Short wave – long term (New Zealand)

“Before there was social media there was amateur, or ham radio, and it’s going to exist long after social media is just a memory.”

That’s the view of longtime Te Kūiti radio ham Mick Gannon, one of 11 members in the Waitomo branch of the NZ Association of Radio Transmitters.

Gannon’s group, who live in Te Kūiti, Ōtorohanga and Te Awamutu, stay in touch with fellow shortwave enthusiasts across New Zealand and around the world.

Gannon says in an emergency this form of communication can provide a viable alternative to the telephone network, whose cellphone towers could be wiped out by a weather event, or earthquake. The same would apply if the Internet was deliberately crashed by military activity.

If the national power grid was ever damaged, taking out cellphone towers, shortwave communications could be more resilient.

Gannon said smaller shortwave sets use negligible amounts of electricity, some being powered by the likes of AA batteries or 12 volt car batteries.

Read more – Cambridge News: https://www.cambridgenews.nz/2024/07/short-wave-long-term/