"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
More like 1975, not 2011 and this isn't Israel.
Actually that's the US, and not here. In Israel there are 600 or so licensed
hams, with about 250 in the IARC. With an almost 100% draft/national service,
there is no need for hams as emergency communications.
There were about 50 to 100 more two years ago, but the government sent out
bills to renew the licenses and they decided it was not worth the money.
There are plenty of radios in the government and IDF (military) and between
previous experience in the military, annual reserve duty, and volunteer
units (such as the border police, etc) there is absolutely no need for hams.
The other big privleges/service the hams did was phone patches, which have
been obsolete since 1997 when the price of international calls became
cheaper than cross country ones and cell phones became cheap.
In fact the IARC decided to do a drill this year just to do one, and they
scheduled on the sabbath, which meant that 99% of the hams in Jerusalem and
environment would not participate. It was like the ARRL scheduling a nationwide
emergency drill without Maryland, Virgina, DC and so on.
There are plenty of commercial FM radios around, and all the county
radios are digital. The only amateur related emergency gear is the
club's HF station, near the county offices. They don't have a spare
tower, or antennas that could be erected in a couple hours and there is
no way in hell they could put up a replacement commercial digital radio
base station or cell phone tower, even if they had months.
They don't need one. The ARRL's purpose in these drills is to do "health and
welfare" messages e.g. "your aunt Matilda's ok in a shelter, but her house
washed away". This is to offload that work from NGOs like the Red Cross
and Salvation Army, so they can provide relief services.
There also is no need to replace commercial digital radio base stations
or cell phone towers, etc. There are plenty of people in the world who can
do that, once the dust settles they will. It's the first few days that
are critical.
During which no one can help. A lot of radio stations lost their
generators of STLS during the last round of hurricanes in Central
Florida. The only news was via SW, but those services are no longer
broadcasting to the US.
If things work properly, then the hams come in provide communications in
the background for the "victims" without getting in the way.
Few HF antennas survive a hurricane around here. Downed power lines
and little fuel availible for generators. In some places, people with a
working cable modem are the only outside communications, since the RR
backbone is buried fiber optic and it covers large areas of the US.
I know the hams here could not do it, and the ones that could would be
back with their reserve units anyway. but here ham radio has never been
much more than a hobby.
Going back to David's question, I pointed out ham radio because he could
use it to connect with someone who did know what he wanted and would be
willing to help him. Someone pooh-poohed the idea because they wanted one
to one instruction, which they would not of gotten from a web forum, which
was the original request.
It all comes down to expecting that someone who actually knows op-amps and
is willing to answer questions about them is going to spend their time
looking for and answering questions on a web forum.
I posted links to the proper Usenet groups, a free spice program and
a Yahoo support group. I still don't like the idea of using an opamp in
a SMPS.
99% of the questions asked on web forums are so basic that they are a waste
of time to answer and the self proclaimed experts are unable to answer
even those.
BTW, did Don Lancaster ever update his "OP Amp Cookbook"?
Ask him. He posts on sci.electronics.design once in a while. His
website is
http://www.tinja.com He put a few of his books online a
while back and posted links.
--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a Band-Aid™ on it, because it's
Teflon coated.