[Rick.Donaldson]

Yeah. Actually, Hams and MARS stations. MARS stations are actually Ham Radio operators with two licenses, one to operate Amateur Radio in their bands and one to operate within military bands providing health and welfare traffic (and phone calls home over HF etc).

Yes, Guard units indeed DO have good communications systems. I was NCOIC of a communications flight here in Colorado with HF, UHF, VHF and computer systems setups that were deployable in many circumstances, and could (and HAVE) been used in emergency communications.

However, MOST Guard units are small, and there are very few of them.

[Lurker]

Obviously this clown, Romney, hasn't even taken a passing glance at his own State's EOP Emergency Support Function 2.

If he doesn't have at least a passing familiarity with the role ARRL will play during a widespread disaster he's not fit to run a County, let alone a Country.

L

[ElectricStrawberry]

That's what it was called.....we had a "MARS" building on-post where we could write messages to send just about anywhere over the HAM network.

In MA...we have loads of Guard units...69 active armories/units. Just my infantry Bn had 5 units of 100-120 each....and we've got 3 Inf. Bns.

The way emergencies work in MA is that there's a signals corps that sets up immediate communications for the guvna...with a mobile signals corps unit right in front of the Statehouse...so I'm just wondering why there would be a need to use the HAM operators at all. 69 Army units in a state the size of MA is a whole lot of communications support.

Really...what I don't get is how Romney saying "No, we don't need to deal with ham radio operators..." with reference to "communications during an emergency/crisis" is a "dissing HAM operators".....when the state has millions of dollars of military comms at its disposal.