MN>Doesn't it just tick you off when you forget the antenna. I've done
MN>that before, now I have an extra rubber ducky in my glove box.
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Isn't that a song by Merle Haggard or someone?  Sounds familiar.  :-)
MN> BA> turned out, there were 550 refugees in the shelter, and I was the 
nly
MN> BA> one with a scanner.  There was a ham operator set up in one corner of
MN> BA> the cafeteria for radio communications, but he kept the volume turned
MN> BA> way down and kept pretty much to himself.
MN>There is a reason he stuck to himself. The most important is that
MN>(as you noticed) he was very busy. Another reason is that he didn't
MN>want to be bothered by people concerning minor matters like the
MN>safety of their dog or cat.
Yeah, that's pretty much the way I figured it, too.  Hurricane
conditions are the last situation to be bothering someone trying to get
important work done.
MN>Twenty repeaters would be too many for me to monitor. I think I
MN>would find a "hot one" and stick with it. The ones you really want
MN>are the RACES and ARES repeaters.
I normally only listen to the one repeater, but I just plugged the
others in because I didn't know at the time how active they are and
whether they were RACES or ARES.  Most of the other repeaters were South
Carolina repeaters within 60 miles or so.  They were pretty silent, so
next time, I'll just leave them out.
MN>I hope you shook his hand and thanked him. It is often a thankless
MN>job. It does have it's rewards though. When a forest fire threatened
MN>the town of Los Gatos California, I helped manning a shelter there,
I unfortunately have never met many of the ham crowd around here (a
situation about to change - I have my "Now You're Talking" on order).  I
don't know how much recognition they get from the emergency management
people, but I've never seen much mention of them in the paper or on the
radio.  Indeed a thankless job.
MN>Did you feel in any danger at the shelter?
They had us in the gym and cafeteria at first, and when the winds
started gusting to about 80 or so, they moved us into the classrooms.
The only places in the school with a chance of getting torn up by the
winds were the gym and cafeteria, because of the massive amounts of roof
area without support columns. But the rest of the school is solidly
built.  It was pretty safe.
MN>Martin
Thanks.
B*Allen
 þ SLMR 2.1a þ When I was a kid we carved our modems out of wood.
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