Normally, that would be the best place for them. The transmitting antennas were supposedly on the top of a skyscraper downtown. Their fancy, schmancy digital stuff (paid for with grants from DHS/FEMA) worked great until they didn't. If you listened to the Hurricane Watch Net for any length of time during Irma, you had some of the EOCs in Florida using ham HF to report weather conditions, damage, and other things.īTW, the Harris County (Houston area) EOC had started packing up to evac because of flood waters. And, COWS and COLTS couldn't and didn't get there very quickly and still haven't gotten to some places. In the Keys and in the USVI, comms went down very quickly and very completely. Over in the Irma thread, the actual FCC statistics were also posted. (If I remember, that was only like 5% of the total, which strikes me as a YUUUUGE number of towers.) Harris County, which includes Houston, had 1000 cell towers go off-line. But they are getting fewer and less significant.During Harvey, there were 2 counties that had virtually all cell services knocked out due to wind. Not saying there won't be the occasional ham contribution. So I have a hard time believing the 90% statistic. I did notice some problems with power based on cellular comm's with my friends and customers, and some problem with the internet, but I had no difficulties reaching people by cellular, at least in the central Gulf coast. And, while I am not privy to any precise statistics, I have a number of friends and customers in Florida, mostly on the Gulf coast from Naples to Tampa, and I had ZERO difficulty texting or talking to any of them even during the height of the storm. In fact, Zello worked for Harvey because the cellular infrastructure DID survive/recover reasonably well (not that it didn't take some damage).
ZELLO CAJUN NAVY OFFLINE
In Florida, in the Keys and at least 2 other counties, over 90% of the cell towers were destroyed or knocked offline Hahahaha! You just invalidated the second sentence with the first. The problem with counting on something like Zello to save the day is that the cell service and internet in affected areas can be virtually non-existent. Hahahaha! You just invalidated the second sentence with the first. But they are getting fewer and less significant.
But the quantity of requests for help made via cellular will still be hugely superior to that from ham radio. Sure, not everyone will get their comm's through via cellular. And, with the force multiplier of social media and app's like Zello, even a badly wounded cellular infrastructure will now ALWAYS be many orders of magnitude more effective than amateur radio because the ratio of cellular "operators" to ham radio operators is thousands to one. With every hurricane or flood they do a better and better job of hardening both public and private comm's infrastructure, and a better job of repairing/restoring it.
View QuoteHahahaha! You just invalidated the second sentence with the first.
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