<story><title>American Red Cross Asks for Ham Radio Operators for Puerto Rico Relief Effort</title><url>http://www.arrl.org/news/american-red-cross-asks-arrl-s-assistance-with-puerto-rico-relief-effort</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TallGuyShort</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a bit out of the loop on amateur radio these days, but if I remember correctly there was a mass exodus from volunteer radio operators from the American Red Cross to the Salvation Army over the background check issue. Volunteers that were bringing thousands of dollars of their own equipment to help saw it as very unnecessary and insulting. I&amp;#x27;m a bit surprised to see they&amp;#x27;re still requiring the background checks...&lt;p&gt;edit: I&amp;#x27;m also a bit surprised they&amp;#x27;re requiring a General Class license. That cuts out a huge number of potential volunteers. Are they really using the other frequencies that opens up enough that it&amp;#x27;s a requirement? Possibly that is a reasonable requirement, but I&amp;#x27;ve helped with disaster recovery simulations, etc. and my Technican Class license was just fine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jcrawfordor</author><text>ARRL now conducts background checks on ARES volunteers, so the issue is rather moot (in fact ARC and ARRL have an MOU stating that ARRL is responsible for background checks on their volunteers assisting ARC, which presumably applies to this call as well). There have just been too many incidents of people with e.g. sexual assault on their rap sheets turning up working in shelters where there are all manner of vulnerable people. Terrible optics if nothing else.&lt;p&gt;I suspect the general class requirement is just to cut down the applicants to a pool of more dedicated people. A very real problem with disaster volunteers, if I might be a little harsh especially from the amateur radio side, is &amp;quot;fair-weather responders&amp;quot; who will go through all the training and then not actually deploy. I&amp;#x27;ve also personally found that people with higher class licenses are more likely to be into digital modes which is what they&amp;#x27;re mostly looking for, but that&amp;#x27;s getting less true as the equipment gets cheaper (to be honest I&amp;#x27;ve never even seen a packet TNC in person).&lt;p&gt;I happen to be both an ARC disaster worker and amateur radio operator, but I speak for myself.</text></comment>
<story><title>American Red Cross Asks for Ham Radio Operators for Puerto Rico Relief Effort</title><url>http://www.arrl.org/news/american-red-cross-asks-arrl-s-assistance-with-puerto-rico-relief-effort</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>TallGuyShort</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a bit out of the loop on amateur radio these days, but if I remember correctly there was a mass exodus from volunteer radio operators from the American Red Cross to the Salvation Army over the background check issue. Volunteers that were bringing thousands of dollars of their own equipment to help saw it as very unnecessary and insulting. I&amp;#x27;m a bit surprised to see they&amp;#x27;re still requiring the background checks...&lt;p&gt;edit: I&amp;#x27;m also a bit surprised they&amp;#x27;re requiring a General Class license. That cuts out a huge number of potential volunteers. Are they really using the other frequencies that opens up enough that it&amp;#x27;s a requirement? Possibly that is a reasonable requirement, but I&amp;#x27;ve helped with disaster recovery simulations, etc. and my Technican Class license was just fine.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikestew</author><text>I imagine they might want a General license because you won&amp;#x27;t transmit beyond the island on a Technician license. Just a guess.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: actually read the fine article, HF voice being one of the requirements. I assume they also want more than the tiny bit of HF that Technician licensees get to use. &amp;quot; Sorry, 10m isn&amp;#x27;t open, so I can&amp;#x27;t transmit, and I&amp;#x27;m not allowed to use 40m.&amp;quot;</text></comment>