The Unit­ed States mil­i­tary could be turn­ing to radio rather than being only reliant on satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tion technology. 

Draw­ing on the expe­ri­ences of radio ama­teurs in dis­as­ters like 9/11, Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na and Hur­ri­cane Sandy, that used radio effec­tive­ly when mobile phones and the satel­lite sys­tem were overload. 

An arti­cle in the Mont­gomery Adver­tis­er, Alaba­ma, quotes Joel Black, from Region 4 of the Army MARS, who said radio was much more effi­cient than cum­ber­some satel­lite communications. 

He not­ed that with high-fre­quen­cy com­mu­ni­ca­tions a more rapid­ly deploy­able com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tem was pos­si­ble to start talk­ing with­in min­utes, while it can take up to two hours to set up a satellite. 

Three radio hams taught the sol­diers from the Prattville Army Nation­al Guard at Fort McClel­lan how easy it could be if they used HF radio. 

Army MARS, which began in 1925, is a Defence Depart­ment group of radio ama­teurs that train on a dai­ly basis for pro­vid­ing emer­gency com­mu­ni­ca­tion for both mil­i­tary and gov­ern­ment agencies.