Many people have made the comparison to the internet or other wireless technologies. There may be some relation if your only purpose is to talk over a distance. There is however a big difference. All of the services (internet, phone, cell phone) in use by the majority of people require network support. A ham can communicate with none.
In an emergency the phone and network services can be interupted by damaged circuits loss of power or just congestion making it impossible to get a message through. The last communication service funtioning will be the hams.
Real life example from a call that I relayed. Power and phones were out in a section of the city and a man's wife collapsed. Luckily he was a ham and grabed his radio. I took his info and relayed to it to the fire department and the paramedics were there withing five minutes.
Not open spectrum, you are using it under part 15 which specifies power limits and states that you must not cause any interferance to and must accept interferance from the licensed users of the band.
I also doubt you have any evidance that someone is deliberatly jamming you. In my experience most of the problems in the band are caused by the thousands of Wifi cards, Cordless phones and Bluetooth devices that are being used. The more of them that people buy the shorter your range will become.
That is a low usage band for hams, typically used for television transmisions, usually disaster related and some spread spectrum experimentation.
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If you don't use it on a regular basis you won't be able to in an emergency.
Many people have made the comparison to the internet or other wireless technologies. There may be some relation if your only purpose is to talk over a distance. There is however a big difference. All of the services (internet, phone, cell phone) in use by the majority of people require network support. A ham can communicate with none. In an emergency the phone and network services can be interupted by damaged circuits loss of power or just congestion making it impossible to get a message through. The last communication service funtioning will be the hams. Real life example from a call that I relayed. Power and phones were out in a section of the city and a man's wife collapsed. Luckily he was a ham and grabed his radio. I took his info and relayed to it to the fire department and the paramedics were there withing five minutes.
Not open spectrum, you are using it under part 15 which specifies power limits and states that you must not cause any interferance to and must accept interferance from the licensed users of the band. I also doubt you have any evidance that someone is deliberatly jamming you. In my experience most of the problems in the band are caused by the thousands of Wifi cards, Cordless phones and Bluetooth devices that are being used. The more of them that people buy the shorter your range will become. That is a low usage band for hams, typically used for television transmisions, usually disaster related and some spread spectrum experimentation.