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During Blackout, Ham Radio Shined
Mark Cantrell writes "An interesting bit on AP through Yahoo today. Seems that ham radio (which recently had a bit of backlash here on Slashdot from a few people thinking it was useless, outdated technology), really shined through during the blackouts. When the power went, ham radio operators, using battery backup power, were able to help coordinate emergency workers while the cell phone networks were overloaded. For anyone wondering why interference due to power line broadband is considered a bad thing, well, there ya go."
How would you like a 128k data link to your car:d ex.htm l
http://www.icomamerica.com/amateur/dstar/in
Amateur Radio is cutting edge, the thing that makes it seem obsolete is that they never delete old protocols or modes of operation. For example the same guy may use CW to contact Brazil one night, and an OSCAR (Orbital Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio) Satellite to contact France the next.
I work for a wireless carrier, we lost less than a dozen towers during the outtage and the DIESEL GENERATORS that support them during power outtages are designed to last at least a week which is fantastic considering everyone else is without power. I think it's great that people still use ham radios, it keeps my grandfather from asking me how e-mail works.
Even though 99 pct of the time no one thinks about ham radio, in a crisis situation, it's usually the one form of communication that is likely to be still working when it hits the fan. In remote areas, it may be the only communication available even in good times.
The reason is that our modern communications are very complex and dependent on things like having reliable electrical power. Most ham sets can run on car batteries and provide nationwide or even global coverage if necessary. Voice, video, and data are all possible with ham radio. Just what you need in a crisis.
When all else fails, run.
Right - and the hams are going to invest thousands of dollars for their own gear, and NOT be able to use it except in an emergency, PLUS they won't be able to train with that gear
Yeah, that makes sense - learn to do something in an emergency situation, instead of working public service events year round, and training "nets" every week.
Your also only thinking blackouts. When they have forest fires out west - how do they do the long haul radio comms? Yep, hams on HF. When there is a hurricane, how do the storm spotting reports come in - Hams on HF - AGAIN. When The shuttle broke up over Texas, what did NASA and the local PDs find was the ONLY thing that worked out in the rural areas. You guessed it - Hams. When they need to do GIS data logging, what did they use? Hams running a mode called APRS
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
I think the whole power line thing is a bad idea.
Wireless technologies are more than able to fill this need with the same or less effort.
For all you folks dogging the HAMs, consider the do it yourself hacker nature they represent. Don't we need to nurture and cultivate this kind of thinking given the general law making trends today?
Again, its a bad idea that can easily be solved other ways.
Blogging because I can...
Yeah, okay. I am not sure of any ham radio based ISPs in the US, however, such a thing would be illegal and impractical for several reasons:
First of all, it is illegal to use amateur radio as a commercial service.
* It's illegal to use encryption or voice scrambling over amateur radio. This would make things like https, ssl, and ssh, illegal to use over the service.
* the customers of the service would have to have amateur radio licenses as well as the ISP.
* It is illegal to transmit profanity over amateur radio.
Please moderate this appropriately (down)
You have summarized the sentiments I was trying to get across in my post the last time this subject came up (and you did it much better than I did or could).
Ignorant people criticize things they don't understand. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your views) hams look out the ingorant folks too. The people who wouldn't notice if hams were gone are going to be the first ones bitching when the chips are down and you need emergency service coordination or a backup for emergency communications. They will be the ones asking "Why doesn't our government have a backup plan?" Well, despite the best laid plans, backups sometimes fail and our government (local and federal) is notoriously short sited in spending the money for such things (Gee, do I have to give examples of this?) Hams fill the gaps quietly and much better than government ever could.
It is nice to know that hams are covering our collective asses and doing it for free and little to no recognition. As TitaniumFox stated, listen to the local repeater when the next severe storm comes in. You'll get better information quicker than what you ever hear from your local news or on NOAA weather radio. The hams are the ones out there reporting what the talking head on the news station is telling you. The talking head is getting their info from trained spotters who do this work for free to save your ignorant butt. And those trained spotters are almost always amateur radio operators.
Gee, sounds like some of these "hobbyists" may have more to offer the community than most Slashdot posters. (Go look in the mirror).
I'll stop my rant. "73" to those who know what the hell I am talking about.
They have 'em. But even volunteers, or "auxillary" as some are known, still have to go through much of the physical, mental, and background checks normal cops go through. They attend an "academy" but its not as long as normal police training. Usually you only see auxillary cops during big events, natural disasters, etc. Here in VA they call them down to the beach when the streets are literally overflowing with drunken, violent, college students ( imagine "freaknik" in atlanta, just in VA ) ...
heres some info on the Va Beach Auxiliary police
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.