Is ham radio obsolete?

I had someone the other day tell me that with the event of cell phones, the internet and so on that ham radio is obsolete. In one way he is right. So long as things are up and running there really is no need for amateur radio. For most hams is is nothing more than a hobby most of the time.

On the other hand, when the system falls, and it does on a local basis from time to time ham radio provides a pretty good form of emergency communication.

Last night I was listening to a couple of hams ragchewing about a couple of tornados that clobbered Oklahoma a while back and managed to take out phone service and cell towers. It also took out a couple of commercial radio stations.

What happened is that the hams simply set up operations and set up a couple of message centers and helped out the local authorities.

Some of the message centers were pretty instrumental in getting medical and rescue crews to where they were needed and also provided a few of the simpler things for the locals.

One of the simple things they do is pass word to other hams where there still is phone service and have them make phone calls to relatives of the people in the stricken area that they are OK. It is a simple thing that really has no immediate bearing on the lives or deaths of people in stricken areas but it sure does relieve worrying relatives.

They also pass word on to the locals of areas to avoid such as torn up roads and missing bridges, which to the average joe are good things to know and to rescue and other emergency crews are pretty important things to know.

There are a number of other things about hams that should be taken into consideration, too. One is that they are not government and therefore can simply set up shop as they see fit without having some big shot authorize and organize. They don't have to get the OK from some feedbag in Washington or the state capitol to be up and running. There's an awful lot to be said for that. They can be on the spot before the smoke even begins to clear while it can take government days or even weeks to get something started.

They can also custom fit things to the situation and the needs of the local people. The government generally arrives with some sort of one size fits all plan and don't always take the needs of the locals into consideration because they are generally more interested in making headlines and adding statistics in the never ending quest for more government money.

It is also a lot nicer getting a hand from a neighbor instead of some government bureaucrat that doesn't have anything invested in the neighborhood.

I heard one of the interesting stories from Katrina. Someone showed up at a message center trying to get word out to their family that they were OK and went to a message center where he found a 12 year old boy sitting there. The kid simply took the message from the guy, picked up the mike and sent word to another ham that picked up his phone and called the persons relatives. No sweat.

Ham radio is not obsolete so long as Mother Nature can still topple cell towers and tear things up.

Which leads to what I said earlier in this post about government one size fits all disaister relief. Sometimes I think that people would be better off if the government simply cut back on all to the usual crap they show up with.

Much of the usual FEMA and other federal crap ought to be turned over to the National Guard because the NG is state level to begin with and the sub units are little more than local. Just about every city has an NG unit of some sort. Guardsmen are our friends and neighbors. They know the ins and outs of an area a whole lot better than the feds do.

Same holds true for hams. They are just local people and because of that hams are a whole lot better to serve the needs of the local community.

Another thing is that there are a number of nets out there that can turn around and be put to use in a moment's notice. I can think of a couple. The YLISSB (Young Ladies International Sideband Society) and the OMISS (Old Man's Internationsal SIngle Sideband) are two.

While these two nets meet on different frequencies daily and either ragchew or play the "Worked all States" game, this is little more than a fun way to train. One call and either of these nets can and will turn into a pretty good team of message forwarders spread all over the country.

Grass roots. No tax dollars 'at work' here.

Anyway, ham radio may be quaint, a bit old fashioned and seemingly hokey to many but the truth is that it works when nothing else does.
　
　

my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/