By Jon Gaffney For eight months I’ve lived on the road with my girlfriend on a long-term road trip. While we’ve taken a few short respites during the 15,000 miles we’ve covered, we’ve also camped in innumerable places with plans that are often in flux. I cringe every time I respond to the question of what our essentials are
Read MoreBy The ITS Crew What’s your plan when a 911 call doesn’t go through? Recently, AT&T experienced a 911 service outage, leaving some mobile phones unable to reach emergency services.. Today we’re going to cover a few things you can do to be prepared for a 911 outage. Without getting too far into the weeds, 911 service in
Read MoreBy The ITS Crew Not every situation is one that requires dialing 9-1-1; that line should be kept clear for true emergencies only. 911.gov defines a true emergency as “any situation that requires immediate assistance from the police, fire department or ambulance.” They also recommend that if you’re unsure whether the situation is a true emergency or not,
Read MoreBy Nick H. Day to day communication in the military differs greatly from that of civilian life. For instance, in the military everything is an acronym and actually becomes a language of its own. “Does your MOS require a PCS for your AIT or can your CMC just send you TDY/TAD?” Many of you know exactly
Read MoreBy Matthew Sharp Way back in 2001, I worked with a gentleman whose wife frequently made trips back to her home country of Argentina. In December of 2001, making these kinds of trips frequently was a bit “problematic” security-wise. One day at work, I spotted my coworker stepping outside to make a phone call. This was
Read MoreBy Derek Gill 2 of 2 in the seriesOverland Communications Overland Communications In our previous piece on Overland Communications, we touched on the many options available for contacting your off-road group or other members of civilized society. In this piece, I want to talk about how to maintain a reasonable level of Internet connectivity while you’re out in
Read MoreBy Derek Gill 1 of 2 in the seriesOverland Communications Overland Communications There are so many ways to stay connected in this world we so love to explore. The problem is that there are so many options, we either default to the bad ones or we take the advice of someone that doesn’t actually know what
Read MoreBy The ITS Crew License free, low cost, two-way communication. What’s not to love about MURS? MURS stands for Multi User Radio Service, and is one of the best kept secrets in personal and family radio communications. Formerly available only for business communications, the FCC has kept five MURS frequencies license-free and open for public use since
Read MoreBy The ITS Crew Amateur radio consists of a series of radio frequency bands designated internationally for public, non-commercial use. Various types of information can be transmitted over the bands, such as voice, video, and digital data. A doorway to the world, amateur radio can be used to communicate with people both local and distant. Even
Read MoreBy ke4sky The general public needs to be aware that cellular or PCS portable telephones may not “work” during an emergency when everyone tries to use them at once, because the system becomes “overloaded.” CERT, Neighborhood Watch and families should consider alternative means to check on each other’s kids, elderly neighbors or keep in touch to
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