[CW] CW in Emergency HF Comms System

[Fred Adsit]

     Many excellent points have been made here. No need to repeat them.
But we ARE, or were when we started, talking about saving away workable
radios, power supplies etc. to use if hit with an EMP strong enough to
ruin a solid state rig and a computer. Now really, this is more than
possible. I am not going to go into a treatise on this but I spent a good
share of my career in this field and it looked far simpler then than it
does now, should even a few nuclear blasts occur around the world.
     I sat yesterday and thought about this thread. I decided it was
futile and too windy to go into the gory details. But this morning, I will
touch on a few and then not bother returning to any bomb shelter.
     It requires a diagram and I cannot do that here. But basically, we
depend on fuel. That fuel may be a windmill generator but it won't do
much, frankly, not worldwide. And it does not need to be worldwide. Think
about this. How long do you think a nuclear war would affect our world,
even a small number of shots fired in each direction? It would destroy
some of it, and nature and humans would destroy the rest of it, and Each
Other. Anarchy would reign supreme.
     I live on food and a bottle of different pills each day. When the
pills run out, I will die. Simple. So, I will be desperate. I will need
safe water. I will need unradiated food. I will need money (the only thing
that will buy you anything in such a surreal situation is Gold).
     Picture it. Riots. Empty stores. No fresh food. Food in your home
rotted due to no electricity and no refrigeration.
     The bank not only will not dish out your money, the banking system
worldwide will be out of commission after but a few breaks in
communications. Today this is done using computers and other solid state
devices. The stock markets will not function.
     The gas pumps over at the corner will not function. The trucks and
cars will NOT function - they are now filled with solid state devices and
have computers on board. Mine just had repairs. It was the computer and
the EFI system. The car was useless without them. So will the truck that
brings any kind of fuel to where it is needed. It won't be possible for
the truck to get filled up in the first place. The radio is solid state.
So is my scanner. So are all my warning radios.
     We have managed to create a world in which control of nearly
everything depends on transistors, chips, computers. The government with
its bombproofed centers and - in our city - jet engines up on the highest
building to charge massive banks of batteries - is a sick joke. It all
again depends, in the end, on fuel. It will not outlast the time it takes
for the world to finish itself off.
     Door locks and alarm systems and hospitals in general.. people who
need oxygen or special meds to last even for a few hours, maybe a few
minutes - they will not function. Police cars and the police themselves
will discover they are on their own. same with fire trucks and ambulances
and busses and airplanes and airports and rail yards and trains and....
just where do we stop with this list??? There have been some brilliant
movies about this kind of world. It will not be pretty, and it will be The
End.
     The Bible says it will not happen that way. Pray the Bible is right,
that God keeps His promises, and be grateful that as in the past, mutual
assured destruction will be seen as the way to NOT start anything so rash
as even a short nuclear confrontation. A few broken links in our
computerized chain that supports life, and down comes the entire house of
cards, and people go nuts trying to survive.
     I am not suggesting anything except to not concern yourself with
exactly how hardened various devices are vs. the strength of the weapon
and the range at which the weapon detonated and exactly which type of
atomic weapon it was. To bother is a waste. Enough will go wrong to end
the world in a short period of time.
     Now, as for the value of CW, the cornerstone of this reflector...
Nets won't function well except using CW and phone. Much of what we see in
the traffic nets got to the region level, and has done so for years now,
using error-checking digital modes and a non-NTS network spanning each of
the three US Areas, and also across those areas, leaving most operators
with nothing much to do on nets above the Region level. Computer programs
and keyboards do all this. But none of it matters if the message is not
originated and then accurately delivered, and that takes NETS.
     The errors in messages these days are horrendous. This comes from
using telephony. I used to bridge the daytime and nighttime on 80M phone -
I was in panic mode making corrections and writing messages asking for
fills since the phone ops butchered the messages - it was obvious to me
from years of practice. I took what was left to CW, and we moved traffic
like a well oiled machine, until the nets started to disintegrate, leaving
"iron men" (and women) to do all the work, day after day.
     This message is way too long. Take what lessons you will about
preparedness. They are good ones. But they are useless ones if we are
discussing EMP, and that is what started this thread.
     I might add, and will, that getting back to CW nets, I would have an
awful time directing traffic at the speed we can do so were it not for the
bells and whistles on my solid state rig. It lets me see many frequencies
with one poke of my pinky. I can move people to a known clear frequency
and keep the net frequency open for checkins and checkouts. Off on the
side, business is going on at breakneck speed. I can check to predict the
right time to move another station off to get in the queue. It is hard to
do this efficiently without modern transceivers. But it must be done
efficiently, or we won't clear the traffic at that level in time to be
ready for the next levels of nets, all of which start within about one
second of the exact UTC time.
     I can do this, and I can work at any level except some TCC slots and
EAN NCS where high power and very good antennas are mandatory, and I can
go away for months and come back and the system is still working and the
lack of practice is meaningless. It is a System, the operators do not
change, not very often. But you MUST keep sharp. And if you are
preoccupied with other matters, it is a good way to get a bad name in the
system. Where is Fred? Why isn't he here any more? I miss it all, but I do
not have time right now, and if others have not moved in to take my place
(in some cases nobody has), it won't be for not trying to bring new blood
into the system.
     I will also observe that most of the ops are old-timers with the time
to do this stuff. This is true also in the world of ARES/RACES. Back when
I had a day job, doing any of this and bringing up a large family was out
of the question. There was no way to create a few needed extra hours in a
day to be a father and a husband.
     This will all probably trigger more discussion. That's OK with me. I
won't be back to defend what I have said, for if I thought it needed
defending, I would not have said all this. If you do nothing else,
remember the house of cards. It will take but a FEW breaks in the
computerized world in which we live to bring all of it to its knees,
leaving most of it dead. Not a pretty picture.. never was.
     This is too sobering. Life is good compared with when I was just a
kid. Despite the mess the world is in, it has been in far worse ones. The
good old days weren't. Few of us would be happy going back. So be happy
now, but please, Get Real.Enjoy the hollow state gear. Above all, enjoy
and preserve the use of CW. To me, with all the other modes available in
the shack, I head for CW because being an old timer - 55 years at this and
hardly done yet - ham radio without CW is not ham radio any more. I miss
it for now - too many things of great importance take me away, or keep me
away from, the ham shack, and I never thought I would say this, but those
things are more important than ham radio. Each day I look forward to the
CW reflector messages. I read them before I check the news. All of you on
here are far better informed than those who don't participate. It is my
way of keeping in touch - for now  - and it very enjoyable to spend a few
mintues, even to write and not proofread a message like this. Point at
Send and left-click, Fred. :-)
     ZUT!
     73,
     Fred, NY2V