[ARRL Membership]

Who will be the national voice for our Service, other than the ARRL? Without their efforts, it's likely we'll lose all our spectrum to commercial interests. As Lscott pointed out, business interests have been sharpening their knives for years, waiting to carve it up.

The cost of an ARRL Membership is cheap, considering what you get in just the magazine alone. Ads? Most pubs carry ads as the primary way to support their efforts. Ads can cover up to 90% or more of magazine revenue. Would you rather pay nine times more for a magazine with no ads?

Suppoting local efforts are vital as well. Do whatever you can from where you are, but recognize the bigger picture. But it's not an either/or choice between supporting local or national efforts that benefit our Service (ask any ARES Member, it's not a "hobby," it's a Service). 

A group of passengers were stranded in a life boat. The lifeboat sprung a leak. Everyone joined in baling the water except for one guy. When asked why he wasn't helping save the boat, he replied, "Why bother? It's not my boat."

[GMRS Real World Emergency Communication Experience?]

Since 2020, our Ham/GMRS Neighborhood Radio Watch groups here in El Dorado County have been active during several fires including the Caldor Fire, and most recently during the recent 2021/2022 "Snowmageddon" that took down power lines, closed roads and disabled cell and Internet service in half of the county. 

[Neighborhood Fire Watch/GMRS Products/Need Information]

Interesting to come across this post from 2019 after all this time, and noticed my name was mentioned. I'm the person Jeff mentioned (Tip O' The Hat, Jeff).  All I can say to follow up is that we have a GMRS-based Neighborhood Radio Watch program up in running here in El Dorado County, with about 350 radios distributed and more going out each week. This is a Ham/non-Ham partnership using five GMRS repeaters set up across the county.