Or, you JOIN the local ARES group, and do what I've done on more than one occasion

"Net Control - (My tactical call here - Let's say Shadow 1)"
"Shadow1, Go Ahead"
"Could you contact my emergency contact and let her know that I'm working this activation - KC2IXE"
"Roger - will do - (net controls call sign here)"

One small piece of traffic added to the net. Usually about 5 minutes later, you get a call
"Shadow1, Net Control"
"Net Control, Shadow1, Go Ahead"
"Message passed to your contact - (Net controls call sign here)"
"KC2IXE"

and it's DONE, and confirmed

First off, let me say that I have never been in a actual disaster emergency communications environment, so yes, I probably don't have the knowledge there.

miniMe, thos are good points, and very true, but I should have been a little more clear on what my assumptions were:

- Both the hardline and wireless telephone networks are down
- You have no access to the internet
- You have a 2 meter portable radio
- You have a no-code Technician license
- You haven't joined ARES
- No one else in your family is an amateur radio operator.
- You know no amateur radio operators near your family
- There is a significant disaster
- You're trying to communicate your safety to someone you care about, right after the start of the disaster.
- You expect that message to get to them within 15 minutes or less.

These assumptions are based upon my personal situation, with the exception of the ARES group, which I am a member of the local group. I felt that there was an expectation of cellphone-like response to sending messages with amateur radio.

Amateur radio is a great alternative, but I feel ( MY OPINION ) with the lowest level of equipment, licensing, involvement and pre-planning, you will have to wait possibly hours for your message to be delivered to loved ones. Especially if those people live in the immediate area.

What you have said, and what I've shown here, this tells everyone one thing:

PLAN AHEAD AND GET INVOLVED

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Unfortunately, any two way comms requires both ends to be capable. You won't be able to make a phone call to someone without a phone and you won't be able to make a radio contact to someone without a radio. Simple. If you have a contact person who also has a 2 meter ham radio you will be able to find plenty of empty bandwidth outside the ARES dominated Em-Comms frequencies to make your contacts. The ARES net will be predominated by emergency comms at first but after the first 24 hours you shouuld be able to get Health and Welfare comms through them as the urgent comms become less overwhelming. Best bet is to make friends through the Ham community with some hams outside your area. That way you will be able to establish secondary communications directly. Of course it would be better if someone in your family / circle of concern were to get lisenced and equipped to the level you are.

Also, Join ARES. As a member of the net you will know when it is quiet enough for a moment to drop in some personal comms without over burdening the net and you will be part of those solving the problems rather than a victim representing a problem to be solved.

During the first hours of the ARES activation, net operators may reasonably not be willing to take Health and welfare messages for transmit since they will want to reserve the bandwidth for tactical Emergency comms. OTOH, if you are a net operator or even a station operator you will find moments of relative quiet on the net that will allow you to drop in some informal Health and welfare of your own without anyone thinking poorly of it. By net I mean the radio net not the internet.

Someone on another forum was trying to tell me that Nextel phones would work without cell towers (i.e. CB radio like). i explained to him that even though you can talk to someone else on another nextel phone they are both still relaying off the tower and won't work if the tower goes down. I'm thinking there maybe a nextel model with some sort of local cpability, maybe on FRS frequencies but even is so they wouldn't be able to transmit very far. Anyone heard anything about these.

Nextels just don't work when TSHTF - heck, on bad regular days, they don't work. ASK your local Red Cross or Salvation Armay disaster manager. They were all ready to say "Bye" to hams at one point, then they figured out how poorly the Nextels really do (or any cell phone in REALLY bad spots)

As for FRS - the claim "up to 2 miles" - in real life, figure up to 1 mile, and in the city, a heck of a lot less. Even if there was a nextel with FRS, could you accept a range of < 1 mile, and a freq band with what, 12 channels?

Best bets?
1)CB - yeah, CB
2)GMRS - sort of like "super frs" but requires a license
3)convince the person/people you need to talk to to take the ham radio test. The "Tech" exam is REALLY REALLY easy

The Nextel phone with a standalone/direct mode is not available yet. It will function off network and it's not FRS. Perhaps in 3/4Q 2004 or 1Q 2005.

Thats what I thought. This was on another forum and the guy was suggestion those for situations where the cell towers were down or jammed (9/11 for example). I told him they would do no good then as they work just like other cell phones. On 9/11 the only people getting any kind of wireless through were text message subscribers. They were slow but still worked since they only take a small amout of time to squeeze a message through. I made sure our cell phones from then on were text capable even if it cost an extra fee to use so we have some fallback capability. I keep hoping somehow the phone standards will be raised since everyone uses their phones more and more, espically now with cellular internet and such. I remember years ago signing up for AOL 1.0 and getting charged $69 one month to get nothing but busy signals so I've been staying with small local companies until going cable so I would have a short distance to the connection and hopefully less chance of hitting busy circuits.

They would probably operate on the NEXTEL assigned frequencies (800Mhz range, FRS is in the 400Mzh range), and I don't see them being very powerful. Maybe good for something like a construction site, but site-to-site communications for anything over a mile. To get anything over that, you're going to need a bigger battery.