Another article I came across: Wireless text is logical basis for an emergency info system

Thought I'd pass it along.

-- Craig

I'm going to have to mail them with my acronymn... WARN is such a lame acronym

They seem to be talking about SMS text messages, but don't those go down as soon as the cell phone towers get jammed with calls? Soon to be coming out is the ability to send morse code over SMS text messages. What is better is what Paul was talking about, using digital ham radio mode, PSK-31, over HF frequencies when all else goes down. Currently you need a computer to do that, but someday soon someone will get the software on a pocket pc for a more portable solution.

Gosh, you mean that 40 years later, the 35 wpm morse capability the military taught me as a Morse Intercept Operator finally has a civilian application <img src="/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Funny how technology comes full-circle sometimes.

I like the SMS idea too, assuming the towers aren't knocked down. Cellular carriers should be encoraged or required to have an emergency plan that includes shutting down or severely curtailing the ability to make voice calls except for special phones issued to emergency responders. That would reserve the available bandwidth for SMS text, which everyone else could use, and which would have a greatly increased chance of getting through. The phones themselves would display a message on their LCD in such a situation, saying voice service was out but SMS was avaliable.

In the GSM digital system, there is already a system in place for Area Info, and you can turn this on or off within each phone choose what kind of info you want to recieve.
I haven't see it used, but I believe in someplaces in Europe phone companies can and do give traffic info and weather warnings etc to their clients.

Also I have been told that in some places they have local Blue Tooth Wireless points broadcasting services and businesses nearby.
To use you search with a Blue Tooth enabled phone or PDA then connect to the broadcasting device.

For some reason, text messages seem to go through while calls do not.

The reason why it works is text messages are sent on the same control channel that your phones use to "negotiate" air time for voice calls.

The average cell phone control channel runs at 9600 baud (or higher). A 120 character message carries as much information as a 30 second voice contact. I'm not talking bytes, I'm talking about logical information. So, assuming their are 100 phones trying to get a voice channel, and there are 128 time slots available on the data channel, and no voice channels available. Those 100 phones are going to get a DENIED message, while your message, which isn't asking for a voice channel, will have its message processed and routed. Oh, what about if all 128 time slots are currently filled at this point in time? Your phone will wait and try again.

Cellular companies would never do this, but there are a few technical reasons (not software, hardware...) it be difficult, but if the cell phones could "revert" to simply two-way simplex radio devices, that could be useful. Instead of a star-topology wireless network system, it would become a distributed network system. Amateur Radio is valued because of its distributed nature (yes, I know we have repeaters, but you can still effectively operate with most mobiles, without a repeater). Kazaa and Napster were/are valued because of their distributed nature.

Yeah, I failed to read the entire article before posting. I hope it works well.

My Nokia phone spits out morse code "S. M. S." whenever I get a text message. This was by default!

Nextel's "Direct Talk" feature reportedly allows off-network communications, but I cannot confirm the reliability of this operation first-hand. I also think you have to manually select this function, the radio does not automatically revert to it.

I have also heard anecdotal evidence that Nextel DirectConnect seems to get through when the networks are congested. Presumably due to the smaller amounts of data going through, and it is more "packetized" in nature.

I always wondered what the morse code was that was coming out, it sounded ALOT like SOS.

xbanker, it sounds like you and me been down the same road. Did you get the Samuel B. Morse award too?

I was in Pensacola for 18 months. One of the few CTR/Ms out there I hear. Did you ever go CCSOC?

Ben-

PM'd you.

This fellow posts an interesting pager newsletter.
Brad Dye
Of particular interest and appropriate to this thread is the Issue #182 : Sept 30 edition. It seems that plain old two-way pagers continued to function quite well during the NOLA event. The article in question is about 1/2 way through that newsletter. I would also encourage reading some of the other issues before & after that date.

Best Regards,

Sandpine