Radio is a form of wireless communication that is transmitted by sounds or signals by electromagnetic waves directly through space to a receiving station. Some types of radio communications are HAM radios, CB (Citizen Band) radios, cell phones, radio scanners, and walkie talkies. Radio communications are widely used in the United States and the majority of them are used by law enforcement and emergency services. Police/sheriff, fire, highway patrol, ambulance, and emergency medical services are some of the agencies that use radio communications. Many factors contribute to radio failures. These factors could delay the immediate receipt of a distress call by law enforcement and emergency services. Some of these factors are: lack of maintenance on a radio communication system, causing it to crash. It happened at the Palmdale Air Traffic Control Center when a technician failed to perform required maintenance. This caused the communication system and even the emergency system to shut down for more than three hours. A radio outage also occurred during the September 11 attacks, where the radio system used by the city's fire department failed. These radios should have been replaced two years ago, but the new radios never worked properly. Radio problems also occurred during the Cedar fires in Southern California. When firefighters faced the most destructive wildfire in California history, their most reliable method of communicating with each other may have been to shout. Incompatible radio systems prevented U.S. Forest Service crews from talking to their counterparts at other firefighting agencies. Some firefighters resorted to palm-sized Family Radio Service devices, sold for just $25 apiece, after their regular radios, which cost thousands of dollars apiece, failed. Sometimes supervisors had to leave their teams in trucks parked in the field and return to their base camp for instructions because they couldn't reach anyone by radio. Radio and communications failures in these cases caused widespread loss of life, damage and delays. HAM radios are an excellent means of communication when normal communication is interrupted. This way of communicating could have been used during the Cedar fires. The National Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) is an organization that uses HAM radios. They provide local and long distance communications services in local, regional, national and international emergencies. When normal communications systems are overloaded, damaged, or disrupted because a disaster has occurred or is likely to occur, an amateur station can make the transmissions necessary to meet essential communications needs and facilitate relief efforts...