, and there's NO plan for CB radio.

The gentleman that I spent most of these two days with is a member of the
board of APCO, or Association of Public-safety Communications Officials, so I
think I can reasonably assume him to be a bit more knowledgeable than certain
posters in this forum on the subject of "emergency comms"...

73

Steve, K4YZ

Subject: Ham-radio is a hobby not a service
From: (William)
Date: 3/20/2004 7:06 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id:


Because all emergencies are Huge!

They are if they are happening to you.

Steve, K4YZ

Subject: Ham-radio is a hobby not a service
From: (Len Over 21)
Date: 3/20/2004 4:59 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

Because in a major disaster calling for emergency comms, the cell
network will be, far all practical purposes, useless.

You have only one size of emergency: Huge!

That's laughable.

It may be all he has that is huge...

Ahhhhh, yes...Lennie fires an opening volley of "personal perjorative",
the nature of which had certain underlying innuendo that he-himself has decried
others using in numerous past posts.

In addition to the communication ability of military and
civil services, they will rely on Amateur Radio if it is needed,

So Amateur Radio isn't their first choice? How sad.

Tsk, tsk, tsk...another Legend of the Airwaves down in flames.

It wasn't a legend to start with.

The "legend" status was bestowed by you. The rest is archived history.

Obviously one that is sufficiently true enough for CURRENT emergency
planners to continue to rely upon.

Steve, K4YZ

Subject: Ham-radio is a hobby not a service
From: (William)
Date: 3/21/2004 7:14 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

I suggest you tell Average Citizen that he or she needs to have an
amateur radio operator strapped to their hip for emergency purposes.

Where did I speak of the average citizen?

That's who I've been speaking of all along. Do try to keep up.

JJ...please take CAREEFUL note.

YOU were talking about disaster preparedness, those sets of plans in place
by your local or state EMA, FEMA, etc. And in the overall scheme of things,
you (and I) are correct.

Brain, on the other hand, having been UNABLE to successfully argue against
the value of Amateur Radio in those plans, has shifted his definition of
"emergency comms" to those of STRICTLY "the average citizen".

In the very narrow slice of "emergency comms" that Brian the Brainless has
wedged himself into, yes, John Q Public is going to whip out the old cellphone
and call 9-1-1 to get a cop, report a fire, or request EMS for an accident or
medical emergency...Just like he would have dialed a payphone 5 years ago.

In a true "disaster preparedness" mode, cellphones may suffer all of the
bad things that you and I have said they will.

THAT assertion is made upon the evidence that such incidents have ALREADY
HAPPENED, and those occurences have been sufficient to impress the REAL
"emergency comms" planners to continue to incorporate Amateur Radio in a wide
range of plans.

This is not "urban legend" or based upon some " feel good news release of
the ARRL" as Lennie the Loser would have us believe. Real, front-page news
stuff. Sorry he won't admit it, but that only helps to substantiate MY claims
about his "superior intellect".

So they may, but in times of emergency, the military and other civil
authorites will not rely on cell phones to handle major emergency
communications.

And it's always about the military and civil authorities, isn't it?

Uhhhhhhh....Brain....Other than "military" or "civilian", what other
categories are there?

I am no longer an instrument of national policy. Are you?

As long as my Right to Vote has not been revoked, you're danged tooting I
am!

Try again, blockhead.

Steve, K4YZ