n4voxgill said:
We had a meeting at the Red Cross chapter house last week and every one of the full time staff had a cellphone on their belt. They commented that while assisting at some grassfires west of san antonio they got out of cellphone range.
HaHa. Serves them right. Years ago the local hams were very active with the ARC chapter. A new chapter director came in, told the hams that they were not neded and cut ties with the local clubs. The hams move on to supporting other agencies and doing other things.
A couple of years go by, a new director comes in and wants to rebuild bridges. The local hams decide to give them a chance. They became active with ARC again, held meetings and training at the chapter HQ and took ARC classes in shelter ops and damage acessment. The ARC director is gungho too. He gets his Tech level ham ticket and assigns a surplus ERV to be configured as a Comm van. The hams install Ham radios, scanner, and even CB radio in the ERV. They work on a first rate ham station at the chapter HQ too. Put up a tower with antennas, installed radios, Programmed and tested Motorola 800MHz trunked radios the ARC had talkgroups on the state police TRS with, repaired the chapters own lowband ARC radios and installed mobiles in the other ERVs. Relations between ARC and the hams are good. The ARC brings out the 'comm van ERV' to Field Day and hams plan on staffing shelters during disasters.
A couple of years go by, a new director comes in. This guy sees no reason to work with the hams. There's no reason to have a radio room or radio equipted ERVs. He meets with the main guys representing the hams. Tells them to take the tower down, remove the radios from the ERV and radio room at the chapter and not to let the door hit them on the way out. The director is invited to be a speaker at the meeting of the largest ham club in the state. He tells the audiance that Ham radio was obsolete and the ARC would depend on their Cellphones. Hams get the message. They move on to doing other things for other agencies.
Hurricane Katrina blows in and cell towers and power is out over a large area including regions where the ARC is opening shelters. The ARC puts out a plea for Ham radio operators to volunteer. A small number of hams respond. The ARC puts out another plea. Silence from the hams. Can you blame them? In less than a decade they are told they aren't needed, then welcomed, then dismissed again as relics.
Now, as hurricane season is about to start, the ARC chapter director is trying to recruit hams to work during disaster. The local hams, though, havn't forgotten the speech he gave at their meeting. They understand the ARC is a fair weather friend. There aren't enough hams to cover the agencies who acutally WANT them as back up communicators. The hams don't have the time, patience or willingness to sign on with a service who publicly showed them the door and insisted that cellphones would save the day.
Better hope the cell towers stay up and on the air this year. The ARC will need them.
