Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service
The Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service ( RACES ) is an emergency radio organization planning for the amateur radio service in the USA . RACES is a "standby service" according to a regulation of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The concept of an amateur radio emergency service, which replaces the regular amateur radio service in times of war , resulted from an idea of the American Radio Relay League and the Department of the Army's Office of Civil Defense from 1952. After the end of the Second World War, the amateur radio service was largely asleep and with the RACES it should be reintegrated into civil defense. The forerunner organization was the War Emergency Radio Service (WERS), which was set up on the proposal of the ARRL after the amateur radio traffic had ceased with the entry of the USA into the Second World War.
The case of war, in which the regular amateur radio service is suspended and only emergency radio traffic according to RACES is handled, never occurred.
RACES is seen by many radio amateurs as a relic of the Cold War . Active networks such as the Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) are more important in North America.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Civilian War Emergency Radio Service System. In: Popular Mechanics, Sep. 1943, 144.
- ^ Emergency Radio Service during the war