I had a two way pager through work, it would eat an Alkaline battery a week. I took one of my old NiMH's from 1999 (1650mAH) and it would go two weeks. They replaced the pagers with blackberry's a couple years ago because the blackberry service was the same cost and we can get our e-mail and calendar and such as well.

Does anyone remember a few years ago when one of the communication satellites used for pagers went out of orbit and a bunch of doctor's lost service, it was big news then.

If you want to go back in time (at least 30 years) to have a warm pint then Sinatras in Dundee is the place to go.

If you want to feel really old then the Social is the place to go...

What ever happened to ham radio? I used to use it...don't even own any gear now...would love a pure digital pager/sms like network for robust short comms.

Way too expensive for me to buy "just to have," but the Motorola DTR series seems like it can provide pretty secure, robust, digital voice and SMS for point-to-point comms (if that's how you're defining "short comms").

Tri-square also makes some ISM band two-way radios, but I hear they're junk.

Since the OP is talking about the 9/11 Commission results, didn't they also recommend that we establish a civilian Signal Corps ASAP made up of Amateur Radio folks? Hmmm, another decent suggestion gone by the wayside.

For some reason, I'm having a problem in the "reliable" department right now, and it's a good lesson/reminder for all you folks interested in Emergency Comms.

I acquired 3 brand-new and name-brand FM transceivers in the last year to use specifically for emergency SHTF communications. They have been used very little, and the batteries have been judiciously and sensibly kept charged. 99% of the time, they sit handily on a table in my den turned off and ready to be grabbed at a moment's notice.

First one of them, and then another of a different manufacture, failed to receive at all. They transmit fine, but won't receive anything. Within a few days of their inexplicably crapping out, they had both been checked and found to be functioning perfectly.

So, a reminder of a couple lessons:

1. Two is one, and one is none.
2. And just because it's working perfectly today, doesn't mean it will work worth poo tomorrow.

"I was just thinking the same thing," says the old codger, as he mixes up a glass of Metamucil...

Did a test a week or so ago myself, my handheld CB could no longer get a signal past the next street so no chance of getting the .5 mile to my work. I need to figure out if I just got the antenna mixed up with my scanner or if the transmit is bad.

Take a look at PSK31. With the right antenna you can easily get over 1000 miles of DX with five watts on a battery pack.

SW sounds good at first,i have a old Hallicrafters that i use to listen in with,but i could see the waves so jammed up in a real nation wide emergency that you would never be able to get thru unless you had a huge rig and kept at it day and night.for local stuff like a earth quake or storm SW could be useful.it takes skill to use SW,you can't just turn it on and start shouting "CQ__CQ!!!..and who knows the quality of the info you might pick up...

The hams are still here, and there were some rave articles RE Joplin etc

If you're a pager user in the Baltimore to Boston area, the odds are pretty good I know the guy who owns your pager company/parger site. He's hoping it lasts long enough for him to retire - He is shutting down sites all the time, the main users left are, believe it or not, hospitals

Last time I saw him, he was talking about his shutting of a site in Northeast NJ. He said "It just didn't pay anymore" - basically he had a situation where he had ONE subscriber in the covered area, almost NO transients. The MD in question wasn't happy he was losing service, but the why my friend explained it to him "Tower and radio rack rent for the antenna that cover your home cost me in the 4 figures/month, I charge you, what 20-30/month (or whatever it is - I didn't get the exact amounts) - I can't afford to keep the tower up for just you