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How ham radio endures

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161 points CrankyBear | 4 comments | 14 Oct 24 17:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source
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mindcrime ◴[14 Oct 24 18:31 UTC] No.41840419[source]▶
So very true. Ham radio operators, AIUI, played a critical role with emergency communications in the Western NC area in the aftermath of Helene. I believe there were some instances where local PSAP's / dispatch centers were knocked completely offline and they had local ham radio operators helping to dispatch fire/ems resources.

The great thing about ham radio, it really is an inexpensive hobby to get started. Now, once you get into it, you can spend just about as much money as you want (or have access to). But a Bao-feng handheld that costs around $40 or so can work the local repeaters on 2m or 70cm and is a fine way to get started, learn the lingo, etc.

I encourage everyone to give it a shot, and join up with a local AUXCOMM group or whatever you have locally. I have to admit, I'm not as active with our local group as I'd like to be, due to competing demands for my time, but I hope to eventually work things out to where I can get more active.

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mullen ◴[15 Oct 24 20:23 UTC] No.41852715[source]▶
> But a Bao-feng handheld that costs around $40 or so can work the local repeaters on 2m or 70cm and is a fine way to get started, learn the lingo, etc.

Baofeng makes a $25 radio that works on 2m/70cm and with repeaters. If you live in a place where there are hurricanes/earthquakes, there is no excuse to not have one charged up and ready to go. Getting the basic ham radio license is easy.

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eternityforest ◴[16 Oct 24 05:08 UTC] No.41855804[source]▶
How does ham compare to meshtastic in a real emergency? Meshtastic has the advantage that it's license free and you don't have to try to convince people to spend days studying for it.

I have a license and a baofeng, but I don't know much of anything practical about emergency communications.

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amingilani ◴[16 Oct 24 05:20 UTC] No.41855848{3}[source]▶
In an emergency you can make use of anything, including a radio without an amateur radio license. But it’s easier to use when you’ve had the practice and aren’t fumbling around learning about offsets and CTCSS tones. Or even better, when you have the repeaters preprogrammed into your radio.

Meshtastic is awesome, I have two T-echos. But it doesn’t compare to being able to whip out a handheld radio, tune into a nearby repeater and dial out with EchoLink to check in with my partner when I’m hiking.

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1. donw ◴[16 Oct 24 07:10 UTC] No.41856375{4}[source]▶
Pre-COVID, our office building in Tokyo organized a disaster-preparation day every year. This was run by the building management team, which politely informed every corporate tenant in the office section that, yes, they would be participating.

Sure, we all knew when the drill would be so we could adjust our schedules, but the actual alarms did sound, and the entire building evacuated, which included climbing down something like fifty flights of stairs with your emergency bag -- mandated by law in Japan -- in-hand, plus (optionally) using a fire extinguisher on a pretend fire after you got outside.

Sure, the extinguishers were just pressurized water, and you were spraying at a metal target, but you still had to pull the pin, squeeze, and aim, and they were at full pressure.

Was a good reminder that it's way better to have your first experience with stuff like a fire extinguisher happen under controlled conditions, as opposed to having to figure things out before your kitchen fire gets out-of-hand and burns down the house.

Same goes for radio, changing tires on a car with the provided jack, and so on.

Preparedness is 90% "knowing what to do" and 10% "having the right tools for the job".

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2. Dalewyn ◴[16 Oct 24 11:49 UTC] No.41858012[source]▶
There's a galactic difference between just reading about it and actually experiencing it even just once.

Essentially the difference between being book smart vs. street wise.

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3. scottyah ◴[16 Oct 24 21:43 UTC] No.41864144[source]▶
“We don't rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” Reading about it generates expectations, and they can be deadly.
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4. eternityforest ◴[17 Oct 24 02:17 UTC] No.41865814{3}[source]▶
On average we fall to the level of our training, but then there's moment to moment variation because of "human error" which has little to do with lack of skill or training, and more to do with individual and situational factors.

Training is critical, but even then you can still fail, which is why layers of backups are great.

For a lot of us, skill might never be as reliable as other layers, but it's generally different from other layers making it less likely to fail at the same time because of the same cause.

Crew Resource Management has a lot of great insights.