Dear cell phone warriors, as evidenced by the unfortunate circumstances
afflicting NY, Detroit, Cleveland, Erie, etc, one can now see why HAM radio is
a necessity.

As these areas have lost power, the cell phone networks have failed.

Some of you that post to this group have suggested that Amateur Radio is a
thing of the past, with world wide communication available to anyone in the
terms of cell phones.

This is why Amateur radio is a must, that the operators should be praised for
their continuing engagement in a hobby that has great potential for the
benefit of our society. Disaster communications is a specialty of HAMs, maybe
not in this circumstance (maybe so), but throughout the history of Amateur
radio this certainly has been true. Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes,
anything sufficiently destructive to damage or destroy common modes of
communications, such as that used by the cell phone networks, and even the
established communication systems used by the police, fire, etc. Our police
communication system in Pittsburgh is commonly knocked out by lightning. HAMS
have the versatility to create impromptu communication systems second to none.
No one else has the tremendous supply and distribution of radio systems.

I urge people to pursue the hobby of Amateur radio, to become proficient in
it, and to be respectful of it. Besides, it's fun.

Regards to all those in afflicted areas, though you might not be able to read
this at this time.

Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

I like HAM Radio, I absolutely hate most of the operators and their
stinking "holier than thou" attitude.

That's why I let my VE4 call lapse.

--
Gregg
*Perhaps it's useful, even if it can't be SPICE'd*
Visit the GeeK Zone - http://geek.scorpiorising.ca

It's a matter of perception. If you want to believe that they're all holier
than thou, they'll all seem holier than thou. If you believe that among the
schmucks there are people worth speaking to and working with, you'll find
these as well.

Personally, I have trouble at HAM fests. Many of the HAMS there seem socially
quite dysfunctional. But most of the others don't seem to notice. Myself, I
like gun shows, and have had many an interesting political discussion with
various vendors. You might perceive these vendors as ultra rightwing, I find
them engaging, quite normal, quite friendly.

Water glass half full or half empty? Same water glass, different perception.

Regards.

In article , Gregg
wrote:
I like HAM Radio, I absolutely hate most of the operators and their
stinking "holier than thou" attitude.

That's why I let my VE4 call lapse.


Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 21:47:19 GMT, Its (The Dawn
Soliloquy) wrote:

Dear cell phone warriors, as evidenced by the unfortunate circumstances
afflicting NY, Detroit, Cleveland, Erie, etc, one can now see why HAM radio is
a necessity.

As these areas have lost power, the cell phone networks have failed.

I just finished a four-hour activation of our emergency comms team at
the request of city Emergency management.

One of the assistant directors of city emergency management was
"caught" at the county fair in the neighboring county when the power
went out. He made the trip back to the city, walked into the EOC, held
up his cell phone, and said to me, "This thing is the most useless
f___ing piece of %^&*#! I've ever owned."

"I've been telling people that since Day One," I replied.

"Remember the ice storm? Same thing happened," the other assistant
director of emergency management pointed out.

Some of you that post to this group have suggested that Amateur Radio is a
thing of the past, with world wide communication available to anyone in the
terms of cell phones.

Sure it is...until the proverbial merde hits the proverbial
ventillateur, at which point either (a) the cell sites go down, or (b)
the network becomes overwhelmed by the volume of calls, or (c) both.

This is why Amateur radio is a must, that the operators should be praised for
their continuing engagement in a hobby that has great potential for the
benefit of our society. Disaster communications is a specialty of HAMs, maybe
not in this circumstance (maybe so), but throughout the history of Amateur
radio this certainly has been true. Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes,
anything sufficiently destructive to damage or destroy common modes of
communications, such as that used by the cell phone networks, and even the
established communication systems used by the police, fire, etc. Our police
communication system in Pittsburgh is commonly knocked out by lightning. HAMS
have the versatility to create impromptu communication systems second to none.
No one else has the tremendous supply and distribution of radio systems.

I urge people to pursue the hobby of Amateur radio, to become proficient in
it, and to be respectful of it. Besides, it's fun.

Regards to all those in afflicted areas, though you might not be able to read
this at this time.

Power went out here at about 4:15 PM, came back on at about 6:30 PM.
However, two blocks from here, the power still isn't on yet, and as
I'm writing this it's now past 11PM. On my way home, saw lots of folks
sitting out on their porches with gas lamps. Some of them even think
the phones aren't working. If they tried a real phone instead of their
$5 drugstore cordless whose base unit is without power, they'd find
that the phones are working just fine - the landline phones that is.
As for the cell networks, well...see the remark by the assistant
director of emergency management, that I quoted above.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ
Co-Coordinator
ARATS Emergency & Public Service Operations Team
North Tonawanda, New York

I wouldn't be a bit supprised that many of the people that were instumental in
developing the cell phone, were hams.

Ha !

jw
wb9uai

KC2HMZ,

The simple reality is that 1/3 to 1/2 of the USA population has
Celphones.

The HAM Bands and the Amateur Radio Systems could not support 100-150
Million Users all trying to "Get A Radio Check".


~ RHF
..
..
= = = Radio Amateur KC2HMZ
= = = wrote in message . ..
On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 21:47:19 GMT, Its (The Dawn
Soliloquy) wrote:

Dear cell phone warriors, as evidenced by the unfortunate circumstances
afflicting NY, Detroit, Cleveland, Erie, etc, one can now see why HAM radio is
a necessity.

As these areas have lost power, the cell phone networks have failed.

I just finished a four-hour activation of our emergency comms team at
the request of city Emergency management.

One of the assistant directors of city emergency management was
"caught" at the county fair in the neighboring county when the power
went out. He made the trip back to the city, walked into the EOC, held
up his cell phone, and said to me, "This thing is the most useless
f___ing piece of %^&*#! I've ever owned."

"I've been telling people that since Day One," I replied.

"Remember the ice storm? Same thing happened," the other assistant
director of emergency management pointed out.

Some of you that post to this group have suggested that Amateur Radio is a
thing of the past, with world wide communication available to anyone in the
terms of cell phones.

Sure it is...until the proverbial merde hits the proverbial
ventillateur, at which point either (a) the cell sites go down, or (b)
the network becomes overwhelmed by the volume of calls, or (c) both.

This is why Amateur radio is a must, that the operators should be praised for
their continuing engagement in a hobby that has great potential for the
benefit of our society. Disaster communications is a specialty of HAMs, maybe
not in this circumstance (maybe so), but throughout the history of Amateur
radio this certainly has been true. Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes,
anything sufficiently destructive to damage or destroy common modes of
communications, such as that used by the cell phone networks, and even the
established communication systems used by the police, fire, etc. Our police
communication system in Pittsburgh is commonly knocked out by lightning. HAMS
have the versatility to create impromptu communication systems second to none.
No one else has the tremendous supply and distribution of radio systems.

I urge people to pursue the hobby of Amateur radio, to become proficient in
it, and to be respectful of it. Besides, it's fun.

Regards to all those in afflicted areas, though you might not be able to read
this at this time.

Power went out here at about 4:15 PM, came back on at about 6:30 PM.
However, two blocks from here, the power still isn't on yet, and as
I'm writing this it's now past 11PM. On my way home, saw lots of folks
sitting out on their porches with gas lamps. Some of them even think
the phones aren't working. If they tried a real phone instead of their
$5 drugstore cordless whose base unit is without power, they'd find
that the phones are working just fine - the landline phones that is.
As for the cell networks, well...see the remark by the assistant
director of emergency management, that I quoted above.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ
Co-Coordinator
ARATS Emergency & Public Service Operations Team
North Tonawanda, New York

I agree with your entire post, but your statements following are so revealing
of the 21st century citizen. Simple concepts of technology that so many people
are oblivious to.

Probably an urban legend, an e-mail that I have received on occasion is a
story about a woman standing by her car, the woman is crying. She's holding a
small plastic electronic implement, trying to goad the implement into working.
A concerned stranger approaches, and asks her about her problem. She asks him
if he knows of a store where she can buy watch size batteries, it's seems that
her automatic car door unlocker is no longer working. The stranger asks if the
small electronic device is in fact attached to her key chain, to which she
replies yes. He takes the key chain, finds the correct key, and unlocks her
car door.

Problem solved.

Why is this story so easy to believe in the modern world?


In article , The Group wrote:

Power went out here at about 4:15 PM, came back on at about 6:30 PM.
However, two blocks from here, the power still isn't on yet, and as
I'm writing this it's now past 11PM. On my way home, saw lots of folks
sitting out on their porches with gas lamps. Some of them even think
the phones aren't working. If they tried a real phone instead of their
$5 drugstore cordless whose base unit is without power, they'd find
that the phones are working just fine - the landline phones that is.
As for the cell networks, well...see the remark by the assistant
director of emergency management, that I quoted above.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ
Co-Coordinator
ARATS Emergency & Public Service Operations Team
North Tonawanda, New York


Never say never.
Nothing is absolute.

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 22:59:03 GMT, Its (The Dawn
Soliloquy) wrote:

I agree with your entire post, but your statements following are so revealing
of the 21st century citizen. Simple concepts of technology that so many people
are oblivious to.

Cable TV sales pitch voice ON

"But wait - there's more!"

cable TV sales pitch voice OFF

Some of my more observant neighbors have figured out (1) that I'm a
ham, and (2) that therefore I'm some sort of an electronics expert.
Maybe it's the ARES and SKYWARN decals on my van. Maybe it's the five
antennas. Maybe it's the rugged good looks and
steely-eyed...ahem...well, anyway...today as I'm getting out of my
van, one of the neighbors accosts me in the parking lot to ask if I
can take a look and see if I can figure out why her phones don't work.
People ended up calling her on her cell phone because her landline
phone was busy for something like 4 hours.

I go over there, walk in the kitchen, there's the phone on the wall,
your typical $8 wall phone bought from a five-and-dime. I pick up the
receiver, listen...I hear the steady tone you hear after a phone's
been off the hook for so long the switch gets tired of playing the
recording telling you to hang up your phone. I hang it up...pick it
up...same sound. I ask her if she has another phone.

"I have my cell phone," she replies, holding up her tiny little Nokia
piece of junk in designer colors.

I begin to wonder if there's a computer or something that has the
phone off the hook. I ask what else she has that connects to the phone
company's lines. She says nothing. No computer, no answering machine,
no nothing.

"Hmmm....what were you doing when the power went out?"

"I was...oh! I was talking on the phone in the bedroom, I forgot about
it. But it's a cordless phone, it doesn't connect to the phone line."

You can guess now, right? When the power went off and her base unit
went dead, she simply put the handset down and walked away. When the
power came back on, the handset was still off hook. She was surprised
to find out that that thing she hangs the handset up onto when she's
done with it really is more than just a battery charger for the
handset, and is actually connected to the telco jack.

"Who hooked this up for you?"

"My ex-husband," she said, her eyes narrowing with lingering hatred as
she launches into the story of how he dumped her for some...well, use
your imagination. I'm letting it go in one ear and out the other,
thinking to myself, "Want me to tell you why he left? :-) "

She's a blonde. I'm thinking of getting her some black hair dye next
Christmas. It'll raise her IQ a hundred points if she uses it.

Probably an urban legend, an e-mail that I have received on occasion is a
story about a woman standing by her car, the woman is crying. She's holding a
small plastic electronic implement, trying to goad the implement into working.
A concerned stranger approaches, and asks her about her problem. She asks him
if he knows of a store where she can buy watch size batteries, it's seems that
her automatic car door unlocker is no longer working. The stranger asks if the
small electronic device is in fact attached to her key chain, to which she
replies yes. He takes the key chain, finds the correct key, and unlocks her
car door.

Problem solved.

Why is this story so easy to believe in the modern world?

Because the average person is basically clueless as to how things
work, and our society is currently a disposable society where if it
doesn't work you throw it out and buy a new one. Also because once
such people become used to using technology they forget what they used
to do before they learned to apply it.

Care to guess how many stores stayed open after their power went out,
and how many had to close because the cash registers weren't working
and the morons working there can't figure out how much change you get
from your dollar after you buy a $0.74 item unless the cash register
tells them to fork over your $0.26?

73 DE John, KC2HMZ
There's a sucker born every minute. -- P.T. Barnum

Radio Amateur KC2HMZ wrote:
Power went out here at about 4:15 PM, came back on at about 6:30 PM.
However, two blocks from here, the power still isn't on yet, and as
I'm writing this it's now past 11PM. On my way home, saw lots of folks
sitting out on their porches with gas lamps. Some of them even think
the phones aren't working. If they tried a real phone instead of their
$5 drugstore cordless whose base unit is without power, they'd find
that the phones are working just fine - the landline phones that is.

I don't know how it works in your city, but here in Toronto
the low voltage on the telphone lines is provided by
telephone carrier's various central offices, which have
about 8 hours of backup power supply. I'm not sure what the
situation is beyond the central offices, but needless to say
that the landline telephone service would be affected by
prolonged power outages.

--
M2

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 14:09:13 +1000, Barry OGrady
wrote:

Don't your cell bases have battery backup?

All I know is that our city's assistant emergency management director
drove for 35 minutes without getting dial tone. Whether that was
because a lack of power shut the tower sites down, or because the
network was overloaded, I don't know.

For what it's worth, though: my radios *do* have battery backup. :-)

73 DE John, KC2HMZ