Getting the message (out)

[Jonas]

Getting the message (out)

Well Easter is over, and once again you received a tin of your mother’s famous fudge, shaped like chunks of rock, but heavier. Drop the tin on your foot and you’ll shatter bones. You make a mental note to get a thank-you note off to your mother who lives in a city 150 miles away, before your wife starts not-so-gently “reminding” you to do so. While a hand-written note is proper etiquette, you may choose to phone your mother, but the conversation will be extended since she likes to talk to you, your spouse and all the grandchildren, or you can send her an e-mail – tacky but permissible.

Fast forward a bit. There has been a disaster (man-made or natural). There is no electric grid, internet, or phone service, and the Postal Service is not functioning. You want to get a message to Mom: “We’re fine. Go to Aunt Tessie’s. I’m coming to get you on Thursday”. How do you get that message to Mom? Well, it may not be easy, but it’s do-able.

Many amateur radio operators are members of one or more “traffic nets”, groups of hams that meet at specific times on specific frequencies for the purpose of passing message “traffic”, practicing for the day when they’ll be needed in an emergency. In the US, it’s all a part of the National Traffic System of the Amateur Radio Relay League. http://www.arrl.org/nts . If you have a ham radio operator near you, he/she is probably well aware of, if not a member of the nearest NTS Net, and is well capable of not only operating in a grid-down situation but also handling emergency traffic, including your message to your mother. You might want to look up that ham operator’s name and address though. Just type your postal code and the words “amateur radio license” into Google for a list.

If you are an amateur radio operator with a “general” ticket or above, you might want to join your local traffic net(s) and hone your traffic handling skills for that day when you’ll be needed. The 7290 Traffic Net here in Texas covers a 10 state area and has prepared training materials which you can download and print out from here: http://www.7290trafficnet.org/_mgxroot/page_10739.html

I hope this information is helpful…