I'm watching the nightly national news while Oklahoma City is ground zero for yet another tornado without respite insight after a recent F5 devastated Moore, Oklahoma. Additionally, a string of cities remain within the path of potential tornadoes as far north as Chicago, according to Weather Channel radar projections. Furthermore, our National Hurricane Center projects a troublesome hurricane season while California is beginning to experience the influence of prolonged draught manifesting as potential fire storms.
I know that our emergency communication (EMCOMM) niche has taken big hits in the past. Perhaps, we hoped against hope, that a predicted future of severely disturbed weather patterns remained in that place of pseudo-science. Our future seemed far away, over the horizon and out of reach. Yet, the physical, in your face, evidence of climate change at least from my perspective is now at hand; especially as certain locations on the East Coast are still struggling after Super Storm Sandy.
The importance of EMCOMM is not going to diminish instead EMCOMM is going to grow exponentially in my lifetime. Our niche of dedicated storm watchers or net operators are going to earn rock star status within the unwritten hall of fame that is shared by word of month.
It is the complexity of modern communication systems specifically cellular networks connected to the Internet which presents ham radio as the most resilient communication system in times of severe disruption to complete failure.
EMCOMM success is ad hoc flexible capable of regenerating itself in many different hardware configurations and communication modes. People will see this despite the best efforts of commercial communication interests. EMCOMM is potentially more capable of moving 140 character driven traffic in a post storm environment than cellular systems remotely controlled by an algorithm at a distant operation's center prioritizing traffic.
Field Day is fast approching, I've said it once and will say it again, Field Day is not a contest. I'd encourage all of us to really dig into the purpose and mission of our national communication exercise that is emergency preparedness. Likewise, without disturbing the natural order of things, maybe it is high time to begin moving traffic instead of cloned exchanges, that simulates a contest. Instead, we need to begin advocating for traffic handling training where simulated morale and welfare messages are communicated from coast to coast.
73 from the shackadelic near the beach.