In the United States and Canada, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is a corps of trained amateur radio operator volunteers organized to assist in public service and emergency communications. It is organized and sponsored by the American Radio Relay League and the Radio Amateurs of Canada.
Communication failures have been a defining part of natural disasters and even some human-generated events such as the September 11 attacks that occurred in New York City in 2001. A lack of communication between firefighters at the World Trade Center contributed directly to the deaths of 300 of those firefighters. Amateur radio provides a means of communication "when all else fails".
Read more about Amateur Radio Emergency Service: Historical Operations, Organizational Structure, Mutual Assistance, Alternative Groups
Famous quotes containing the words amateur, radio, emergency and/or service:
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“A liberal is a socialist with a wife and two children.”
—Anonymous. BBC Radio 4 (April 8, 1990)
“In this country, you never pull the emergency brake, even when there is an emergency. It is imperative that the trains run on schedule.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)