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Author Topic: People realize wireless 2 way is important in times of emergency!  (Read 3677 times)
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KD6VXI
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« on: September 07, 2017, 07:58:21 PM »

Ran across this:

http://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-irma-zello-walkie-talkie-app-how-to-2017-9

I guess that app is seeing a surge due to Facebook posts claiming it will help you when cell phones die / go down / etc.

So much so that Apple has had to issue a PSA that it doesn't work without a data connection.

So it's nice people are realizing they need 2 way radios.  Bummer they don't understand that an app isn't a walkie talkie......

I foresee FRS sets flying off the shelves like.....  Well, like bottled water.

--Shane
KD6VXI
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WD8KDG
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« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2017, 08:53:57 PM »

Preppers in the PNW have been purchasing Baofeng rigs for the CSZ (Cascadia Subduction Zone) earthquake. Look out 2 meters! Now with all the wildfires & smoke.........more Baofengs

Craig,
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Ham radio is now like the surprise in a box of "Cracker-Jacks". There is a new source of RFI every day.
KF7WWW
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« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2017, 09:24:51 PM »

 Roll Eyes

More consumers that have no idea how the technology works... I have such a distaste for the term " walkie talkie ".. Portable is the correct term.. Wish the general public could learn that..
People that believe that FRS or GMRS radios are great for disaster preparedness are just delusional.. The batteries will be dead IF and or when they need them or the batteries will be bad from being on charge/ sitting on the shelf...
Unfortunately 80% of our up and coming amateur brethren are no better..
What do you have when your junk doesnt work? You have a great paperweight..   

Those of us who know, probably should really help educate these people..
Meanwhile they will continue to waste money on radios that wont work or they wont know how to use when the time really comes..

Then you have the rest of the population that thinks all " radio " is the BC AM their grandpa used to listen to.. So they associate it as a old and obsolete technology..
Ive tried very hard to tell a few of these people different.. The deer in the headlights look along with " my cellphone works everywhere " is all i get.... 
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Tom WA3KLR
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« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2017, 10:18:53 PM »

Why does a walkie-talkie, after 70 years, have to be called a portable?  Portable doesn't seem like a good term to me.
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73 de Tom WA3KLR  AMI # 77   Amplitude Modulation - a force Now and for the Future!
W6TOM
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« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2017, 10:23:09 PM »

  In 1989 the day of the Loma Prieta Eathquake I was on a crew 200 miles north of the Bay Area installing antennas on a 200 foot tower for a radio system. I had driven up there that day with one of the crew in a company vehicle. We had just gotten into our motel when the quake happened a few minutes after 5 PM. The guy I traveled with his wife was working in San Francisco that day, she was supposed to home early but as you might imagine he was concerned.

  We could NOT call out of the area code, we later learned that the phone company had dropped all the trunks in and out of the Bay Area for priority traffic. We worked for the local power company and went to the local service center and could call all over on our company phone system. We even had the ability to call into a PBX and go out on a local phone company number but all we got was fast busy.

 We went back to the mountain top we had been working at were able to get a path to a 450 MHz ham repeater on Mount Diablo in the Bay Area. My coworker got a friend who went to his home and he talked to his wife. I got another guy in an area code where the phone trunks weren't blocked to phone one of my sisters in MA to let them know I was OK. We also talked to some locals to see how bad things were, not as bad as the "news" made it out to be. We drove back that shortly after, I got home at midnight.

  The phone company then was Pacific Bell, the phone system actually did OK but it crashed due to shear volume of calls.

  Our utility company phone system and radio systems did OK.

   Now almost 30 years later this has all been forgotten. When Obama came to Oakland for a campaign appearance in 2012 the volume of users crashed the cell system. All the RF from the cell sites also desensed Oakland's public safety radio system.
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Patrick J. / KD5OEI
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« Reply #5 on: September 08, 2017, 01:48:15 AM »

The term "walkie talkie" may be a little silly, but no more than many slang terms and also various activities from times long past when people were more light hearted or would take themselves less seriously for the sake of a bit of fun, but it is a name that should be somewhat hallowed since it is what our troops called the hand held portable radios in WWII and there can be no disgrace in it. There are alternatives: HT, handy talkie, portable radio, etc., and anyone can call their hand held transceiver anything they want.

I used several kinds of hand held communication equipment while in the Texas State Guard. Our general mission required extreme flexibility in the area of communications. I recall police HTs, ham HTs MURS, FRS, GMRS, FRS/GMRS combos, 'public service' type professional HTs, military PRC-type high band VHF HTs, and a couple of times a very cheap CB HT -which did not have squelch but were OK for when you call in or wait for calls at specific times only.

Beside the radio type that our unit normally used and trained with, when we were on active duty serving at a shelter or other MP/public affairs mission a few of our key communication personnel would invariable be loaned a HT organic to another serving entity or some management, whether the red cross, police, government, or the property owner of a Christian Camp serving as a shelter. I was often one of the troops with 3 HTs on my belt (the envy of ever wacker), but when possible I would stay in the air conditioned commo truck and put the gear on all the relevant frequencies and modes, and patch certain elements together and allowed a common log of communications to be kept.

Because I worked with the 'public', and military and civil officials, and civil radio operators (hams), I would call the 'hand held radio of the moment' by the term that the persons with whom I was conversing would use.

It is interesting how a cellular handset is called a 'mobile' phone, but a 'mobile' radio usually means a 12 volt vehicular transceiver.
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Radio Candelstein - Flagship Station of the NRK Radio Network.
KF7WWW
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« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2017, 09:55:27 AM »

Why does a walkie-talkie, after 70 years, have to be called a portable?  Portable doesn't seem like a good term to me.

When you have kids calling them walkie talkies, that’s acceptable.
When you have 50 + year old adults walking up to you everyday with $1000 professional radios and calling them " Walkie Talkie " you might begin to understand my position..
They all are not childish toys...
Already too many years of doing this stuff, guess Ive developed a bad attitude..
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WD8BIL
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« Reply #7 on: September 08, 2017, 10:59:15 AM »

Batteries dead? Most FRS radios are capable of using AA batteries and are easily replaceable. So, where's the problem!

I have 3 sets of these walkie-talkies we use while hunting. Always carry a spare set of juice pills with me.
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