I agree with you on this, John.  One of our main rigs at our county EOC 
is an IC706 Mark II.  G, and with a good antenna, which they should have 
anyway, I can get wherever I need to go in our local area on 5 or 10 watts.

Remember that old rule--use only the power needed to get the communications 
through.

Besides, if you need full power, you should be able to use it.  If the EOC 
is well planned, they will have a generator or some other means to support 
more high-powered communication if necessary, should commercial  power be 
lost.  At our EOC, we can easily use 100 watts on HF, and more if needed, 
although we'd have to bring in an HF amp from the outside for that.

73 from Tom Behler:  KB8TYJ

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 7:55 AM
Subject: Re: ham radio used in emergencies revisited


> Can't be any worse than the Icom 706, and if you keep the power down to 
> just
> enough to reliably get the communication through, I can run my 706 on a 
> car
> jump pack pretty much all day. You're not going to do any better than 
> that.
> Besides that, if it's in an EOC, and that EOC doesn't have a generator, it
> should never even be considered for an EOC.
>