🚀 go-pugleaf

John Navas <spamfilter1@navasgroup.com> wrote in 
news:usm556dg9jo79qvdsk1d9ckdv37nolnrcp@4ax.com:

>>I'm wondering how many hams had/have backup power for their rigs.  
> 
> Quite a few in my experience.
> 
> 

It's not really fair because I live in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo 
in 1989, but every ham here has multiple generators.  I have a Honda 
EU1000i suitcase portable, a Honda EU3000is 3KW mounted on my service 
van, also a comm van in emergencies and a Chinese 6.5KW diesel genset to 
power my home off used cooking oil which I have thousands of gallons of 
in storage.

All the hams here are similarly powered....

The ham radio clubs have extensive communications vans and ham radio 
stations setup in every emergency shelter, usually in schools, across 
the counties.  In addition, we have 5 networked VHF/UHF repeater systems 
located at hurricane-proof county communications sites all with 
extensive backup power on massive 800mph communications towers also used 
by cops/fire/services.  The hospitals are all on a secondary ham radio 
VHF/UHV network powered by hospital emergency power systems.  That 
separate network give them comms when all the phones go down and county 
emergency radio trunk networks are jammed.

Then, there's SCHeart:
http://scheart.us/irlp_web/main/
Emergency powered microwave relay stations across SC operated by the 
state are used to interconnect yet another huge ham radio relay system 
associated with ARES, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service.  On Heart, 
you can use a 1/2 watt VHF walkie talkie connected to one of its many 
repeater systems and talk from Charleston to Greenville as simply as 
talking across a mall on a Family Radio UHF set.  Heart is explained on 
the website.

Our extensive radio system plan and communications networks are 
explained on a pdf file here:
http://www.wa4usn.org/CommPlan.pdf

WX4CHS, the ham radio station callsign of the Charleston office of the 
National Weather Bureau, is also connected to these systems and to an 
independent HF SSB radio network connecting our weather bureau office to 
its remote substation offices in Savannah, Georgetown, Myrtle Beach, 
Brunswick GA and to every other National Weather Service office across 
the entire country.  NWS is adamant about its support of ham radio 
services to the system.  "Skywarn" is also a ham radio network of 
cooperating ham radio stations across America giving the weather service 
and its public broadcast functions thousands of eyes to warn of 
impending immediate weather threats such as tornadoes, floods, etc.  I'm 
a Skywarn trained observer, myself.....
http://www.skywarn.org/
http://www.skywarnonline.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywarn

So, if you think ham radio is just a bunch of super CBers, a throwback 
before the internet, you're wrong.  Thousands of ham radio repeater 
systems are all interconnected across the planet by internet links for 
licensed ham radio stations to use, as a hobby and in time of 
international disaster.  Ask the Haitians!  Without ham radio, Haiti was 
completely alone after the recent earthquake and before with hurricanes.

The systems are efficient, rigidly controlled by control operators and 
very good at what we do.

-- 
iPhone 4 is to cellular technology what the Titanic is to cruise ships.

Larry