What if something happened and suddenly cell phones didn’t work, land lines went dead, all internet servers crashed, what’s left? HAM RADIO!
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) is an organization for amateur radio enthusiasts (hams) that also rehearses for catastrophic events. Broadcast over shortwave bands, the ARRL’s been around since 1914 a as a way to communicate over long distances, relaying a message from station to station via morse code, and later with vocal transmissions, a bonafide precursor to the internest.
On 22 – 23 June they’re having a “Field Day” to practice for a real emergency:
Objective:
To work as many stations as possible on any and all amateur bands (excluding the 60, 30, 17, and 12-meter bands) and to learn to operate in abnormal situations in less than optimal conditions. Field Day is open to all amateurs in the areas covered by the ARRL/RAC Field Organizations and countries within IARU Region 2.
These citizen volunteers are the last bastion, at least for electronic wireless communication, assuming they have a backup power supply to transmit and receive.
[Tip o’ the tarboosh to W.J.J. Hoge. Somewhat dated yet still related, James Burke explored a worst-case scenario in his “Connections” series.]
Tacky Raccoons 