Re:Ham operators are VERY important (Score 1)

Um. No your cell phone will not work.

I was *on* my cell phone when a minor 4.X earthquake hit the Los Angeles area a couple years back. It worked fine while I was on it.

Less than two minutes later as everyone called everyone else to ask "Did you feel that?" The entire system was down. Not just for me, but for the 200+ nerds we had standing around in the parking lot (our building hosted a bunch of ISP's). People tried voice calls, and they tried getting on the internet via the phones... no dice.

SMS worked for about 10 minutes then got backed up.

So my coworkers and I went to lunch since *nothing* had been damage, *no one* had been hurt, and it was all just a big face.

Summary: a very minor, non dangerous, no damage event occurred, and the entire cell phone system across the LA basin went AWOL for several hours.

Ask the nice folks who lived through Katrina how well the cell phone system worked.

If you are depending on you cell phone to save you in an emergency, I would suggest you also pack a some chapstick, because you can kiss your ass good bye.