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The answer is.....satellites! This statement from an op who is primarily CW!! Those stupid cell phones are no good in an emergency, it really doesn't matter if a telephone exchange is 'jammed' if its hard-line or wireless, bottom-line, you don't get a dial tone. WE HAMS should have backup plans in place to use the satellite service as the primary 'emergency' backup in case of national emergency, disaster,etc. why? because this is a MOBILE society, and even in a devastated earthquake area, you (or I) could move around in a neighborhood of collapsed homes pretty quick, and make a rapid assessment of fatalities, casualities, and later propery damage assesment. No, I'm not going to lay out 66 or 128 feet of radials in a situation like that. I need to be mobile, and so do you. Then we should make the HF bands the secondary circuits. Hey, NASA uses satellites as primary, HF as backup, why should't we? You could also set up an emergency repeater real fast, even a simplex one, just put it at the highest point that you can in the rubble, and hey, you have communications. I hear ops out there who call 2 metre guys 'cb operators' and they rapidly forget how CB CAUGHT THE IMAGINATION OF THIS THIS COUNTRY, and not too amny years ago, and how handy this concept of radio is, especially when you add repeaters! If somebody, somewhere still has a car that works, so now you have a 'portable' 12 volt source, and that too will make a nice emergency repeater with a 'coupla magnet antennas, a 'coupla HT's, and there you have it, even if the CAR can't be physically moved. Now, if we tell the public and really get THEM to have 'OWNERSHIP' of our assets, i.e. our HT's and us and...our SATELLITES are here to help THEM in an emergency. They DO NOT HAVE ANY IDEA ABOUT OUR AMATEUR SATELLITES, don't believe me? just ask someone who is not a ham. IF phase 3-D would finally get 'off the ground" and it was presented to the public in this fashion, THEN HAM RADIO WILL GET A BOOST IN THE ARM THAT IT NEEDS BECAUSE IT WILL "MATTER" TO THEM. What I am afraid will happen instead is that hams will just all get out their HT's make a few QSOS through the satellite, and whoopie that will be in the press for all of about one day...fizzle and hams will loose again. WHAT IF THERE WAS SOME WAY TO INTERFACE THE TELEPHONE EXCHANGE WITH OUR SETUPS IN AN EMERGENCY? The ham(s) would be the 'control operator(s)' the phone company would be the "common carrier"..when theid together, we would then by definition be 'exampt from being responsible for content" or some such rule could be made. Rememebr, I am talking about in an emergency situation here..Then when a county has their 'disaster drill' we would participate and check the priamary and secondary circuits which we would become the "guardians" or "custodians" for! Than puts us back in the 'national interest' and makes us valuable as a communication asset to the country, and we survive as a group. I'm long-winded, I admit it. but you hams in these forums are really, really the REAL hams, and the future is in your hands, AND YOU REALISE IT, where in the average 'yea I've got a tribeamer with 100 watts into a doodad at soomany feet, and 'the band seems to be holding up good lately" Type QSO has really, really got me yawning, how about you? With all of these commercial satellite-direct phone companies going under, well, we may have just found our speciality like for instance PBS has over the years. We could get a lot more 3d-type satellites up there, we would get the cargo space needed, because the political will would be there to do so. Maybe we could get funding from the "Ford Foundation" etc. for our efforts--I am just using PBS and the "Ford Foundation" as examples of how I see funding could happen--this would be good for the country, and it would be good for us.