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

[Jim Lux]

----- Original Message -----
From: "dennis o'connor" <k8do at mailblocks.com>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 6:09 AM
Subject: [TowerTalk] Chicago Tribune news: Ham radio tower has the OKsignal


> Jim Lux: Certainly you make valid points about not hanging our hat on
> just one hook - emergency services - when we do many other things...
> But, your premise that state and local emergency communications are
> eclipsing ham efforts does not hold for major disasters, such as the
> recent hurricane devastated areas in the south... For days VHF and HF
> ham stations were/are the back bone of emergency communications in
> those areas...
>
> Another arena where ham radio is the only dependable link is maritime
> mobile... Recent attacks by a  pirate boat (same boat description each
> time)  upon private boats in the area south east of the Panama Canal
> depended upon the Maritime Mobile Service Net for reporting and
> disseminating the information to the boating community, which was done
> in minutes, not the weeks to months that the formal governmental
> services would take for such information to slowly grind it's way from
> desk to desk, so that each bureaucrat could add his signature and get
> his portion of the public credit...

This is probably the first "good" example of where amateur HF comms (the
type supported by towers and antennas that cities want to prohibit) provided
a useful service.  However... it seems that there could be viable alternate
ways to provide this service, if the powers that be decided to ban all
towers.

My point is that the average voter has a hard time reconciling making
special exceptions so that  amateurs can provide a service that they think
government can and should provide.