One of our biggest issues as Amateur Radio Operators is trying to explain our reason for existance in this world of instant communications… When we give Hurricane Katrina as a prime example of the system failing we get comments like:
“We learned from the lessons of Katrina….”
Yesterday Hurricane Sandy (for the sake of a better way to describe it) smashed the Hell out of the New York, New Jersey and most of the rest of the upper Eastern Seaboard…
Dead air: Sandy takes out 1 in 4 cell towers, FCC says, and more could fail.
I guess this means that they did not learn… or they were overwhelmed again….
Thanks to the Winnipeg Free Press from reminding us…
73bob
Tags: amateur radio, Amateur Radio Communications, Amateur Radio Emergency Services, FCC, Federal Communications Commission, Hurricane Sandy, When "all else" fails, Winnnipeg Free Press
November 1, 2012 at 1:32 am |
How many ham repeater sites are ‘bullet proof’, or equipped with back-up power? Your local repeater could be just as dead as a cell site if a big storm blows through.
November 1, 2012 at 1:45 am |
Good question…. Although I usually just spam anon style comments out… I let this one slide through…
My local repeater would be just fine and if it failed then we would have more to worry about… The repeater is at the Ottawa Fire Dispatch CTR and the antenna is on their main tower and running off their generator system in case of a power failure… If it fails then the dispatch center has failed… Not a good thing…
However many amateur repeaters would not survive the initial power failure and it would only go down hill from there…
However I still think that in most cases we can get some sort of communications service up an running in the aftermath of an emergency…
73bob