Author Topic: REACT seems barely alive.  (Read 3317 times)

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Tevin

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REACT seems barely alive.
« on: January 12, 2017, 08:11:55 PM »
Radio Emergency Associated Communications Teams (REACT) was a community service group that was h-u-g-e back in the 70's and 80's when CB radio was all the rage. They moved on from CB and kept up with the times, but it seems like the magic did not stick.

While doing some research on them for my next Off Grid Ham blog article, I was sad to discover that the organization barely exists. There are a few local teams operating but most that I checked do not appear active: Some with no contact info other than a phone number, local chapter websites not updated in years, numerous expired domains. Even REACT HQ does not seem to know about or keep track of active teams.

The main REACT website has a photo of the "team of the month"...from October. Not sure what year.

I was so disappointed. How sad when an organization that used to have a breadth and depth that is hard to understand if you were not there becomes a ghost of itself. Back in the day, every town, no matter how small, had a REACT presence of some kind, and help was never more than a "break channel 9" away, even in the middle of the night.

I was never a REACT member but I respected them. What a buzzkill.

If there are no objections, I'm going to post this on Survival Monkey too.

Suckage, man.  :(


« Last Edit: January 12, 2017, 08:19:39 PM by Tevin »

AD

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Re: REACT seems barely alive.
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2017, 09:46:45 PM »
Why would we object. We are friends woth all,of them as well.
The only dumb question is the one that did not get asked!!

spacecase0

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Re: REACT seems barely alive.
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2017, 08:22:58 PM »
this is the first I have ever herd of them

only thing I have ever read about channel 9 is that sometimes the police listened
and even then it came with a caution that they had not done that in years regularly
had I known about them in the 1980s I would have likely joined

DragoSapien

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Re: REACT seems barely alive.
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2017, 09:03:54 PM »
Im thinking that a group like AmRRon is the one that has taken over that type of thing. Maybe not so much CB but most people have moved on to GMRS for local use and Ham radio for everything else. With the large use of cell phones and internet these days I doubt well ever see those old day again. Ham Clubs and area nets are still strong, but have not heard of any community type of nets happening anywhere.

Now that this has been brought up, Our local ham club has a spare 70cm repeater and was just talking about setting it up as an AmRRon GMRS. The intention was for the large amount of RVer's we have around here. It could also be used for the rest of the town if they would use it.

BTPost

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Re: REACT seems barely alive.
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2017, 12:53:36 PM »
Just make sure your "Spare Repeater" is Type Accepted for operations on Part 90 or 95 Frequencies.... I believe that there is a question on the License Application that requires the Owner to certify that it IS, and, or, submit the Type Acceptance Number for the Repeater.... GMRS is a Commercial Service and has Regulations that differ from HAM Radio and CB Radio....  Just Say'en.....
Bruce in alaska AL7AQ