I agree with some of the comments made so far, ESPECIALLY that very few, if
any,
contesters would KNOWINGLY interfere with any emergency operation.
I also agree that there needs to be multiple methods of emergency communication
backup,
meaning other modes or QRGs.
Here is my analogy:
Where I live, we have LOTS of deer. During the Winter months, well, they are
hungry and eat
the shrubs. So when we buy shrubs/landscaping, we look for "deer resistant" or
"deer repellent"
species of foliage.
But that really means nothing because.....when the deer are hungry, they will
sample everything.
That means that each poor little shrub gets "nibbled" at least a little...by
each deer. So
multiple a couple nibbles time hundreds of deer times the number of days of the
cold season.
When Spring rolls around, the deer resistant shrubs are GONE.
Here is what I suspect might happen with the NET under IDEAL conditions: During
a major
contest (CQWW being the biggest), the e-net is operating on some fixed QRG.
The first
contester stops by and calls CQ. He is immediately told that the freq is in
use. He leaves.
Less than 10 seconds later, the next contests find this "clear" spot and does
the same thing.
By the time the contest is over, 1000's of stations have stopped by this QRG.
Because of
differences in antennas and power, some of the contesters can't even hear the
e-net, but
the e-net, due to low power, temporary antennas in the hurricane, or whatever,
sure do hear
the contesters!
Further, there are many countries involved, not just USA and not all of which
will look for an
announcement of an e-net at ARRL (or wherever else).
There is just no way that a "local" emergency that originates just before or
even during the
contest period is going to be able to get the word out the contest community.
This is not
intentional ignorance by contesters...it's just the way it is. We are focused
on something
else, at least until we run into the net and are told first-hand this "this is
an emergency."
It would make infinite sense to me to move the phone net to the CW portion of
the band.
Certainly that would be permissible during a declared real emergency, right?
de Doug KR2Q
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