In article ,
Steve Bonine wrote:

But for the ARRL to defend the right of hams to distract themselves
based on emergency communication is not logical. If they want to make
the case that operating a ham radio is sufficiently different than using
a cell phone that such laws should not apply, I still wouldn't agree but
at least the premise would be logical.

But they did: that article discussed the difference between simplex
(ham radio) and duplex (cell phone) operation. I agree with them that
that's a defensible difference.

It also ties into the comparison with having a passenger in the car.
If the passenger is an adult, they will likely notice when the driver
is in a tricky situation and stop talking. That's certainly what I do.
I'll stop talking in the middle of a sentence if I see that the driver
has to deal with some traffic that has suddenly bunched up, or some
other issue. A person on the other end of a cell phone can't see what's
happening and know to stop talking.

I actually have a non-driving example of this. A few years ago, I was
on the phone (with someone in Newington, coincidentally!) on a day when
we had had a small earthquake. Another one struck while the other person
was talking. I asked her to hang on, because I needed to gauge whether
it was big enough that I needed to move away from my desk. But she, of
course, had no idea that anything was happening and didn't hear my first
couple of requests to hold the conversation. So I was distracted from
dealing with the actual situation by trying to get the attention of the
person on the other end of the phone. Now, had I been in a car and some
dangerous situation had suddenly arisen, I would have simply dropped the
phone. But I still think this points to the greater distraction of phone
conversations during local "emergencies." And I think it's not as much
of an issue with simplex conversations.


Patty N6BIS