[BC] What is left for the industry to do?

[Lewis Munn]

Harold,
 
CB???  Ugh.  When the skip is in you cn do nothing on the limited channels.  When it is not, likewise, only less interference.
 
Years ago, in my home town, we had 5 tornados in a row pone night, and the CD director was an avid CBer.  He refused 6M ham help, even tho I could reach from my home radio cars all about the county easily.  And we had at least a half-dozen 6M-equipped cars locally.
 
CB could not, and so they had to use runners in cars to coordinate the disaster work, and it was a real mess.  CB was those days only good for about 2 miles under heavy QRM.  And on non-skip days was only good for about 5-6 miles anyhow due to hilly terrain, base to vehicles.
 
The Louisiasna Hurricane I think proved tht Hams with VHF equipment, moble and temp fixed mounts, did much of the initial disaster work, and ones with DC bands did the long distance work.  The hams were also trained in message handling so they worked efficiently with othger hams, across the country.  And later with the disaster folks when the government finally got into action.
 
What is wrong with the government making use of the hams who want to help?  And what is wrong with the government doing as the hams, setting aside common channels for various types of emergency communications, and training their own to do what is needed?

Maybe even the National Guard?
 
The hams do not, by and large, have huge expensive MIL-spec radios, and use private cars.  They just are mobile, willing, and got the job done while the massive government stuff lumbered into action, somewhat ineffectively.  Too big and too strtified to allow a quick response.  And as yu sadi, nobody on the same channels or the same emissions, etc.
 
I do think the one writer of the article needs to have a delegation of hams pay him a visit and explain the facts of disaster communciations to him.  We need not more channels, but more coordination, and more small mobile units to send in promptly, as the ham operators did.  We need the hams too because they are all over and can network quickly and get the work going.
 
Why even mention CB when the hams have it in control and prove themselves in emergencies, large and small, when they occur?  Over and over, to scant fanfare.  
 
Maybe they should all be compensated with some of the FEMA funds now being used to pay for booze and broads as the news tells by the grateful recipients of the largess??
 
Looey Munn
Roundup, MT
 
.
Harold Hallikainen <harold at hallikainen.com> wrote:

> Its not the lack of spectrum, it's the lack of a unified coordination.
>
> In a disaster Public Safety people show up from all over the place to
> help
> but their radios are not programmed to operate on the allocated
> interoperability channels. >
> The other issue in public safety is interference, the FCC did a lousy job
> or allocating frequencies in the 800 Mhz band and we now have severe
> interference between Nextel, Public Safety and Cell phones.
Meanwhile, we have stuff like that below appearing (from Benton
Communications Headlines, http://www.benton.org) saying the problem is
lack of spectrum. All their radios really otta be set to operate on some
common simplex channels. You really can't count on repeaters, trunk
systems, etc. to be there during flooding, wind storms, and extended power
outages. Failing that, give 'em CB radios!

Harold


------from http://www.benton.org------
SHARING THE AIRWAVES
[SOURCE: TomPaine.com, AUTHOR: Dawn Holian, Common Cause]
[Commentary] Radio frequencies were jammed. Cell phone towers were wiped
out. Government officials had to resort to sending runners back and forth
in order to share information. 
		
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