[Elecraft] Bay Area Fiber Cut

[wg6h at yahoo.com]

As I'm sure you noticed the Elecraft web site was not available most of yesterday 4/9/09.  This was due to  several  AT&T fiber cables that were cut by vandals in a man-hole located in the San Francisco bay area. Telephone service, broadband service, Sprint, and Verizon wireless were all affected.  AT&T is offering a $100,00.00 reward for the arrest and conviction of whoever did this.

There is a lesson here for us all.  Even though the telephone network is "protected" with fiber "rings" and protection channels  it is fragile  and can fail from even a small amount of damage whether it be from vandals, fire, earthquake, or just a simple auto accident.  Think about it!

This is the reason I do not much care for   Amateur modes such as IRLP/EchoLink and D-Star that depend on the Internet for connectivity.

My K2 continued to work just fine during all of this and could have provided emergency communications if needed.

73, Bill - K6WLM