 TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus
join:2001-06-20
Cheyenne, WY | reply to Romney2012
Re: National networks and cellphones make Safety Net unneeded said by Romney2012:Is a national safety network really needed? National cellphone coverage and ubiquitous usage of cellphones makes the need for a National Cellphone Network a low priority. Maybe all that is needed are special cellphones that have priority over other calls when usage is high - like during a disaster. Well on the face of it this sounds good but as has been proven many. many times the reality is something else entirely different. In the face of natural disaster one of the first thing that fails is the cell phone system, from damage, or a lack of capacity, or a combination of both. For all of the coverage what is there is amazingly fragile. Back in the day of land mobile telephones the individual transceiver sites where built with gigantic power backups, redundancy and where built to take a great deal. Not so cell sites. Add to this Cities and counties getting sold a bill of goods by various communication providers putting in systems that make it hard for a Policemen to talk to a fireman, and the fireman to a Sheriff. Once they start to do this they soon realize there is no money to build out a system as it should be, and then maintain what they have. Here in Cheyenne the Fire department put in a Motorola trunked com system, the rest of the Cheyenne public service departments did not, no money. I have listened while irritated Cop's unable to talk to the fire department had to resort to their personal cell phones to get through to them. Right now the only national emergency network that works no matter what is the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service. Those of us who are members of RACES are considered first responders by the Department of Home Land Security. We practice and are adept in the installation, and activation of wide area networks in a matter of hours. It is the hamradio operator tagging along with the public emergency service worker that can get through with voice or one of the digital modes anytime any place, and you can't beat the price, we maintain our own equipment, and will work for food.  Of course we bring that along too if needed. 
--
I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption |
