Interesting comments!
Over the next day or two I will check informally with a couple friends in
the international sailing community to get a perspective on their viewpoint
and a sense of the amount of support that actually exists presently ( these
friends are not hams themselves).
One might think that with GPS, satellites links etc ham radio would be of
greatly decreased use in today's high tech environment . . but we know
that's not true. . the ham contribution to communication in emergencies
remains extremely valuable and is well-supported in the Congress.
I too was a little taken aback at the relatively small number of reported
maritime incidents . . but we don't know if these reports are
comprehensive, or accurate. However decisions about such issues are often
more political than numerical. I just know that the sailing community has
strongly supported ham radio and that the non-hams of that group are
genuinely appreciative of the hobby.
I thought the suggestion of 14360 was really excellent. I guess analogous to
out-of-ham band MARS frequencies?
73 Bill n6zfo
On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 10:09 PM, Bill Haddon <haddon.bill@gmail.com> wrote:
> RE MMRS Petition:
>
> I have a different perspective.
>
> For the last 17 years my family has spent Thanksgiving with members and
> friends of two major sailing clubs in the SF Bay area (we are not sailers,
> however). A wide variety of people have attended these gatherings, which
> are usually 20-25 people. Without exception, members of the sailing
> community have high regard for ham radio because of the services provided by
> MMSN.
>
> It may be useful to look at the compilation of reported incidents at:
>
> http://www.mmsn.org/recent_events.htm
>
> MMRN is asking for about 5 or 6 KHz, a very small percentage of the 20m
> phone band. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me particularly after reading
> the list of incidents that the group has dealt with. These stories are
> similar to those I've heard from attendees at our Thanksgiving group.
>
> 73 Bill n6zfo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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