The FCC are the ones who put the words "...communications directly related to the immediate safety of human life or the protection of property..." into the rules. If you know of a better definition of "emergency communications" in 47 CFR, please feel free to share the citation with the group. Emergency communications are the radio equivalent of a 911 call. Everything else falls under "disaster communications" or something similar, where immediate communications are not needed to protect human life or property. All of those uses have other existing radio services better tooled and developed for such communications.
All I ask is you guys listen real hard up here into the PNW after the big earthquake happens. Oh, and send supplies. Airmail.
Perhaps a clarification: The volunteer hams at the Camp Fire deployed at the request of a NGO rather than from a EMA under RACES. It all depends on what the local group has planned. But emphasize do not self deploy.
Yes, emcomm could be done faster and better by other services BUT... There are too many dependencies and presumptions during an initial response to a disaster to hope that responders will have all the cool comm toys in hand to serve the need. Presuming those services remain intact during the early hours (from Time zero out 96 hours) of a disaster response. Presuming there is an open path to a satellite. Presuming our shelter managers were all equipped with the appropriate comm equipment (e.g., sat phone) -- which they are not -- they could pass emergency traffic from an area where cell phone traffic was in the crapper. One could have a lack of appreciation or understanding re the effect of mountainous terrain on cell communications or simply the lack of a subscriber base large enough for a cell company to build out infrastructure. For those who have not been there, there is, perhaps, a lack of awareness of the latency between order, receipt, and set-up an earth station at a Red Cross service site. And, perhaps a further lack of awareness that earth stations are NOT provided to shelters, rather only to Disaster/District Operations Centers.
Then we are agreed. Anything that adversely affects proper emergency communications services will affect AR services just as much. There's nothing in the AR playbook that does't have an equivalent or better solution in the LMR or marine services. Any tool that is available to AR is also available to any agency -- except they can afford even better gear.
For a series of shelters like ARC Amateur Radio offers a built in network of stations in touch with each other and able to take communications off the shoulders of the shelter managers. Yes, they could probably use their cell phones assuming they have the necessary numbers. The ARES volunteers have the "numbers" of other shelters and the headquarters. At some point the shelters settle into their routine and AR might be redundant, but for several days they made a difference.
And why would we WANT to? I was told by CHIPS that if I (we) used our amateur radios mobile, we'd get a ticket, so...………………………..
It is very interesting to learn here that amateur radio is almost never needed, and when needed, HF is never part of that need. Funny, just last weekend i was taking training from leaders in the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief group who had been providing scores of thousands of meals per day in Panama City, Florida during the response to Hurricane Michael. I don't quite understand why with all of these better, faster systems....they had zero communications for several days according to them. Hmmm.....there's a disconnect here somewhere. Cheers, Gordon KX4Z
Yep, no professional Emergency Manager wants to have anything to do with hams, they just get in the way and cause problems... Oh, wait: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/pbem/69887
