I was so glad to throw away my turntable. It was a high-end model, with a highly-rated cartridge/stylus. Even so, and even after I used the recommended dust remover on every disk several times, I had annoying clicks and hiss within a week after a new album purchase. Good riddance.

No to both. They'd both be illegal. What happens is that some ham operators work at the dispatch center, while others ride in patrol cars. It worked this way very effectively when L.A.'s Valley area transmitters all went down a few decades ago. A similar arrangement occurs when a major hospital's internal telephone system crashes, which happens every so often. Ham radio support groups are equipped and drilled for these and other comm emergencies.

What a great opportunity for the NSA to gain green cred by running its data center on renewable energy, as Apple is doing for at least one of its data centers.

"Eventually" is a long time (approx 120 years at today's timescale expansion rates) and you can bet that by then the whole problem of adding energy to devices that need it will have been overcome by new developments.

Sympathies for a nasty condition. But may I suggest that your experience to date with fluorescent lights might be due to flicker. New Compact Fluorescents run at a much much higher frequency, virtually no flicker. May help, hope so.