It will most likely cost more to cancel the check then taking the loss from whomever you sent it too.
Wow, Lot of insanity on this thread. JS8 is very good and has some great features. I suggest anyone who is still rational to give it a try. Never mind the negative nancys and the hopelessly programed. I have found the emcom /Ares types just like the militia guys in the 90s. A private in the military and now a self appointed general who cannot be questioned. Let them play Authority. JS8 is a for the people software. In a real emergency having a network will be imperative. We can all do it absent of the Authority lovers. They cannot be trusted anyways just like the government and NGOs they serve.
Yes! I wholeheartedly concur. That's why the RACES op area I mentioned above has a dedicated net every Thursday at 2000 hours where we systematically test the capabilities of the various software and use them to do check-ins, store-and-forward messages and pass WX and Fire report traffic. IF a certain mode shows itself to have the potential to fill an Emcomm need, THEN we move forward to testing it at public service events (bicycle events, etc.). If it proves to be useful in the field, we then look into integrating into our official training and deployment procedures. JS8Call has risen to the level where we are using it every week for RACES check-ins in local rugged terrain with 8-10 of our HF-capable volunteers. It has been very successful at linking stations that would be otherwise completely out of commas if the local repeaters went down on top of cell and Internet. But I agree very much with the comment above that an actual emergency is not the time to begin experimenting. The equipment, skills and procedures need to be vetted in advance. Training is everything. Steve K6ETA
So when was the last time any emergency services in CONUS actually relied on large scale amateur communications to save the day because their el cheapo part 90 stuff bit the dust and they were just too stupid to fix it????????? Stay out of the way.
JS8Call is and will always be open-source and free software (free as in beer and free as in speech, do with it what you like, for the sum of exactly $0). It is available for download on the web at no cost here: http://files.js8call.com/latest.html The source code available here under the GPL license: https://bitbucket.org/widefido/js8call/ I (the author) am not running a business and am not selling anything. Under no circumstances should you attempt to buy anything related to JS8Call from anybody.
Can you point me to the exact point in the video where he uses the word "deployment" or even infers some type of structured response? You seem to be looking at this through your learned experience of emcom which is totally different from what he is talking about. I realize that CERT is big down here in FL (I'm in Broward), but its virtually non existent in a lot of parts of the country. Believe it or not, there are still places where the majority residents roll up their sleeves and take it upon themselves to respond to disasters without the need for a structured government command system. You are also forgetting that a lot of the situations/challenges of disaster recovery are different in other parts of the country than in FL. For example, I was at my house in the woods of northwest NJ for Sandy and the immediate aftermath was far more difficult to deal with than Irma was down here. Why? Because you have far more and different types of trees/terrain with fewer public works resources (my town is 82 square miles, yet only 25k residents). My house is in a community that is on top of a mountain and we were effectively cut off by hundreds of down trees and a landslide for 18-24 hours (which would have been longer if we as private citizens weren't helping to cut our own way out). In that situation debris cleanup was the #1 priority, communication was basically useless because no one could get to us anyway. I won't even get into civil unrest scenarios where security is the #1 priority and government can't provide it. P.S. It's self important know-it-all's like yourself that are the reason I don't want to join CERT.
P.S. It's self important know-it-all's like yourself that are the reason I don't want to join CERT.[/QUOTE] Hi, Every group at one time or another has a ham who is a know it all. I tend to keep my business to myself, do what the served agency asks of me, and follow 1-7 in my post above. I joined CERT and I did so to learn new things. There are those with "Specialized High Intensity Training" who believe they can save the world with their ****. I've met a few in my time but I didn't let them stop me from learning something new, meeting new people, and contributing my own knowledge. I've learned over the years, by following my 1-7 above, that I can be an asset instead of a liability. The CERT course can be fun, and as I said, I learned new things. Might want to give it another look. --KD7YVV (Keeping myself sane by scaring myself every morning looking in the mirror.)
Having deployed in an actual emergency where comms were non-existent (Puerto Rico after Maria hit), I was glad to have HF. Problem was, HF propogation sucked rocks. If JS8Call had been available then, I could have easily dispatched the messages I needed to both as part of the job and to my wife back home. The tie in with APRS and SMS means that you can do a number of things to communicate with EOC officials in unaffected areas in the same way you would if comms were working locally. As to Amateur radio being used in actual emergencies, I can think of numerous examples. At the large scale, support to the California wildfires over the last 2 years has been extensive. Obviously Puerto Rico had some issues after Maria hit. When Hurricane Michael clobbered the Florida panhandle, there was one EOC that suddenly went offline and there was no way to contact them. Note that most of the Florida EOCs have all the latest gee-whiz digital comm gear courtesy of a lot of Uncle Sugar grants. But, even with all that, the EOC went QRT. FEMA asked the SHARES organization to mobilize the Amateur Radio community in addition to SHARES participants to find out the status of the EOC. An Amateur radio operator was able to go to the EOC, make contact, and relay their status (building damaged and all comms cut off) back to FEMA via SHARES. So, yes, when (not if) all the expensive gear fails, good old radio is there to back up the first responders. JS8Call is a very good tool worthy not just of consideration, but as a requirement for hams and others that are providing emergency communications for public agencies, NGOs, or family and neighbors. I like it, I have it installed on all the computers that are connected to my emcomm rack radios, and plan to use it in the next disaster I'm deployed to just like I have Winlink and FLDigi installed.
Man you have been HAD, big time. Some scammer using a similar or near similar call got ya, or maybe you are an enemy of JS8????
Ancient thread alert. I didn't read it all but have one input. I have a family member whos a ham in a distant state. Neither of our stations are good enough for a reliable voice QSO. I'm talking 2/2 signal reports on a good day. With JS8Call we know we can reliably communicate daily on 20m daytime and 40m at night. It's our national grid-down comms plan. The beauty of the JS8Call software is message storing, automation, and relaying. Once you understand the features you will see it's a extremely powerful and useful. Kudos to KN4CRD and also KM4ACK for the video.
