I just got off the air with 'Ed' from Michigan. Nice conversation in handsent Morse code. 100% copy on both ends of the link. A bout half way through the conversation, he mentions that he's running 5 Watts ( CW ) because his power is out ( over 65,000 customers with powe in Michigan, I later learned [a.] ), so he's conserving his batteries. How cool is that? I asked, and he still had cell phone, otherwise Id offer to relay any messages he might want sent/received. Think about that though, 500 miles from me to him and we're having a conversation with zero grid power on his end (which I can also do). If he needed information ( I did pass him the size of the outage from poweroutageus.com because he did not know how large or small it was.
For those who smirk at ham radio comms during emergencies, they need to educate themselves. This was a mid-level grid power loss (his second this week) but if it were needed, his ability to communicate is obviously excellent. I do appreciate all that computer comms can do, but for me,good, old handsent Morse code is the last to die.
73 de Sir John Honeybucket
[a] Ohio 373,000+
Michigan 65,000+
Pennsylvania 127,000+
W. Virginia 68,000+
Kentucky 10,000+
and Alabama 11,000+ all have significant power outage right now.
