Re: [digitalradio] Re: Some thing we've talked about.

[Joe Ivey]

Joel,   I can agree with you in most of what you say. However maybe FEMA should be set up  to use a military type of communication set up to pass traffic from the stricken area back to Washington. There is a misleading of amateur radio to a lot of local officials and the general public. Most are under the impression just because someone is an amateur radio operator that they know everything. This is far from the truth. Just because someone is an amateur radio operator does not mean that is know how to handle traffic. Where the amateurs come in is in the affected area. In most cases the affected area is going to localized to one section of the country. The cell phones and internet will be down along with most regular telephones and electrical power. This is where the amateur operators come in. They can relay emergency communication from the affected area back to the central command. Also there maybe more that one search and rescue units in the affected area and on different frequencies and can not pass traffic between the different units.   Emergency traffic should be pass first the health and welfare second. All other traffic would be passed as time would permit. The general public really does not understand what emergency traffic meas. Emergency means the treat to life and/or property. Yes everyone that had a family member or close friend in the stricken area would be wanting to know where they and that they were okay.   I thought, and maybe I am wrong, That the frequencies on the 60 meter band was supposed to be for emergency use. Maybe what should have bee done was set aside maybe 15-20 KHz on the HF bands just for emergency use only. When we were allotted the 60 meter frequencies, most radios were not set up to transmit on 60 meters. Most everyone had to modify their radio to transmit on that bands.   If the US was attacked by another country the president would more than likely provoke the War Powers Act and then only RACES would be allowed to use the HF bands.   Just my thoughts.   Joe W4JSI   ----- Original Message ----- From: Joel Kolstad To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 8:39 PM Subject: [digitalradio] Re: Some thing we've talked about. Hi Walt, > What can amateur radio being to the table?  Unfortunately, I think the answer is 'less and less' as time goes by.  As communication technology advances, the simple fact is that people will grow more accustomed to reasonably fast Internet access connected to their commodity laptops, voice communications via cell phones, etc.  All of this requires significant infrastructure (geosynchronous satellites aren't cheap!), and hence MONEY.  There's no way for a bunch of hams who might be willing to spend a couple thousand bucks on gear for themselves can compete with multi-million dollar military communication systems.  And when you think about it, since we -- the taxpayers -- are the ones paying for that infrastructure, shouldn't we fully expect that folks like FEMA or the Red Cross will be using it during disasters?  I do encourage hams to do whatever they can to assist in emergency communications, and there's plenty of scenarios where they'll continue to be a great asset, but if I were a FEMA director I'd be pretty hesitant to have an official policy of relying on volunteers with little or no funding if I thought I could instead rely on the military. I don't think that the declining use of hams for emergency communication particularly threatens the bands themselves (i.e., the FCC taking the HF bands and reallocating them).  Instead, I think the simple metric of whether or not the bands continue to be well used will have a much larger impact as to their continued existance -- a lot of the idealism of the amateur radio service somehow existing for the good of the public (rather than just as a cool little resource for a bunch of hobbyists to use for their own enjoyment) went away years ago (about the same time that people like Howard Stern started convincing much of the public that the FCC trying to regulate the content of the public airwaves was somehow an inherently bad idea). ---Joel Kolstad Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to   telnet://208.15.25.196/ Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ Looking for digital mode software?  Check the quick commerical free link below http://www.obriensweb.com/digimodes.html YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS  Visit your group "digitalradio" on the web.    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.