Century-Old Radio Technology Lives at CDC

While the Army and FEMA prepared for Hurricane Irene by deploying satellite trucks to provide emergency communications in the event that the storm knocked out cellular and wired networks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention activated a network that harks back to the early days of radio communications.

CDC's National Public Health Radio Network connects public health officials in all 50 states as well as U.S. territories using high-frequency radios operating with single sideband modulation, first patented in 1915, refined by amateur radio operators after World War II and adopted as the long-range communications radio system by the Air Force in the 1950s.

The CDC network uses the same kind of gear carried by military special forces and forward air control teams that appears on a list of products approved by the Defense Information Systems Agency.

I carried an HF radio on my back in the Marine Corps more years ago than I care to remember, and it's good to know that the almost century old technology still has a use today -- and you don't have to put up a dish or pay for satellite time.