Hey Michelle...

Haven't been looking on here for quite a while, and just came across your post.

If you're talking about technologies in terms of communications, ham is pretty much it for the layperson and average citizen. Sure, CB is still out there, and everybody that hits the playa drags along an FRS (talkabout) radio. However, in terms of flexibility, range, available spectrum and wide variety of equipment, ham pretty much is it. The excuse of having to learn morse code has been long gone for the bands used by the majority of amateur operators (50MHz, 144MHz, 440MHz etc). And with the one-day ham-cram tests that happen a few times a year in SF, you can learn at your leisure after taking the test and getting your license.

FRS is fine for short distance (don't believe the 2-mile range advertised... in the city it's more like 1/2 mile to a mile if you're really lucky). It's something that in a disaster would be better utilized for coordinating crews doing searches on a block and clearing rubble. At larger special events (like BMan) it can get downright unusable as the population grows.

Yet another option available these days (for a few bucks more than FRS) is the MURS band of radio frequencies. These allow 2 watts of output power (as opposed to 1/2 watt on FRS), have 5 channels available and are relatively low-use compared to FRS. As a bonus, external antennas are allowed. With a little digging for surplus gear, you could find mobile radios that can be backed down to 2 watts once programmed and attached to an outdoor base antenna or vehicle mounted / magnet antenna.

CB is fine, but outside of a mobile radio with a good external antenna (such as a cobra K40 or full length 9 foot whip), you're not going to get any reasonable distance out of it beyond 3-5 miles most days. Being at such a low frequency range and operating in AM mode, the band is often plagued by atmospheric noise during the daylight hours. During increased sunspot and atmospheric activity, there are some days you'll have better luck hearing a station from Mississippi than the person down the street. Don't fool yourself on why millions of truckers still have CB's in their rigs. They're running anywhere from 20 to 50 times the legal output power and have higher priced specialty gear to get the performance they need out of CB on the road.

Still, it's fun to listen to.

-g-