Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Guidebook

“Every major disaster throughout the entire world represents sudden local emergency conditions where… even the ability to call for help have been forced upon people somewhere. … Somewhere in the initial reports of the disaster, you usually hear it was some local ham radio operator who was first able to re-establish communications and get out the call for help. Amateur Radio (“ham”) Operators must be trained and skilled in many aspects of communications and radio technology in order to pass strict federal licensing exams to earn their Federal Communications Commission issued licenses and radio “call sign”. … Why use amateur radio? Simple: because amateur radio equipment is independent of commercial radio stations like telephones, cell phones and even police, fire, and EMS radio services, which are limited in frequency and interoperability. Ham radio is inherently frequency agile and readily portable, thus is ideal for emergency dependability.” –Author, page 5.