[Elecraft] Emergency Nets

[EricJ]

I went to the Satern web site to read about past emergencies that they were
involved in. I was surprised at the level of traffic. In most emergencies
they were only handling a few hundred messages. I bring this up certainly
not to minimize the importance of these messages to those involved, but to
point out that voice is well suited to this volume of traffic, and there
does not seem to be any real need for building high speed digital links on
HF. 

I worked full-time at K2USA handling CW, SSB and even some AM traffic on ham
nets and MARS nets. Even then (we opened the station to handle AK Earthquake
traffic in 1964), throughput on SSB was comparable to that on CW when the
operators at both ends were skilled.

I have no doubt that there are isolated instances when CW is the only mode
to get through, but for the bulk of "first responder" traffic and Health &
Welfare traffic, VHF/UHF FM is a far better choice.

Eric
KE6US
www.ke6us.com

-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of ron
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 6:52 AM
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Emergency Nets


  As we all know, there is traffic on 14.265 with occassional inactivity
(inactivity is good).

I too, am surprised with the success of using phone. Satern uses phone and
their protocols require use of phonetics when in doubt.
They also require use of "pro-words" during traffic handling which works
very well.

Sometimes during an exchange, one can become emotional and the need to be
clear is important. That is maybe why CNN was repeated phonetically.
Protocol rules, do not "assume".

The use of digital modes may work well, but you still need phone to
originate the data.

I find the very basics of ham radio always comes through when disaster
strikes.

Ron wb1hga
"CW. an esoteric experience"
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