>Cell phones and VHF/UHF gear would very likely be useless in such >locations.
Very true. One of my favorite trail systems is along the Buffalo National River in the Arkansas Ozarks. Forget getting a signal out by anything other than shortwave along most of its 150 mile length. Mike / KK5F ----------------------- Not just in remote areas either! Here, only 6 miles from Newport, the largest city on the Oregon coast, I require a cellular booster with a high gain antenna on a pole just to access a cell tower from my house 100 feet ASL even using basic 800 MHz cell phones (forget GSM or other higher-frequency units). Our local Amateur RACES organization has a sophisticated 2 meter system with multiple repeaters, but the system is inaccessible from much of the area even just a few miles from town due to the rugged terrain (the coastal mountains reach right down to the water) and, with a tall range of coastal mountains directly behind us inland, the whole area is isolated for VHF/UHF communications of any kind with the rest of the state. Our immediate community of about 150 homes, like a great many hugging the coast, is easily isolated by storm events. We can count on at least a couple of storms with sustained 100+ MPH winds each winter that may flood the coastal highway, and a tsunami would likely isolate us for days, if not weeks, requiring radio communications to coordinate Coast Guard and other emergency services as required to save lives. My Elecraft K2 and K3 rigs, running on batteries, are the primary emergency communications link out of the immediate area, especially to state HQ in Salem or to the North Bend Coast Guard air wing. We use SSB normally (there's an informal net of Hams all over the Pacific Northwest on 3980 who meet every day and whenever there's a severe storm event), but I have demonstrated the ability to do that with a wire tossed over a tree limb running my KX1 on internal batteries. That's CW of course. The problem with CW is that there are so few people involved in regular emergency training who know it, but CW is invaluable in a situation like that Ham in the Cascades, and we all know there are a lot of operators listening out there. I hope we never need to use those resources in a life-and-death emergency, but real benefit for me as a Ham is that my local community not only applauds my having an antenna up, they'd be sorely disappointed if I didn't. It's pretty nice when having an antenna in the sky is considered an important community asset! :-) I wonder if the Ham injured in the mountains knew to use "QRRR"? I wonder how many Hams today know what it means? Perhaps he got lucky hearing that guy tune up and getting an answer to his call before he needed it. Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
