[DisasterRadio] Any updates

[Mitra Ardron]

I'm wondering where is the best place to get an update on the status of 
the project? disaster.radio has nothing that I could find since March 
2020 and I was wondering if the project was still alive?

I came across the project at the Dweb Summit in 2018 but it was pretty 
early days then.  I wanted to figure out what was happening as I'm part 
of local resilience work in the northern NSW area of Australia where one 
of our concerns is a backup communications system for when the mobile 
phone system goes down during either storm or fire.

Currently .... we use Whatsapp, with dedicated groups for emergencies 
that are only used for that purpose, they typically come to life during 
floods, with up to the minute reports on creek crossing depths; calls 
for help to pull a car out, or move a downed tree and so on. BUT ... 
that won't work when mobile coverage goes down.

My ideal scenario is something that is geek-free to use, i.e. to be 
effective we are going to have to set it up (which could use our 
technical expertise) but then effectively leave it in place up till a 
disaster situation occurs, at which point people are going to have to be 
able to use existing mobile devices. The devices could use WiFi mesh; 
directional antennas or Lora for example to interconnect but the users 
are going to be limited to GSM or WiFi - to connect. Anything that 
requires more setup during a disaster is going to be far less likely 
since, by definition, this is a time when the technically proficient 
among us might not be able to move around to help people setup, or even 
have other communications channels to provide support, when power may be 
out so laptops flat and so on.

I was trying to figure out whether disaster.radio had got to the point 
where it was the closest thing to build upon, but so far I haven't been 
able to figure out its status.

- Mitra


Mitra Ardron - mitra at mitra.biz www.mitra.biz
+61-491-082-515 mobile; +1-510-423-1767 whatsapp