Every now and again a blogger will try and write “the” article… When its finished you ask yourself the key phrase “Are you sure???” To me this is one of “those” posts…
Todays posting is my personal opinion… I am not knocking our hobby… or its leaders.. I am not wishing doom and gloom on mankind so I can impress my neighbors with my radio equipment. My views on Emergency Communications have not changed and I will be ready to help if asked but I just find myself wondering if we will ever get asked and if we were could we actually do anything…. As usual comments are welcomed but please be polite… Flames and nasties will be deleted without a 2nd thought. Its my blog and my rules…
Well after many re-writes and many questions…. Here is the finished product…
For years and years now we have been told (and told others) that Amateur Radio will be there to serve the public (our neighbors) when “ all else fails…”
What this mean to me is that when it all hits the fan and the internet fails, cell phone networks fail… good old Amateur Radio will be there and ready to go. Not necessarily to save the day but to at least manage to keep a communications network in place until the regular systems can come back on line.
The term we have heard some use to describe this is a “Katrina style failure” which would refer us to what happened when Hurricane Katrina came to visit and most of the southern states were under water and massive amounts of infrastructure were destroyed…
Katrina also served the telecommunications and emergency response community by setting the bar for what they need to plan for…The planning and the communications systems are getting more robust and although this is a very good thing its also moving Amateur Radio Emergency Communication further back…
When the Island of Haiti was struck with that devastating earthquake back in January 2010 there were requests for Bilingual Radio Operators (English-French) who could supply and operate a self sufficient portable HF Amateur Radio Station to assist with Relief Operations.
But at the same time that we were looking for our passports and spare battery packs, CNN was showing reports, live reports from the effected area using their Skype phones so it seems that “All else HAD NOT failed…. Communications were possiable and were happening…
If you think back to the arrival of Hurricane Irene on August 27th-28th 2011 there were several Amateur Radio Networks running. I was monitoring safely from my home here in Ottawa to one network and was hearing information concerning WX Conditions being passed to the National Hurricane Center after I heard it being given out on a CNN weather report. Once again we were showed Reporters wading through water to get their point across but the point to me was once again the technology available was standing up to the best Irene could hand out…
The cellular systems might have been overloaded and you could have had some trouble getting a dial tone immediately but you could get out. Recently with the earthquakes in Ottawa last summer and Virginia last week there were reports of the cell services becoming overloaded but they did not fail they were just operating over their expected service levels for a while. In old phone speak “the circuits were busy…”
Text messages and emails however seemed to go through with no problems…
So today… The day after Hurricane Irene/Tropical Storm Irene visited the eastern seaboard of North America I find my self agreeing with the “When all else fails… statement”, but just wondering what it will take to make it fail because we have to design our Amateur Radio Equipment and Emergency operating procedures to be stronger than that…
73bob
August 29, 2011 at 3:10 pm |
This is something I’ve been wondering about since I first became a licensed ham the better part of 20 years ago. As you’ve noted, there are other channels of communications that are very resillient to being disrupted. Mobile phone networks can prioritize emergency responder traffic, if necessary, and text messages can often still get through because the networks are robust.
Even if terrestrial systems fail, satellites can still provide channels of communications. One of the satellite phone systems (GlobalStar) uses a “bent pipe” system where two satellite phones can communicate completely independent of an intermediate ground system. Let’s face it: it’s a lot easier to drop a box of satellite phones into a disaster zone than it is an amateur radio station and operator(s).
If something so catastrophic happens that leaves amateur radio the most viable communications option, will we even be able to get to where communications is needed?
All of this isn’t to say there isn’t a role for amateur radio in disaster situations, but I think it’s changed a lot in the last two or three decades.
December 20, 2011 at 9:16 pm |
[...] am wondering about what it will take for technology to fail so we can come in and amaze everyone. My previous post had some questions and comments and for the most part these questions were not answered. Now after reading the [...]
March 28, 2012 at 7:10 pm |
[...] But before you read it over and look at the website …take a second look (well you read it the first time right???) at my Blogpost from August 29th . [...]
June 23, 2012 at 1:55 pm |
[...] a few prvious blog posts I mentioned that I was having doubts on wether or not it would fail… The “IT” being the [...]