Citation needed, please. If you won't provide that, maybe somebody else will?

47 CFR 97.403 is a quite broad provision. A similar provision exists in 47 CFR 2.405 for non-amateur and non-broadcast stations, but note that while 2.405 requries station licensees to formally notify the FCC that they're operating outside of their licensing terms due to an emergency/disaster, and they still can't change their power level or frequencies, amateur stations don't have those requirements. I suppose this is a reflection of how licensees covered by 2.405 tend to be operating on tightly packed channels next to other licensees, while most amateurs have VFO tuning.

Since there's also a specific rule allowing amateur stations to engage in cross-service contacts in emergencies, I suppose what the FCC wants is that the amateur station tunes a PMR frequency rather than the PMR station tries to tune into the amateur band.

Not only would encryption be allowed under 97.403, but the amateur station would be allowed to operate outside the band limits and power limits that normally would apply, the operator can be doing it on paid time, and using equipment that violates emission standards, etc. The degree to which one can ignore the other rules, would of course depend on how necessary it was to do so. I'd think that only the content of confidential emergency messages would be justified to be encrypted - the callsigns and addressing would need to be in the clear both for routing purposes and since they would not be considered confidential.

Note that even though there's a general prohibition on encryption - with the exception of satellite commands - there's a special rule in Part 97, as well as in the general FCC rules, which say that in a true emergency one is allowed to disregard the other rules if necessary. The clause in Part 97 is
Even if that clause wasn't there, the principle of necesitty would apply, I think. So yes, encryption in case of a true emergency would be legal, if the matter is pressing enough, but you can't exercise with encryption.
As as I said it would not provide true security, only obfuscate the message for the casual listener. That might be moderately useful in an emergency if the nature of the communications is time critical - i.e. the type of information that will become a matter of public record anyway, but that you don't want to announce publicly today. Let's say it's information about areas vulnerable to looting being reported to law enforcement; if the would-be looters hears it today they can get there before the National Guard or police can get to the area and sack the place - if the would-be looters hear it tomorrow it's to late because security has been established by then.

Well, there are levels - classes - of classification. Some might be too secret to transmit over non-narrow beam radio link, while others are just low level confidential and standard encryption is good enough. Since so much official information is a matter of public record anyway, I wonder how the distribution would be. I'd imagine it would depend on the nature of the emergency and the served agency in question; a hosptial sending patient lists would presumably have more secret data to transmit than an fire chief managing a wildfire.

Are we mixing up message presedences with classified messages here? There can be EMERGENCY or official Priority messages which don't need to be kept secret, or there could be Routine messages that need to be kept secret.

If only amateur radio happens to be available between point A and B, and confidential data has to be passed, they'll have to decide to
- Encrypt the data with an algorithm they trust.
- Transmit it in the clear, effectively de-classifing it.
- Not transmit the data, risking death, injury and property damage.

As I said, some of the served agencies want to transmit data that doesn't fit on a standard radiogram. They might even want fast-scan TV/video. And a minimum level of training and readiness.

Almost is the operative word here, and it's highly dependent on where in the US you are and what kind of disaster it is. I think it's a good thing that public service communications have gotten an upgrade, and more focus on mutual aid and interoperability. Even so it would be just as wrong to assume that volunteers never would need to handle priority and emergency messages, as it would be wrong to think that 20 meter HF always will work.

"Failsafe" systems are also inherently complex, and this complexity sometimes means new ways to fail. For example, there could a programming bug or slight error in configuration in a digital system that could cause a communications emergency, without any external event causing it.

It would also be wrong to assume that amateur bands will always work - there has been emergencies during periods of high aurora activity for example, where linked VHF/UHF repeaters have worked but HF was wiped out. If the repeaters were gone too, one would have to resort to motorcycle messengers. Any particular amateur radio mode/band is also something that can fail - it's the diversity of modes and bands available that is its main strength.

If there's priority traffic that needs to be kept confidential, it would be legal to transmit encrypted emergency government traffic over amateur radio and routed by amateur radio operators. It would definitely not be legal to exercise with encrypted messages, but if you're well trained in sending exact digital messages with checksums, you could substitute the cleartext message with an ASCII-armored encrypted file and it would provide end-to-end security for the served agency, if they had taken care of key exchange ahead of time.

As an inbetween solution that would not provide true security, but would obfuscate messages from the general public, even unencrypted DSTAR and Pactor III transmissions can't be decoded by most people out there, since it requires special hardware.

Even if one were to use motorcycle messengers or some other limited resource for classified information, the non-classified information could be transmitted by amateur radio and take some of the burden off.

I think it would be a mistake to take a few vocal posters on the internet as representative of all amateur radio operators. I'm sure there are people who are against the ARRL pushing DIY or digital modes too, if for nothing else than for "why aren't they pushing QRO/CW/AM/20 watt man packs/space communications/[insert your own pet niche of amateur radio here] instead".
Message precedence isn't really a new idea. Hopefully the communications emergency would just entail routine and welfare messages handled by amateur radio, but in case all other medium to long distance communications are lost, volunteers have to be ready to handle priority and emergency traffic that is time-critical, accurately relayed, and important to health and safety. This sometimes does happen for real, and sometimes as a result of systems that "can't fail" failing in unforeseen ways.
By rights, by both legislation and case law, it does take presedence over all other traffic, and is one of the fundamental reasons why amateur radio exists. It's much better that trained, licensed and regularly exercised operators are involved than if agencies just bought a ham radio and kept it mothballed "just in case" without knowing how to use it effectively.
I think there's two things driving amateur radio to do more:
- Emergency response becoming more professional, experience based and standardized; this is based on lessons learned from past failure and success.
- Served agencies' demands evolving with technology.

Served agencies have requirements for what volunteers need to know, and for what they need to communicate. Hopefully those requirements are explicit and shared with the volunteers, rather than implicit and only discovered during an emergency. Explicit requirements can be matched by volunteer training, capabilities, and exercise.

If one doesn't want to live with those demands, one could volunteer for a group that has other demands. For example, if you're volunteering to handle traffic for a county EOC you might have to take ICS courses, get a security clearance, and show up for drills a couple times each year. If you're volunteering to handle health and welfare traffic for a local church, they might just care that you're not a registered sex offender, have a license and a radio, and join the volunteer insurance policy.

I think many places the served agencies want more than they're getting from amateur volunteers today. For example, some agencies have a need for sending lists, spread sheets, and other digital information that don't fit well in a standard radiogram or voice message, but the local volunteers might not afford or be interested in digital communications. That presents the served agency and the local emcomm groups with a problem: Push people out for not having the required capabilities, tell the served agency that this is the limit of what the group can provide, or perhaps splitting it up into two groups that provide different services.

In any case it's important that expectations match capabilities, so the served agency (be it a church, other NGO, commercial hospital, or government entity) isn't failed by its volunteers. Or, on the other hand, that a capability exists that the served agency isn't aware of, like if the amateurs actually have communications with the whole country but the EOC thinks the county has become isolated.

There's skill involved in tuning up an amplifier too. Let's not forget that, even as we marvel at how well low power actually works in the hands of a skilled operator with a good antenna system.

Depends on who that highest bidder is. The FCC already is much more forceful in protecting critical frequencies such as aeronautical navaids, than they're about punishing more minor annoyances like guys holding AM ragchews in the CW/digital portion of an amateur band. How forceful the FCC or NTIA would be about protecting spectrum, would depend on what services would be affected. If over the horizon radar, HF internet, or some new idea takes off with substantial financial backing (including donations to politicians), the pressure on HF frequencies could increase.

The FCC is not likely to auction off 20 meters tomorrow. Something like that would require both congress to get involved, and international agreements to be renegotiated. But if amateurs are unwilling and unable to provide emergency communications, one of the fundamental reasons for the existence of the amateur service would be gone. In time, that could erode even the international HF allocations as member states withdraw support.

This is a rather hypothetical discussion though, since amateurs will keep volunteering for emergencies, and it's not like there's any great controversy about this being a good thing. I am pretty sure there's actually more people who are against medical doctors and psychiatrists responding to disasters than there's people against trained amateur volunteers doing their best to help out. I know about at least one notorious organization which sends representatives to disasters with the primary goal of coinvincing victims to refuse medical aid; they even have uniforms and celebrity spokespeople.

Maybe the vocal anti-emcommers could start a similar group that responds to disaster areas, to warn victims about those dangerous radio amateurs with their cancer-rays. Maybe the uniforms should be a bright yellow chainmaille suit to proect against the dangerious ham band energy fields? What celebrity would endorse it?

Sometimes this can work out, and untrained volunteers can be useful in an emergency, especially if they can draw on their experience from getting on the air. But there's a saying that "in extreme situations we never rise to the occasion, we fall back on our training", and I think that's true for better or worse. Untrained volunteers risk getting in the way, especially in the initial phase of an emergency. If the emergency lasts longer, trained volunteers can be brought in from other counties or states, or new volunteers can be brought up to speed.
There was a relatively recent rule change to let people participate in occasional emergency drills while "on the clock" - i.e. paid by their employer - but the other rules about emergency communictions have been in the rules for many years. The use of amateur radio in emergencies is one of the core reasons for its existence - along with fostering international good will, and technical education and innovation. Being there for them in emergencies is something that the public and the politicans expect in return for letting us use these valuable frequencies to play with, for next to no license fees, and it's been that way since amateur radio began.

I know you're a reasonable guy, but for a few other vocal posters, it actually is an issue that ham radio is ever used for emergencies. Whether that's because they pop an artery when they see a volunteer wearing a reflective vest, or because it's harder during a national disaster to find a vacant frequency to complain about the skin color of the president, or a different reason, I don't think we'll ever know. I just know some even get angry if amateurs relay a distress message without leaving the shack. I've even seen them try to argue that since a guy who doesn't die after shouting "mayday" on the radio, and the rescue workers, both get a "benefit" it's supposedly "illegal" to send an SOS by amateur radio. Never mind that both the FCC rules and international conventions are full of references to emergency communications, even as part of the fundamental reason for amateur radio to exist.

It's not a bad thing to plan and train for emergencies. Amateur radio volunteers are just one of several types of volunteers and mutual aid resources that are called upon in an emergency. For the leaders to know what they can expect of all these different resources, and for the volunteers to know their jobs, they have to train together regularly and be part of the plans. As I've said before, one must leave some room for improvisation if the emergency doesn't fit the plans, and even the best plans in the world don't work without good leadership, but failing to plan really is planning to fail.

It can be really basic stuff, like that the served agency needs to send long lists of supplies and other data, and that the amateurs left the digital rigs at home because they thought bringing an HT would be enough.
I don't think that's the root cause. Unlike you, I don't think these people were ever active in emcomm. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you'd have to deal with quite a bit of unnecessary red tape, reforms and rollbacks if you were in it long, but that's hopefully something that can be improved with experience.

Yeah, it would depend on how often these UAVs would be used by the police. If it was only in case of rare emergencies and for search-and-rescue, it would probably be OK, but something used every day would not be OK.

Another thing to take note of is that in many countries FPV flying is simply illegal or requires extra permissions from various government agencies.

That post contradicted itself something awful. On the one hand you don't want amateur radio operators to serve as backup communications, and that commercial band gear should be used instead, since government can supposdely afford that; but on the other hand you cite an example of commercial non-amateur gear failing, and the government is incompetent in its purchasing.

You realize that these are contradictory positions, when you hold them both categorically at the same time, right? There is much to be said about the sometimes lacking competence of government aquisitions, but that's a separate issue from whether or not amateur radio should be used as a fallback when all the other systems fail.

I have a personal 406 beacon with GPS and it does have 121.5. My particular model is the FastFind 210 GPS.

We're talking about communications emergencies here though. In the worst case, the served agency could have zero communications when the incident happens. That communications disruption could be the very emergency. If it's agreed with the served agency in advance, a few volunteers could show up at pre-determined locations if a certain event happens, re-estblish communications, and call out further volunteers if needed. I know some groups have such agreements in place, but if random people just spontaneously showed up offering help, they might only add to the chaos.

Mountain rescue groups tend to consist of people who had mountain climbing as a hobby before they joined the rescue group. The mountain rescue volunteers already know how to climb when they join, they just need training in skills and procedures specific to rescue - which includes litter belays and hoists, first aid, and how to work with professional emergency services.

In Norway, while this started out in an ad hoc fashion, it has long since been formalized, and they have standard procedures that all members have to follow. They're particularly closely linked to the SAR helicopter service which is run by the Royal Norwegian Air Force.

I know the UK has a similar thing for volunteer cave explorers called the British Cave Rescue Council. I think some of their members have experimented with ground penetrating radio for underground communication in rescue operations too. But I digress.
While the Red Cross (nationally, not talking about the ICRC here) does have doctors and nurses, most volunteers join without any experience or training except that which they bring from their daily lives. My local Red Cross chapter goes on stuff like ski trips where they learn about finding shelter, avalanche rescue, etc. but it's also a social thing.

Is that a real problem though? Isn't the idea that the i's are dotted and t's crossed before the incident? This of course leads to "wasted" resources in as much as one spends time training skills that one might never get to use in a "NOPLAY" situation, but the same could be said for DoE radiation response teams, or weapons training for the Sheriff's department in some one horse town that hasn't had a shooting incident in decades.

Ad hoc organizations based on "I know this guy/gal that can help us with that" can sometimes do amazing things, but it would be highly dependent on luck and personal skills.

On the other hand, the best prepared and trained volunteers in the world won't help if the leaders sit on their hands when an emergency happens and fail to actually activate their emergency response volunteers, and mutual aid from other agencies. It might be due to denial, pride, failed loyalty to thier unions, penny pushing, or in the mistaken belief that acting will scare the public (in fact, it would reassure the public). The antidote to this is more exercises for the leaders. If they get used to calling out radio amateurs in training and know what their capabilities and limitations are, they're more likely to call on them when the need arises, I think.

In Norway, we've seen the police chiefs in the north of the country being more proactive in calling on NGOs and other government agencies in emergencies and SAR situations than some districts in the south - and I think that's a personality issue.

406 MHz beacons still have the 121.5 MHz homing signal. You are correct that the satellites don't monitor 121.5 MHz anymore - they listen for a digital signal on 406 - but once search and rescue units arrive they can use the analog 121.5 MHz signal to home in on the beacon.

406 beacons can optionally transmit a GPS position in the distress call, but in case the beacon lacks GPS or can't get a fix, the COPSAS/SARSAT system will use doppler shift to approximate the position of the beacon, and the 121.5 MHz would be used by aircraft or land units for local homing.

Any boat traffic on Lake Tahoe that's out of VHF range? I don't think so.

Find out if the M802 was aquired for some special reason, like it's been re-programmed for DSC to government frequencies. If not, try to get the M802 sold and the funds used for a regular HF radio, maybe a marine VHF set if there's boat traffic on Lake Tahoe, and the balance used for other upgrades. I can't think of any reason why you'd need the M802's DSC and alerting features. See, much of the reason for the M802 being expensive is that it has digital selective calling, and sending and reception of digital emergency alerts. It even has a sub-receiver that 24/7 listens to the DSC distress channels even while you talk on a different channel.

There might be a perverse situation when a ship in distress sends a DSC distress call, and it can be picked up your area due to propagation, but the odds of you being activated at the same time, and that you're the only ones that can hear them, are as close to 0 as I can think of. A GMDSS vessel beyond VHF range might only have the HF radio for two-way communication with the shore, but it will also have a satellite EPIRB. (This redundancy is mandated by the GMDSS, for vessels it applies to.)

Incidentally, EPIRBs and Personal Locator Beacons have a homing signal on the same frequency as mentioned for aircraft ELTs: 121.5 MHz.

Just note that air terminals with spikes, or other types of "early streamer emission" techniques don't seem to have any actual evidence for working better than a regular air terminal, with the possible exception of GC strikes from the tallest of broadcast towers, and that exception is probably because there is just insufficient data.