[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...

Today... but in 20 years?  Disasters such as these, particularly in modern
times when people have gotten used to having portable comm in the form of
cellphones, point up the need for better official comm channels.

Certainly, adhoc amateur comm will always be there, but justifying a tower
on that basis?

>
> 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...

>
> Another arena where we did good was the shuttle disaster, where
> recovery teams had to depend upon ham repeaters out in the boonies and
> down in the canyons, for communication...

A need that has been recognized, and for which official comm designers are
working on remedies (which will, in the usual fashion take forever).  Hams
serve as a pathfinder and (free) demonstration of usefulness, just as for
other advances in communications.
Perhaps this is better as a demonstration of the "Advance of the radio art"?

And, of course, I doubt any of those shuttle recovery comms were on HF with
tall towers?  We're back to the quid pro quo reason for allowing towers, and
that's a slippery foundation to rest on.

>
> Local emergency communication networks do function when we have minor
> problems, snow storm, single river flooding, forest fire, etc., but
> when the utility poles are tossed around like match sticks, the roads
> impassable, bridges over on their side, houses collapsed, High tension
> lines on the ground, municipal water plants dark and silent, sewage
> treatment plants flooded, Ma Bell silent, and the brown stuff has hit
> the fan, even in the 21st century Joe Ham with a portable radio is
> still the first responder... Don't sell it short...

This, to me, says that rather than agitating for special treatment for a
minority (us), we should be agitating for better comms for the masses (i.e.
public service).