How do you plan to rapidly call out the "ham troops" should a served agency request help? Send email? Get on the radio? Use a phone tree? Send smoke signals?

One option that I've used is an automated phone messaging service used by ARES units in Wisconsin and Michigan called CallingPost.com . At a cost of 5 cents per completed call, during a recent test I had the service dial 27 phone numbers and leave a 30 second instruction message. The task was completed in 90 seconds. 45% of those hams dialed responded on the air within 10 minutes.

The CallingPost.com service isn't the 100% solution -- for example it won't dial during midnight to 6am -- but still could be handy for ARES units that want hams to respond quickly and that need to dial many phone numbers to track them down. The firm offers a free test of the service on their web site.

Mike Cullen K1NPT

It sure got my attention!

I am a member of other organizations, one of which uses a system called Alertcast. Sounds similar. Not sure of what the costs are, but worth looking into. It is a subscription service - no idea if they have any kind of site backups or geographic diversity in case of disaster.