I know very little about the amateur radio scene and don’t quite understand the impact this would have.
When I lived in a Western US state, there was some bad weather and a child went missing. The amateur radio community heavily overlapped with first responders and search & rescue types. Completely on their own, they organized and managed a search, mustering hundreds of people efficiently, while keeping local law enforcement in the loop. Law enforcement simply didn’t have the resources and relied on this volunteer hobbyist community for situations like this.
If public frequencies are turned over to corporations, would that eliminate the ability for such a volunteer effort to spring up? Would they have to pay for frequency access and be subject to whatever limits and censorship some corporation inflicts?
Yes, the goal is for corporations to profit from everything. So either the corpos will own the bands and sell access rights licenses, or they’ll just hoard the bands for some possible future use and these communities will die, or go underground, committing crimes just to help people.
Edit: I guess another possibility is that the corporations own the bands and then allow temporary access during emergencies, so they get full credit and free advertising for the rescue efforts of amateur volunteers.
Under corporate ownership, I imagine that scenario would have gone more like:
Please donate $10 to help volunteer amateur radio enthusiasts use our frequencies to help search for missing people’s. For every $10 donation, we will volunteer 10 min airtime.
I know very little about the amateur radio scene and don’t quite understand the impact this would have.
When I lived in a Western US state, there was some bad weather and a child went missing. The amateur radio community heavily overlapped with first responders and search & rescue types. Completely on their own, they organized and managed a search, mustering hundreds of people efficiently, while keeping local law enforcement in the loop. Law enforcement simply didn’t have the resources and relied on this volunteer hobbyist community for situations like this.
If public frequencies are turned over to corporations, would that eliminate the ability for such a volunteer effort to spring up? Would they have to pay for frequency access and be subject to whatever limits and censorship some corporation inflicts?
Yes, the goal is for corporations to profit from everything. So either the corpos will own the bands and sell access rights licenses, or they’ll just hoard the bands for some possible future use and these communities will die, or go underground, committing crimes just to help people.
Edit: I guess another possibility is that the corporations own the bands and then allow temporary access during emergencies, so they get full credit and free advertising for the rescue efforts of amateur volunteers.
Under corporate ownership, I imagine that scenario would have gone more like:
Please donate $10 to help volunteer amateur radio enthusiasts use our frequencies to help search for missing people’s. For every $10 donation, we will volunteer 10 min airtime.
🤮