With communication still limited after Helene devastated western North Carolina, ham radio operators in the Triangle and other areas are trying to help people connect with loved ones unable to make calls or evacuate.
As fas as the mainstream media (M5M) are concerned, ham radio doesn’t exist. All I’ve heard about are heroic efforts to distribute Starlink terminals.
As past FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, KK4INZ, said in Ham Radio Now Emcomm Extra #8, when an incident occurs “they just want their email to work.”
The star links sucked anyways. Can really only handle like 100 connections before they overheat and they put them all on 192.168.0.0/24 address space so when you have 500+ people trying to connect it just straight up didn't work.
Luckily switching to 10.0.1.0/16 is easy, but most of the people they were handed out to didn't know that. Meanwhile HAM radio just works. It can also support unlimited connections.