US Amateur Radio emergency communication services are no longer required - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 02:46:04 pm
content: Do US government officials want to ban Amateur Radio as emergency communicationsee Klark Jouss wordpress March 17, 2021https://clickwooz.wordpress.com/author/yourbrohome1f4fb5076f/officials want to ban Amateur Radio a means of communication in times of emergency.California is leading the charge against Amateur Radio operators with this move

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 03:15:46 pm
content: Critical thinking skills and a bit of research go a long way in eliminating unwarranted hysteria over fake news. "On public land" and "in state owned and operated radio vaults" is a bit of a difference, no? Not allowing a repeater in said vault at no charge is a bit different than 'banning' amateur radio.http://www.arrl.org/news/report-causes-concern-and-confusion-in-california-s-amateur-radio-ranks

author: jmw
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 05:24:13 pm
content: Yeah, this blog entry was just published, but the incident in question happened between one local agency and one repeater in 2019...Ultimately, the ham community's role in emergency communications is being diminished because public service agencies now have better radios than hams. P.25, digital, data + voice, comms security through encryption - all areas where amateur technologies are fragmented or behind (and in the case of encryption, still prohibited).

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2021, 05:59:00 pm
content: Quote from: jmw on March 17, 2021, 05:24:13 pmthe incident happened in 2019. ok u rightold news! re-posted as new news with a March 17, 2021 date.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 12:48:04 am
content: my biggest suggestion would be : do not act like hard core paramilitary people, that makes many kinds of goverment official or anything with state given rights to act in a para militaristic manner (i.e. anything with officers and funded by any kind of taxes, from a management/bureaucratic standpoint) nervous, either because 1) you are way too professional and make them look bad 2) you are considered a 'official looking poser'. Having 'mismatched' dealings with either of these two things is bad for things like budget hearings, elections, official politics, etc.. those things might be total bullshit, totally irrelevant and there is no real power, it is just 'cultural', in the sense that you let them do it because its always been done but they never really do anything, but they will 'attack' if you interfere with this 'ritual', i.e. disturb cat grooming itself. They are different then companies because.. you deal with the public for their money and it depends on what they think and how they see it.The interaction in the movie Die Hard 1 comes to mind. You can either show up as1) something useful and down to earth2) like the FBI in the movie, complete with hockey stick in ass. Unfortunately your jurisdiction takes 15 minutes to explain using a power point and a lawyer. "is this for real?"3) a third scenario where the FBI acts the way it does but they drove up in the mystery machine with beer bottles and smoke coming out of the back of the van doors when it opened and the news people got it on tape.(chances are that already happened there, by people that are more official then you, so you don't wanna add more of it).If you are not sufficiently chill or unchill (match up, there is no federal standard, its whatever is in the area) to the culture of the local goverment or goverment funded agencies and you act like an agency you will end up having beef with someone, the important part is to be like a normal civilian as much as possible, I think.I.e. those pictures of thoseenglishHAM people were too much for many places and would make people that are chilled out like they are dealing with the proverbial diehard 'feds'. *turns out to likely not be England, I don't know who they are, but its not good. *picture*https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/whatever-happened-to-ham-radio/msg3361972/#msg3361972Also its normal to have budget and cost issues with many goverment things, don't shit your pants in a panic if you have dealing with them and money comes up, unless its what people in the area tend to do and it feels like a blatant shake down. (so obviously do fight them like any civilian does!)But, if you appear more civilian, they at worse will think 'oh its those idiots, but at least they are saving me money/doing stupid work I don't want to spend my budget on because we have better things to do/good PR showing we are 'normal' interactors with the public'. This is almost always true because they have specific functions other then 'radio telecom provider' the people working there are usually much more interested in and better places to spend a budget, and the budget would run out if infinite most likely with the weird things they do.Maybe that picture of those radio control vehicle that was on here earlier just scared me lol, the chief of police thought 'oh fuck do I have my paper work in order' when he saw that!here is something else, alot of people involved working for the goverment with radios DO NOT LIKE ALPHANUMERICS and military shit (hearing pappa charlie alpha makes their blood pressure go up).. official maybe but you think 'were these guys drinking in a basement with Vietnam war era memorabilia for too long?'You can't get away from that if you follow convention with radio, but what you can do is not use 10-codes unless there is asevere communication problem, unless you are working with elements I am not sure exist since 1945, or you are asked to.. I would never start with that... but maybe culture changes in the country

author: donmr
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 18, 2021, 05:57:17 pm
content: Know your served agency. This will happen easily if you participate in their exercises already.The law enforcement folks here use phonetics all of the time, BUT they use the APCO system not the ITU one that hams are usually taught. So we learn theirs.

author: K4FMH
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 26, 2021, 10:20:00 pm
content: This is an OLD story and I believe that even the CalFire party on question has rescinded the letter sent.