I have recently become more aware of and generally interested in electronics and amateur radio, and it got me thinking. What advantage, if any, would there be to having amateur radio experience, over a simple disaster crank radio/flashlight, in the event of a major natural disaster or some other emergency that leads to a longer delay in power being restored? For the sake of argument, let’s assume you have a generator or battery bank to supply your own electricity.
Probably a lot. There’s was (is?) a long productive relationship between Red Cross disaster efforts and amateur radio.
Still is. My brother is a ham radio operator. When certain areas get hard hit, if normal communication towers go down, they will fly in ham radio operators .
He hasn’t been called yet (not sure if he’s on a list to be called) but it wouldn’t surprise me if he is.
And HAM operators near the area helps relaying information from people on the ground