[TowerTalk] Chicago Tribune news: Ham radio tower has the OK signal

[Tower (K8RI)]

Dan Bookwalter wrote:

>"The
>federal government in its infinite wisdom interceded
>years ago on 
>behalf of 
>a small
>minority of radio operators when they might have been
>relevant to some 
>national
>emergency and defense.
>  
>
Unfortunately this an all too common opinion and I hear it even in some 
of the Ham groups.
They don't realize that Ham Radio is as important, or even more so for 
emergency communications that it was 20 years ago. 

Most think that they can just use their cell phones in an emergency, not 
realizing that with a power outage the cell towers will not operate 
indefinitely and even then there are trunk lines involved.

As the motto goes, "Amateur Radio Communications when all else fails", 
or something to that effect.

>
>i wonder how the guy would feel had he been in the
>path of one of those hurricanes or a  major tornado
>etc... we are irrelevant until needed then we are a
>indispensable...
>
>i actually had someone welcome my tower since in the
>case of an emergency we might have a viable
>communication path....
>
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>
When the weather gets bad my neighbors are usually checking to see what 
I'm going to do.  A couple had some minor misgivings the first time they 
saw the tower, but after seeing it take direct lightening hits and keep 
on operating they have been impressed.  Also our county (Midland) makes 
wide use of Amateur Radio in emergency situations including weather and 
chemical spills and releases, search and rescue, and weather.


Roger (K8RI)

>Dan N8DCJ
>--- "Rob Atkinson, K5UJ" <k5uj at hotmail.com> wrote:
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