in addition to what m4x said, radio has some HUGE benefits over cell in a marathon scenario. If the person you need to talk with is on the phone with someone el

in addition to what m4x said, radio has some HUGE benefits over cell in a marathon scenario. If the person you need to talk with is on the phone with someone else you can't get through. With a radio you can. Additionally, everyone (terrain permitting) hears what you have to say so the information propagates out much faster. On a well run event you have "net control" which is basically a central point that you pass messages to and they pass them out. They're usually an experienced ham set up with a good antenna, and a reasonably powerful transmitter, at a location that can hear from and speak to everyone even if people with handhelds can't hear each other because of distance or terrain. There's a convention for getting permission to speak and how messages are conveyed and passed on. In my particular case, we set up an antenna for ham frequencies and public service frequencies, officers from our town are deployed, and can talk to us on their police radios but frequently can't speak with each other because we're not in our home town and don't have our repeater (other towns use other frequencies). So I relay messages between officers and I relay messages to and from net command. Also, if you think about what happens when an emergency (like the Boston Marathon Bombing) happens... imagine how much slower and more disorganized the response would be if all the departments had to make cell calls to each other and wait for each to get off teh line... the central point would call one police dept. Then they'd call the fire. Then they'd call.... and now people are dead because you can't communicate with more than one person at a time. it's just WAY more efficient than cell phones.