I recently heard a phone company bigwig on TV saying that text messaging was the only system getting through consistently on 9/11 in DC after the Pentagon was hit. Apparently it uses much less bandwidth and wasn't clobbered the way the voice freqs were. I know that when there's a major traffic disruption here and I can't get a signal on my cell phone, my text messages always go through.

Not having my cell phone is a no-go item for me.

Also, most of the big phone company cards (AT&T in particular) have no expiration dates on them. At least mine never do. There's no magnetic strip either -- it's just the 1-800 number plus a PIN.

Also, in a PSK, you can type your phone contacts on a sheet of paper and tape it to the front of the phone card, then wrap your fishing line around the notched card <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

JMHO --