When disaster strikes, and conventional communication systems fail, amateur ham radio operators step in to bridge the gap, providing a crucial link between those in affected areas and the outside world.
Ham does require that one studies electric engineering (to a some level) and passes a test to acquire a license. Some of the equipment can either kill you or cause way too much interference potentially killing others indirectly
Not for nothing but I got my novice and tech license in grade school.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Looking back it was basically brain dumping (and learning code well enough to pass the 5WPM test).
Ended up getting 13WPM and general and advanced in 7th grade.
I still have my license, just renewed it a couple months ago. But haven’t keyed up in maybe 15 years. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I just got a little handheld transceiver on temu and haven’t used it at all.
Huh. I wonder how you do that. If the wind knocked down a tree and the tree killed someone, would the wind indirectly have killed someone? That’s kind of like the old adage “speed doesn’t kill, it’s the sudden stop”
If you’re fucking around with your radio equipment doing something you shouldn’t and end up causing interference on, for example, aircraft frequencies or emergency service radio systems, you could be a contributing factor to an airliner crashing or an ambulance not being dispatched in a timely manner and a patient dying because they didn’t get to the hospital in time.
You didn’t directly kill anyone, but you set up the circumstances that resulted in someone dying.
Uhhh, no. I can’t speak to the ambulance comms, but a plane isn’t going to fall out of the sky because they can’t hear the radio. Even if they have to fly VFR and make an emergency landing (which would be the worst case). Waaay too many safeguards in place (including the pilot themselves being trained for loss of comms).
The radio in the plane could melt and you’d still be able to communicate with ATC via light guns.
Ham does require that one studies electric engineering (to a some level) and passes a test to acquire a license. Some of the equipment can either kill you or cause way too much interference potentially killing others indirectly
Not for nothing but I got my novice and tech license in grade school.
I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Looking back it was basically brain dumping (and learning code well enough to pass the 5WPM test).
Ended up getting 13WPM and general and advanced in 7th grade.
I still have my license, just renewed it a couple months ago. But haven’t keyed up in maybe 15 years. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I just got a little handheld transceiver on temu and haven’t used it at all.
My local 2m is just old guys talking about Trump/conservative politics and their health conditions sadly.
Huh. I wonder how you do that. If the wind knocked down a tree and the tree killed someone, would the wind indirectly have killed someone? That’s kind of like the old adage “speed doesn’t kill, it’s the sudden stop”
If you’re fucking around with your radio equipment doing something you shouldn’t and end up causing interference on, for example, aircraft frequencies or emergency service radio systems, you could be a contributing factor to an airliner crashing or an ambulance not being dispatched in a timely manner and a patient dying because they didn’t get to the hospital in time.
You didn’t directly kill anyone, but you set up the circumstances that resulted in someone dying.
Uhhh, no. I can’t speak to the ambulance comms, but a plane isn’t going to fall out of the sky because they can’t hear the radio. Even if they have to fly VFR and make an emergency landing (which would be the worst case). Waaay too many safeguards in place (including the pilot themselves being trained for loss of comms).
The radio in the plane could melt and you’d still be able to communicate with ATC via light guns.
Same reason why power-line can do that; interference with emergency services radio.
It’s not that hard to use ham radio equipment to screw with things like aviation com/nav radios and the like.