Sarcastic mode on.
This is (drop carrier and listen for a double) KB2VXA, no traffic.
Back when the American Radio Relay League actually was an organization for passing message traffic the nets had some significance as an alternate means of sending a telegram. These days the net control station opens the net and participating stations sign in with their callsigns followed by "no traffic". When they're all gathered together net control closes the net and a few remaining stations have a short gabfest, then all are gone. It's the same with MARS having so little to do it's obsolete and soon to fade into history. I no longer see the NTS messages on packet so I no longer distribute them to local hams, message traffic has become a thing of the past although I'm sure the EMCOM crowd would vehemently disagree but I digress.
This is KB2VXA, out.
Sarcastic mode off.
"They are also quite useful in major wide spread emergencies, such as hurricanes where other forms of communication may be down for several days (think of Katrina where even cell phones were out for weeks)."
See now this is exactly what I mean but unfortunately most are terribly uninformed. I monitored the frequencies the FCC set aside and heard nothing, not so much as a peep since hams in the affected area were off the air being in the same dire situation as everyone else. It was much later they began to pass health and welfare traffic which is the primary purpose these days. I've monitored quite a few storm emergencies over the years and it's pretty much the same thing, during the major ice storm that blanketed the Northeast a decade ago most of us lost our antennas so we concentrated efforts on keeping public service systems on the air. Our antennas aren't bulletproof and the fact of the matter we're worse off than emergency services having state of the art systems designed for survivability, that's why they are at the fore and we provide other services quietly in the background, times have changed.
"They provide practice and a pool of folks to handle the traffic for times when no other communication may be available."
I can't disagree with that but in light of the above I can only agree in part. Practice is essential for proper communications in times of need but the need has changed drastically. I wish the EMCOM folks would come up with something more believable than that "when no other communication may be available" mantra, it's so misleading it's a joke to hams who know the real purpose of what we do and how we do it.
OK, now crucify me.
