Subj : Re: Hamshack Hotline
To   : dotslash
From : Andre Robitaille
Date : Sat Mar 19 2022 09:28 am

 do> Fair enough, it does seem that at least one of the main ideas behind HH 
 do> is in fact EmComm, which does look a bit "stretchy". 

Not "a bit." Completely. It requires internet to run. Which means wherever this 
emergency would take place that would need phone/fax you would have laptops 
with actual connectivity... Voice/video calls, file transfer, document 
collaboration SaaS tools, etc. EmComm is already redundant because of pop-up 
cell towers. Hamshack Hotline is just wildly pointless for EmComm.

 do> But then again you can level the same criticism 
 do> at DMR/DV/EchoLink over the internet

I do. All the time. I always say that voice digital modes are the least ham 
radio thing I do in ham radio. Where they do have more use though, is 
radio-to-radio and radio-to-repeater. In that scenario they can provide 
supplimentary data... callsigns, location, man down alarms, etc.

 do> ... which doesn't make them any less fun or relevant.

That's the real reason to do it. Hobby. Fun. Learning and experimentation. 
Those are the reasons that ham radio is still relevant. The service and 
communication reasons are gone, made irrelevant by new technology. And that 
awful clinging to it makes us look ridculous to getting makers, educators, and 
youth into radio. 

It's no different than the occasional new sysop that comes on and says the 
internet is awful and they're going to revitalize BBSing. It's delusion, and I 
don't want the (somewhat) normal of us to be associated with things that make 
us look crazy and turn off potential youth/new interest for the right reasons.


- Andre
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