Ham's in the News: Ham Radio in Disaster Preparedness...

It's Jeffrey; not Jeffery.

It's you're; not your.

It's It's; not Its.

Thank you for your time proofreading. I'll get to editing and correcting about half past whenever the fish I feel like it and not a second sooner.

 

You too. Thanks for your friendly concern.

 

Yeah ... it's already been said. There is so much communication infrastructure available to so-called "first responders" and the "local emergency communication center" that having a green vest and a name badge and a 2m walkie-talkie is hardly relevant anymore. If you're gonna play, the idea is to be trained, know your role and stick with it. Simply having a ham ticket ain't gonna cut it going forward. There is quite a bit of training required for those who provide communication services in an emergency. Hams are no longer an exception. If you want to help the emergency communication center, the best thing you can do is actually become a part of the group ... the only way to do that is by punching all your training tickets. If you wanna be relevant, you've gotta have the wallpaper.

 

I see my callsign (VE2ENN) during a PSK31 QSO (@57 seconds)

 

Amazing to me that such a positive news story about Ham Radio Operators some how comes to a pissing match between two Hams about punctuation. Real professional boys and girls.

 

Easy on the shift key, Plato.

 

73, Good afternoon, From Cuba. CL7 JKB.

 

From Camagüey, 73,88. CL7 JKB, dx

 

Nice article, wish he'd shown more on 2M.

 

Ah yeah.

 

If we amateurs want to remain relevant in an emergency, the watchword is "training". Without a clear understanding of who is in charge and what they expect of their subordinates, hams won't be very welcome when the time comes to serve. There are already county and district EMAs who say "thanks but no thanks" to "ARES" groups and other independent hams who want to help. The best thing we can arm ourselves with besides our go-box and twinkies .... is training .... things like the ICS courses FEMA offers for free .... the weather spotting courses .... and the list goes on. The better trained we are, the less likely we'll hear "thanks but no thanks" from actual Emergency Managers.