Comment Re:Serval Mesh Networking for Android (Score 1) 60
Very cheap insurance to make sure people have these sorts of devices for an emergency, which these days would not cost much more than a decent US$100 "weather radio"
And yet people won't buy simple FRS radios that cost much less and allow open communications in an emergency. Your description of Serval is interesting, but it is one of the last things you want in a real emergency. During an emergency, phones are good when there is a known phone number to call for help, or for individual communications between pre-arranged parties. That's why there is '911' or '999' or whatever it is in your country. Phones lack something called "interoperability". If you don't know the other guy's number, you ain't talking to him.
Radio, however, allows anyone to talk to anyone else with a simple "I need help" as a call. That's if you don't layer on all kinds of interfering crap like trunking and talkgroups and digital network access codes (NAC) and things designed to KEEP people from talking to each other instead of helping them do it.
That's why I program my emergency services radio with no CTCSS on receive, and put 0xFE (IIRC) as the NAC for 25 on at least one channel so I can at least hear everyone else if I need to. And this interoperability lesson is something the fire service learned in some large California fires, and is why there are a number of federally assigned interoperability channels authorized for anyone in one organization who needs to talk to someone in another. Every public service radio is supposed to have those channels, but many of them still don't even after a decade or more of existence.