[autumnraine]

Ham is DEFINITELY a must for communication and we should probably get a group together in various places to be able to give information that the news might not pick up. But computers could be an option for a while.

The thing is, unless they take over the utility companies and/or wireless (which in a war or martial law is totally probable) they can only shut down servers.

Ok, off to doze and reflect on this. How to connect if phone or wireless is not available. Hmmmm

Think we should start a ham radio thread if there isn’t one already? I mean if we could get a few hundred, that ought to help some. I would love to get AmericaninTokyo in on this. He would be valuable to have in his area.

[Eastbound]

Okay, then. Tomorrow.

[Myrddin]

There are limits to what you can put over the air as a ham. It is also a government licensed service. Part of that arrangement allows the government to essentially conscript the operator and his equipment in the service of the government under an "emergency". Most of my gear is still in boxes after moving from San Diego to Idaho. It would take time to pull it out and make sure it is operable. The electrolytic caps can dry out and become non-functional. They sometimes explode when exposed to current after a long time of non-use.

When I was last regularly active, the packet revolution had just arrived (1985). I enjoyed TCP/IP over ham radio in those days. The rise of the internet made the ham radio based comms just a silly toy. Can you imagine having to wait 3 weeks to move 1 megabyte of data over a very lossy radio path? The modem data rate was only 1200 bps with lots of overhead to create the synchronous packets that carried the AX.25 UI frames that wrapped the IP datagrams.

[oc-flyfish]

They would control the utilities as they are part of the critical infrastucture. Scary, eh?

[LibLieSlayer]

I am a Ham... the government suspended all Ham Radio activities during WWII and confiscated equipment. I will put an axe through my property before some Fed gets it... that I promise you.

LLS