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On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 00:12:21 GMT, "mad amoeba" wrote:
I was affected by the recent blackout in North East. That got me thinking of how would one communicate during such an event. Electricity including phones were out. Cellular phones didn't work either. So the only way of receiving informaiton was by radio. My old Sony wm-gx670 did quite nicely. But what if I would need to communicate with my relatives or even cops to let them know of an emmergency. If telephone/cellular/internet are not available what are my other options? Let's say people I want to communicate with are more than several miles away in an urban area. That makes CB radio useless--right? So then as far as I understand using ham radio is my only option. With that you can either get in touch with your relatives directly, provided they have ham radio as well, or you can call some person in an area without blackout and tell them to call police/ambulance etc if that's what you need. Not knowing much myself about scanners/shortwaves/hams myself I want to ask you guys with more experience if the below piece of equipment is what I need. As far as I understand this is an handheld ham radio which also functions as a scanner and can also receive on a shortwave band. So it will allow me to communicate with people far away even in urban setting, it is portable and it will also allow me to monitor news as well as police/firefighters etc. Am I right? Yaesu VX-2R http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/ht/0176.html the price is kind of steep but for all-in-one product I would be willing to pay it. Find the local ham club and discuss what you are looking for with one of them. In my area, you could listen to emergency services. However, non of them have gone to trunked systems. During catastrophic events such as hurricanes and ice storms, we provide interagency communications where there is no common frequency. For example, we have ridden with the National Guard picking up people stranded in homes when those people called 911. Since normal protocol for us it to establish a presence at the Emergency Communications Center at the request of the County Emergency Manager, a ham could call for help if needed. Several repeaters in the area have battery/generator backup, so loss of power is not an immediate matter for concern. I've seen us without power to the repeaters for up to two weeks and we kept them going. So, if you were in my area I'd say to go for it. However, ham radio is not government sponsored. All of those repeaters are installed, maintained, and supported by the hams who use them. Therefore, conditions vary a lot from area to area. For example, my home town has one repeater and it's at a hams home, maintained by him, and has no back up power supply. There are three hams that live in the area. He and his wife are two of them. The radio that you are looking at is way underpowered for simplex communications between two units. I'd look at a used two meter mobile and keep my scanner. You can pick up an older used two meter mobile for less than $100. I have a lot of advice and opinions, but I'd rather defer to the local hams in your area who know the specifics of their systems. Give them a call. Most all hams love to help someone get into the hobby. |
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