Looks like the modular "go kit" approach is what they're taking.

I think part of what makes this possible is the transition from tube gear and linear power supplies to solid state radios and switch mode power supplies.

To bring the Norwegian perspective here, the Norwegian Red Cross has had their own VHF frequencies for many years. They rely on hams for HF long haul, and APRS tracking, but the Red Cross is getting their own tracking frequency. This is a good and natural progression, where the most commonly used technologies are transitioned from experimental to "commodity" gear, and hams don't have to come to all SAR actions - only those involving a communications emergency.

Ah, the olden days, when the sheriff would just round up a posse or deputize some farm hand instead of all this business with SWAT teams and crime labs, staffed by people who had to go to some academy or other.

'twas the age when men were men, electricity was akin to magic, and the life expectancy was under 50.

Seriously, it would be a nightmare and take too long to build an emergency communications team up from the ground when an incident happens. Go through the ULS, do background checks, train and exercise, all while lacking communications?
Maybe if it was on a timeline more like a wartime draft, weeks and months, you could do that, but not in an emergency where you're talking hours and days.
You might as well ask volunteers in mountain rescue groups, the Civil Air Patrol or the Red Cross why they don't just "let the hobby be just what it is". Radio amateurs have always helped their fellow citizens, as far as I know. It's even enshrined in the purpose of amateur radio, in international conventions and in US law.

It might be one of the points brought up later in the thread, and if it's true it's a fair point indeed, but it wasn't the original point that the thread starter wanted to make. He was worried that the focus on training and exercise was scaring away potential volunteers. He was also misrepresenting the post he was reacting to; I don't know if he did that out of dishonesty or by mistake.

Actually, from my experience the training and exercise is an attraction with volunteering. It's fun, but with a purpose. The people who join the Red Cross and the Home Guard volunteers aren't just "preppers", they get to do something interesting on their spare time and meet people.

I was referring to a different thread than what you seem to referring to, it seems. I'm referring to the one complaining about "emcomm elitists".
http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php/topic,78509.0.html
It was forked out of this one:
http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php/topic,44900.0.html
which was started by a well meaning guy who thought he could just turn to an emergency frequency and start helping out, without any training. He was told that he was woefully unprepared and that he would need training, participate in exercieses, that insurance issued would need to be sorted out etc. This was decried as "elitist" in a new thread, even if it was good advice.

It might be that some places volunteers would have to buy their own uniforms. If vests are not enough by law or insurance terms, that could entail complete coveralls with reflective material on them - perhaps even helmets and other protective gear, out of pocket. If seeing ARES volunteers in orange vests made some people lose their minds on the Internet, seeing an ARES volunteer in a full coverall and helmet would really cause massive mental and coronary breakdowns.

Questions about grounding setups are much easier to answer if you include a diagram. Please include:
- Your house, and any nearby outbuildings.
- Antennas (both amateur and other antennas)
- Feed lines (distinguish between coax and ladder line).
- Ground wires/straps (label with what AWG or mm^2 they are)
- Ground rods
- Electrical service entrance (is it from air cables or ground cables). Is it IT, TT or TN-C?
- Antenna entrance box
- Preferably, also include where water and gas lines enter the house.

Perhaps make an overview drawing of the lot and house, and a detailed one of your shack.

Note that the manufacturer's voltage numbers are open voltage measured at the battery terminals. When the radio's LCD shows the battery voltage, it also shows the voltage drop over the diode in the Super Powergate, fuses, and cables. Get out a multimeter and masure the battery voltage - I think you'll find that when the radio shows 11.5 volts, the actual battery voltage is 11.8 or 11.9 or something like that.

I have a self-built trickle charge diode and resistor that I connect to a netbook power supply to charge my 7Ah AGM and run my radio. I set the PSU to 14 volts most of the time, which gives about 13.5 or 13.6 volts to the battery when floating, but I sometimes set the PSU to 15 volts for conditioning the battery with 14.5 volts.

WA6MJE, so you don't trust a company using reference radiation sources and the manufacturer's procedure of calibration, but you'd trust some random ham? Why not just build a Kearny Fallout Meter or something then? Sounds more reliable than a 30 year old meter that's never been calibrated.
A quick search shows that you can get your meter calibrated for about 90 dollars including shipping; that's not expensive at all to turn your potential hunk of junk into a meter you can trust.

WA6MJE, note that radiation meters need regular calibration - they are otherwise useless. There actually are companies in the US which provide this service to the public. Also, the Department of Energy still has radiation detection and response teams.

If you haven't already, I recommend introducing formal risk assessment into your prepping: Score various hazards by probability and consequence, and prioritize your risk reduction and mitigation strategies accordingly. If banal stuff like house fires or traffic accidents don't end up near the top of the list, you're probably doing something wrong in your assessment, or have already done much of the right things to handle the risk.

As for Bear Grylls, in a real survival situation you'd never take the sort of risks he demonstrates, even though it's good TV. I tend to prefer Ray Mears' approach to the subject of surviving in the wild. Les Stroud is mostly OK too, or those guys on Dual Survival or Man, Woman, Wild.

I tend to go by the field day rules or the old licensing rules for what /P means - in essence transportable, and not connected to fixed infrastructure. If I was to specify foot-portable, I'd say foot portable or backpackable or something like that, in contrast to "pedestrian mobile" which means a station that can be used while walking and not just carried and set up.

Isn't it?

W5DXP, I didn't say cut the ZS6BKW in half. I said put G5RVjr-sized ladder line fed doublet into EZNec and play around with the lengths.

As you know distant noise comes with all polarities and from a wider direction than local sources; just from looking at antenna patterns it seems to me that a beam or a phased array would be better than a sharp nulled loop in case you have a storm to the east and a desired station to the west. The front-to-back ratio would be more important than the sharpness of the null. Correct?

I see - nobody should be using that.
What if you take a G5RVjr and vary the open wire feed and top length until you find a combination that actually covers more bands than a G5RVjr; that would be as close to a true ZS6BKWjr as you'd get, in my opinion, if one such combination even exists.

Thanks. Just a quick note that Ten Tec has a policy of cutting off customers who don't give them favorable reviews, so caveat emptor or find anonymous reviews too if you're buying more expensive stuff from them.

That's a strawman argument, because none of those you argue against are seriously suggesting that only the license is enough to help out in an emergency.

On the contrary emcomm groups are being called "elitist" in another thread here, because they put additional requirements on their members - like background checks, Incident Command System training, or regular participation in drills and exercises.

It's also an over-generalization. The license test is not sufficient in itself, but it is part of what you need. I could just as well say "passing a police academy exam doesn't make you an emergency responder", since you'd have to be employed by a law enforcement agency, be sworn in as an officer, follow their policies, etc. That exam is still one of the required parts though.
No, it's more like a hobby like mountain climbing or boating, where the skills learned in the hobby can be very useful when put into organized Search And Rescue, or other emergency response. When a particularly difficult rescue can't be done by helicopter hoist here, they call in volunteers who have mountain climbing as a HOBBY to effect rescue. When an emergency happens at sea, both government, commercial, NGOs and private HOBBY boaters are called to help the persons in distress, using their skills and equipment, under direction of a government agency.

I remember another group that were there to close a street for an event. They did much worse than the group you talk about though: They closed down a state highway on the wrong day. They did so while illegally carrying loaded guns, openly. They had also failed to register with the local police. They failed to wear identifying uniforms (they just wore "tactical" black clothing). Then they proceeded to assault and kidnap an innocent bystander a whole block away from the area that would have been affected by the road closure, ending up in multi-million dollar lawsuit.

It's the worst case of out-of-control whackerism I've ever seen. The kicker is that these clowns were actually off-duty police officers from a different jurisdiction, working for a supposedly professional security company. The event happened in Nashville in 2009.
So when emcomm groups are invited to come back time and time again, they should also suppose that everything is fine? And that when you Bart were thanked for your service, the rest of the department were also thinking "good riddance" when you left them?

The majority of your post history on EHam is about your envy of the people with yellow flashing lights on their cars, so I guess this cuts to the core of your issues. There are a select few police officers - we have them in Norway too - who resent NGO volunteers, the military, the fire department, civil defense, and everyone who isn't their own department because they "get nicer equipment than we do" or "aren't part of the union", to the point that they dither in calling in volunteers or requesting assistance from the military in a serious situation. There have been a few situations where this sort of attitude has led to a slower response, and more deaths and injuries than necessary; especially after July 22nd, there's absolutely no place for those kinds of attitudes here. It's sad that your department had to suffer under those same attitudes while you were there.

Also, come on, yellow lights only signifies a work vehicle - not any special authority. Many places farmers' tractors, street sweepers and dump trucks have those on them - and they carry radios too. Why the envy?
So in essence, the word whacker is totally meaningless, since it applies to everyone, be they police officers, casual rubberneckers, meteorologists, farmers, nurses, pensioners or fire fighters. Perhaps you didn't realize that.

Will people really know the difference between a funnel cloud and a rain column in the distance without training? The point with Skywarn is that the NWS trains the spotters every year to give accurate reports, and to update them on advances in relevant meteorology.

He wants to legally exercise his 2nd Amendment rights while he volunteers; what if he gets shot by a gang of looters while he's trying to serve his fellow man? This is a whole other topic, and it's not a straight-forward one, and it seems debated to death in that other thread.