LoRa might be a more attractive option
https://hackaday.com/2022/05/25/long-distance-text-communica...
eventually with APRS (amateur packet radio)
Thanks for the links. Yes it might. In the same time the ADPS has lower requirements to operate: a PC and a USB-flash. LoRa requires specific boards, in some countries it's much easier to buy old PC than to find LoRa boards. And the ADPS can transmit and receive much larger files compared to LoRa.
Seems a bit silly to try to setup such a complex sneaker net. Generally I'd expect hams to coordinate with local folks in person or with family radios (very common) and then use something like js8call. Even a modest ham setup (5-10 watt radio, a car battery or two, a spool of wire for an antenna, and a solar panel or 2) could network a neighborhood to different cities, states or even countries for 100s to 1000s of people a day.
js8call is a pretty amazing piece of technology. Crazy efficient encoding to allow sending at 20db or so UNDER the noise floor, allows a few watts to go 100s or 1000s of miles, and allows store/forward (in case the destination isn't online) as well as multi-hop routing.
I suspect there's more hams about than you think, 3M in the world, around 700,000 in the USA. So that's around 1 in 500 in the USA, and from what I can tell smaller/more remote communities are more likely than average to have a ham around. If a fire/storm/earthquake/landslide/power outage just head towards the center of town and check the parking lots for any churches, police stations, or town squares. Bring whatever text messages you want to send on a thumb drive in plain text. Said ham will likely know about the local emergency responses are, where the water truck will show up, and where whatever resources you need are available. In particular if you need any prescriptions make sure you know the brand name and drug name for any needed meds.
Wow, it's interesting idea of using sneakernet. But I'm not sure that laws are allowed to use kids as couriers. But when kids becomes adult, some of them live in universities' campuses and they could substitute the post office because there might be a lot of people from different states.
> Seems a bit silly to try to setup such a complex sneaker net. Generally I'd expect hams to coordinate with local folks in person or with family radios (very common) and then use something like js8call. Even a modest ham setup (5-10 watt radio, a car battery or two, a spool of wire for an antenna, and a solar panel or 2) could network a neighborhood to different cities, states or even countries for 100s to 1000s of people a day.
Then any sneakernet is a complex thing :). In the same time I think there are 2 advantages compared to HAM-networks: 1) low entry requirements - you need to have only PC and USB-flash and you don't need licenses to run this network; 2) The bandwidth is very high, you even can distribute films, series which is impossible to do with the SW-radio.
> I suspect there's more hams about than you think, 3M in the world, around 700,000 in the USA. So that's around 1 in 500 in the USA
Having about 4% of world population, there are almost 25% of all hams. But I live in Russia :D, and the percentage is not high, like in the USA. In the same time people here tend to use torrents or pirate sites to download new films for free and it can give new users to the ADPS network in case the internet is down.