The Must-Have When Reporting on Disasters: A Satellite Phone

I remember him. He's the guy who wouldn't, and still doesn't, report on the incompetent corruption of Oakland, California's corrupt, first, black woman fire chief, not to mention the somewhat questionable skewed priorities of the liberal progressive city administration that hired her. As far as I am concerned he is not a real journalist. He's just a liberal democrat loyalist who doesn't dare say any fact that might make liberals look less than great and all powerful, all benevolent. He no doubt needs a satellite phone to get his instructions from democratic party headquarters before he publishes an article.

I got my amateur radio license last year. UHF/VHF radios are small, cheap, last long, fun to play with, and don't rely on repeater systems if the other party is only 5-10 miles away. When you feel good about that, you can try to pursue HF systems with gives you ~100 mile range in CW mode with a relatively affordable antenna set. My idea about the sequence of money expenditure is first $50-100 on a basic handheld with transmission functions, $50 on license, $400-600 on a better handheld with digital modes and APRS and $100 on its antenna, $50 on general class license, $600-800 on a 40 meter band $200-300 on its loop antenna set. After that, aim for the full shack with electrician tools like oscilloscopes and signal generators, the highly efficient big Yagi antenna on your roof, etc. Spending too little wastes time and spending too much wastes money. Spend 50 hours in UHF/VHF, 50 hours in Morse code and 200 hours in basic electronics (if you are not lucky enough to have an ECE degree) before you move into HF, or it can be frustrating. Don't rush to the next step and make sure you can fully exploit the performance of what you have first.

Living in a New York suburb, where my cell phone routinely drops calls, I was intrigued by the idea of a satellite phone that works everywhere. What a concept...a phone that works everywhere. Wait for 5G where the signal is faster but only when you're close to a tower. Anyone else think we are moving in the wrong direction?

1. I tried Spanish only TV for my kids. 2 years. No effect 2. I still have a copper based (not cable based) land line. Although I terminated the service , I still have a dial tone. At some point, I was told it would work for 911 and that this was a NYS law. I never tested it, but the dial tone is still there :-) ! The TWC guy who fixed my coax cable when it failed (water got into it) told me that copper based land lines never fail 3. Ham Radio is unbeatable, but you must have back up power, get licensed , and you must be a US citizens to to do so.

If things get bad enough the earth based systems that control the satellites will fail too. Satellite technology requires constant monitoring. All technology has a soft spot.

As someone who lives in the Bay Area, (and was here for the 80 quake, when SF home phones were knocked out), I find it incredibly depressing that satellite phones are completely out of my reach ($500-1K!). When I was stuck in SF after the earthquake hit, I wasn't able to get to a working pay phone (a pay phone! those were the days) to call my out of state family until late at night. I also called my home # and changed the outgoing message to folks know I was OK and that was helpful. But since we're all on cell now, I don't expect that to be possible...

I suggest people read "The Big one" if they feel that technology will help much when these random events occur.It is a wonderful book all about what has happen, how people react and also what is about to happen ,maybe this afternoon. I grew up in Florida and went through one tornadoe and many hurricanes . We never lost our phone connection never. Of course that was old fashioned land lines.

When we went into Iraq in 2003 and I needed to be able to contact the States quickly I used an Iridium satphone PLUS the solar charger, which at the time was high-tech. I even had a scrambler - everything off the shelf. Worked like a charm and also let me talk to my wife at will (yes, it was authorized by the Marines as I was directing reach-back intell analysis). Great piece of gear.

Twitter can be very good depending upon how you set it up and use it. I use it to follow authors, journalists and experts in areas I have interest in. That is a great way to know when they have something new up online or a new book or a public appearance. Anything that pops up that does not interest me gets muted or blocked.

Amateur Radio is another alternative when infrastructure is down. Every month in San Francisco (and thousands of communities around the US), small groups of unheralded, volunteer Amateur Radio "Ham's" practice emergency communications...just in case. Hams in the vicinity of Paradise, CA were reporting the magnitude and severity of the (so-called) Camp Fire hours before it made the news. "When all else fails, Amateur Radio might get through."

I wonder does the Times subsidize the cost of a Satellite phone and it's service? It seems to me that using one would be cost prohibitive. How much are talking about here in terms of service? $500 a month and upwards? It would be very interesting to know just how much money such a thing cost on a personal consumer level.

Thanks; so how about a review somewhere ( Wirecutter? ) of these Satellite phones?

"Audionote . . . it’s a word processor and voice recorder melded into one. So if you’re at a news conference or doing a sit-down interview, you type as you record. Then you can go back to the text, click on the words and listen to the recording from that moment. It’s a great tool for deadline writing." Thank you from the bottom of my heart and two terribly arthritic paws for mentioning "Audionote". I've tried some of the other voice recognition software which was more trouble than it was worth. I am hopeful this product will be an answer to my prayers. My brain is working light years ahead of my hands on a constant basis. Between the frustration of the stiff and painful fingers which causes me to lose my train of thought, often times I just sit at the key board, crying because I am so dang angry. Thank you again for this informative and entertaining article. Thanks for covering all of those dangerous situations throughout the world. Stay safe.