EricJ wrote:
Despite this oft repeated myth, CW is RARELY ever used in emergency
communications.
...these days. It certainly was in the past.
Otherwise, no one there could come
up with a single emergency services group using CW ops for any purpose.
...because it's hard to find competent operators.
I would be
willing to bet during the worst moments of the current crisis in the Gulf
states that nobody was heard to utter the words, "If only we could get some
CW ops in there with battery power rigs." It just doesn't happen.
I've heard over and over in news reports that 'there's no
communications', people can't find out if their relatives and friends
are OK, etc. This is EXACTLY the kind of situation in which CW
operators with battery powered rigs would excel.
Consider that amateur radio emergency services must interface
with other services whose operators don't use CW and you can see it just
isn't very useful for emergency communications in the real world.
Health and welfare traffic can be independent of other services. And
why can't the interface consist of a ham handing a piece of paper to his
other-service counterpart?
Having handled traffic by CW in the dark ages (somewhere I have a BPL
medallion) I can tell you that phone cannot come close to the efficiency
or accuracy of CW in handling formal traffic. And there is, or should
be, a structure that already exists for them to fit into -- the ARRL NTS
-- which would provide connections to these operators. Frequencies,
schedules, liasons, all should exist.
The problem is not that CW wouldn't be useful, it's that there aren't
enough competent CW operators who know how to handle traffic. And many
of the ones that do are age 60+. Most of these guys aren't up to being
helicoptered in to stricken areas.
--
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco
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