Strata Rose Chalup wrote:
Yes, very. The #coverage channel on slashnet had folks watching/listening to various conventional media, as well as monitoring international news sites, and posting updates and links via moderators. A tremendous amount of info came in that way, and usually scooped any individual media station.
I'd guess that setting up an IRC net for nanog-type operational traffic would be very helpful. Equally helpful would be gatewaying that net via packet radio on amateur frequencies. "Commercial" traffic is prohibited, but in a disaster this kind of thing would be equivalent to health-and-welfare traffic.
This is a gray area. Certainly any traffic related to the immediate saftey of life or property is permitted when "normal" communications services are unavailable. Here's the section of FCC rules part 97 that is relevant: http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/news/part97/e.html The main focus seems to be using the amateur service in place of disabled/overloaded communications systems for carrying traffic directly related to the rescue/relief efforts. It would probably be a good idea to ammend the rules to explicitly allow traffic related to restoring other communication services (including the Internet) damaged in a disaster. This could apply to helping wireline networks, broadcast stations and ISP's get back online. Thereby using the "backup system" to help get the primary systems back online. KL (N3KL) bcc: w5jbp@arrl.org