The main advantage of Amateur Radio in a disaster situation is our ability to communicate without any commercial infrastructure. How long would it have taken to set up an "aggregator" in Puerto Rico after the hurricane? Can it get in there faster than the Verizon truck with 3 meter dish and cell tower can get there?

How many "aggregators" will there be in the world? How hard will it be for radio clubs to get licensed to operate an "aggregator" uplink station? Using commercial infrastructure to link local ham radio access points is basically what EchoLink is all about.

Meanwhile our friends in Europe are experiencing a renaissance in amateur radio with their new geosat. I'm not saying that we wouldn't learn something from utilizing commercial geosats, but it seems we should be looking for ways to preserve our amateur satellite spectrum before the commercial world takes it away and then offers to rent it back to us.

73, Dan N8FGV