>Dan KA3CTQ wrote: > We have people available all the time... > [snip] > We need to be active when and WHERE the problem is. > Ask any group who respond to disasters if they want > a ham or a computer. I am willing to bet they want > a live person.
Hi Dan, Well, Dan, you would lose your bet. At the Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communication Conference, the big focus there among the delegates... the managers and leaders of almost every major Emcomm organization, was on using digital technologies, and especially automatic ones, to cover emergency and disaster relief communications needs. You say you "have people available all the time". So, you are volunteering all "your people" for 24/7 duty, monitoring all the HF bands for a call? Are you sure they will all go along with you voluteering them like this? :) Will your people be a local service, nationwide, or international? Please detail all the HF frequencies and modes your people will be manually monitoring 24/7. (This will make big news in the ham community) If you think you can do it with just an 80 meter SSB voice net, think again. It will take many more bands to provide coverage. 80 meters is only open a few hours per day to any particular location. If your regular emcommm HF voice net is not scheduled until the next day, or the next week, or you are depending upon local infrastructure communications to call it up... how will your net be of any help at all to the ham who is calling in the middle of the night when a tsunami hits, or some other disaster happens? The simple fact is, there has never been a successful manually monitored allband HF 24/7 net. I sincerely doubt that any emcomm organization has the resources for it. That is exactly why emcomm organizations are deploying more automatic methods, as a force multiplier. 73 Bonnie VR2/KQ6XA
