“Software for the Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System (NBEMS), is now available for testing. This system maximizes the use of radio amateurs for providing emergency communications.

The system works with most soundcard-equipped computers and is completely contained on a “Live” CD (EMCpup), based on Puppy Linux (2.17), flarq (1.0) and fldigi (2.0), Every effort has been made to make the OS transparent to the user, so no Linux experience is required. The system has been in development for the past year and can be downloaded and burned to a CD from: http://www.w1hkj.com/emcpup.html under the link to the CD image. The goal of the NBEMS is just to be able to bridge a widescale disaster area of up to 100 miles, without any reliance on a centralized repeater network, or mailboxes, and use as little space as possible.”

Whats most interesting about this is its a bootable ISO image. No install required. Hopefully I’ll be able to convince some of the AREN membership to try it.