I agree! Being a ham since 14, I usually "forget" that ham radio is also for emergency use. It is just an automatic response. We are lucky where I work. We have public safety repeaters with multiple voting receivers. If the system should fail, the repeater goes into "stand-alone repeat mode". We also have a simplex base at the station. All of the portables and mobiles can go to simplex. Public safety radio sites are at different locations than the cell sites. The two cell carriers that we use do not share towers (actually buildings) in our area. Our ARES/RACES group is not as active as I would like to see. That is on my list of things to change. Thanks for the additional ideas. Something else to bring up to the boss when I see him this week. He actually enjoys our emergency preparedness chats, provided that I do the work, and he does not. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />