Is a HAM radio license (and knowledge) useful during an emergency?

[mahina]

Our community emergency preparedness team is offering training. It's going to take a fair amount of time, about 8 days of training sessions, and I am more than maxed out at the moment. However if it's really useful to helping communities in emergencies, I'll find a way.

What say you, DU?

[brush]

1. The more ways to communicate the better, in case the internet and other ways are shut down.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Are you in a relatively isolated area where cell phone towers could be knocked out....

or overloaded in an emergency or have spotty coverage?

The cost barrier to entry into ham radio is rather low these days, for example:
https://www.amazon.com/Baofeng-Warranty-Dual-Band-Radio-Improved/dp/B00HX03AMA/ref=sr_1_3

[itsrobert]

3. I would start with a cb radio

No need to talk half way around the world in an emergency. CB far less costs, upgrade to ham if you think you need it.

[Hokie]

6. Ham radio is more than that

You are referring to the HF (or short wave if you prefer) part of the spectrum. Amateur radio operators also operate on bands that are more local in range like 2 meter FM that are very useful in emergencies. They can communicate for several miles directly or tens of miles using repeaters that are set up. These will operate even when the cell phone system is down or overloaded with traffic during emergencies.

[gratuitous]

4. Also, in general for emergencies, text don't call

Texting takes considerably less bandwidth than a cell call.

[defacto7]

5. Absolutely...

It can be pretty fun too.

[MountainFool]

7. Depends on the size of the emergency ...

I think if you go into the training expecting to frequently use your new skills in emergencies, you'll probably be disappointed. Ham radio is basically a last resort to communicate after everything else has failed ... and cell towers and phone lines don't fail all that often.

But I'd say make the time if you can enjoy just being prepared to help. Especially if you're curious about radio or have other interests that could benefit from the training (e.g. radio use when boating between the islands).

[Hortensis]

8. Absolutely. Our kids don't take the need seriously.

They're 3 states apart, we're an hour away from one set, and they routinely scatter anywhere 10 to 300 and more miles away from home and children each day. It's appallingly easy to imagine that we could all spend several months completely out of touch and not knowing anything about what is happening outside our immediate area.

If we had more money, I'd "gift" us all with this capability. We do have a broadband receiver but no transmitter, which is required to be licensed if used. We know that local stations and licensed operators would routinely be censored, though, and this should allow us to at least listen in on alternative broadcasts. I'm not a paranoid type, but simple reality is that local, county and state governments will need to control their populations, and information control is always right up front and not always wisely done. Also road control--many would be closed in a region-wide emergency.

[Lee-Lee]

9. It can be

When I was a deputy our county emergency management kept a room adjacent to our dispatchers for the local ham radio club, who kept equipment in there ready to use.

Things have to be pretty bad for it to be the primary means of communication for real emergency life or death traffic, but it can happen. However where they did come in handy was when there was an event that required opening a lot of shelters and cell phones/landlines were down. The hams would man the station and then send hams to every shelter where they sent logistics reports and names of people there to help keep them running and also help people find missing relatives.

I remember one time the entire phone system for 911 and a good part of the county crashed due to a fire at a switch and was down almost a day. They announced on the radio stations to go to a local fire department or to go to any major intersection where there was a car with a red flag and they staffed all that with a mix of volunteer firefighters and hams to get the messages through.

[Lucinda]

11. Very cool!

I've never given it much thought but it is great to see how it works!

[mitch96]

14. kept a room adjacent to our dispatchers for the local ham radio club

When I was working at the hospital, me and another guy were the designated HAM radio operators. We were "on duty" during hurricanes and the hospital had a HAM rig set up for us.
When the fecal material hits the rotating oscillator, HAM will get information thru. When hurricane Andrew (cat 5) hit Homestead amateur radio operators were the first to get information out about the condition of the place and where help was needed.

You can get a Technician class license (lowest level) by taking a very simple 35 question test. This allows you to us the popular 2 meter frequency. A hand held two meter rig is about the size of a fat cell phone with a whip antenna sticking up. I don't play around much but it was grand fun when I ws younger. I would build rigs in tuna tins and just use a very long thin wire and talk all over the place..
Another hobby passed on by...
mitch WW4ML

[krispos42]

10. Yeah, they can be

The cellular network can be knocked out by power outages or tower damage. As can the Internet (including VoIP) and regular telephone service.

The amateur radio operators, many of them have local clubs organized around a repeater of decent power. And many of the members take the hobby seriously, with serious and long-range radio rigs.

Ham operators can use the repeater to communicated for a couple of dozen miles in any direction; I've done that during things like charity bike rides. A 50-watt mobile rig in chase vehicles, with everybody using the local club repeater. If you can hit the repeater, it will rebroadcast your transmission at a higher power (and usually from a better vantage point) to people you couldn't get directly.

One time I was able to hit a repeater from over a dozen miles away with my handheld (linked to a mag mount antenna) to call in a bike rider that had a mechanical breakdown.

I'm in my local CERT unit, and several of us have ham licenses. In an emergency, we could use the higher-powered ham radios and/or local repeaters to liaison between different CERT teams at different locations, or to coordinate between the local police/fire departments. Our CERT radios aren't very high-powered.

Many ham operators are also part of the Amateur Radio Relay League via the Amateur Radio Emergency Service; if the seriously bad thing happens, they are equipped and trained to set up ad hoc networks. For example, they might have to link a city or county government with the state government or the Red Cross so relief efforts could be coordinated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_Radio_Emergency_Service

They use different frequencies for different applications. Handhelds are generally VHF or UHF line-of-sight; base units can get down in to the HF (shortwave) range and can go thousands of miles, depending on power output and atmospherics. These are the signals that bounce around in the atmosphere.

And now they have digital transmitters, too, which I'm not even sure how they work but I saw a guy talking to a guy in Florida through one... that he had in his pickup.

[marybourg]

12. Our local HAM group drills

frequently on keeping the local hospitals in touch with state, county and nuclear power plant officials. They are very civic-minded and active.

I let my license lapse, because I wasn't very skilled, and was seduced by the internet and cell phone, but it's a good thing for at least a few people in every community to be able to do; as the years go by there are fewer and fewer hams (I used to know the man who was the 9th ham to be licensed in this country, but, of course, he's long gone now). It may be important one day.

[Binkie The Clown]

13. I grew up in a HAM family and had a license as a teen.

Frankly, I never really used it once I grew up and left home, so I let it lapse half a century ago. Plus, I'm sure I've forgotten Morse code, and all that vacuum tube electronics I learned for the test is hopelessly obsolete now.

Sometimes I think it might be nice to have, though.

On the other hand, CB might be just as useful for local communication. (I never had a CB myself, so I'm just guessing.)