Topic 41 of 53: Emergency Preparedness in times of crisis
Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (09:57) |
Paul Terry Walhus (terry)
The recent World Trade Center attack highlights the need for ham radio backup communications in time of emergency.
4 responses total.
Topic 41 of 53 [radio]: Emergency Preparedness in times of crisis
Response 1 of 4: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Sep 13, 2001 (09:57) * 47 lines
Posted on the
Public Radio technical disscussion list a short while ago:
A friend of mine, Joe Perez, works at Harris in Mason, OH in the
systems engineering department. He has given an excellent update as to
the situation of getting several NYC FM stations (and perhaps TV) back
up on running as quickly as possible. I thought those on the list
might be curious as to what was happening since communications are not
the best out of the city at this point:
It's been a busy couple of days. As of this moment, we have three 1
kilowatt solid-state Quest series transmitters and matching ERI 2 bay
1/2 wave LPX antennas going up there on a dedicated truck. These are
for WPAT, WNYC, and WKCR. Several television transmitters and antennas
are also on the truck, which is headed to a secure staging facility in
Jersey. Cablewave has sent a quantity of 1/2" line along with male N
connectors and N to 1-5/8 adapters. I also called Modulation Sciences
this afternoon, and they agreed to send a pair of Sidekick subcarrier
generators to WKCR so that they can get their aux services (a Chinese
language program and a reading service for the blind) back up as well.
WKCR's new studio is 95% complete, and in an ironic twist Richard had
just installed a 1/2" line from the tech room to the roof, and placed
a 4' STL dish at the top of it. That dish will now come down and be
replaced with one of the LPX antennas, and we will put their Quest
transmitter in the racks. They have an Orban 8000 on site (which was
removed from WTC last week and replaced with a new 8400) which will be
used as the stereo generator.
I do not have a confirmed location for WPAT and WNYC. As the situation
progresses the story has changed from the WQXR tower to the muni
building at 1 Center Street to the possibility of a sub-combiner at
Empire, where there is rumored to be an open port on the master
antenna.
Our install crew in Manhattan is safe in the upper west side, and so
far most of our customers are accounted for. Still no word regarding
the TV engineers who were up on 110 at the time. One of them called his
station immediately after the first impact, but I fear that none of
them were able to make it down past the damage. I cannot even imagine
what the situation up there was like, but I just pray that perhaps they
got to the roof and managed to flag down a helicopter.
Hal Kneller
WGCU FM/WMKO
Fort Myers, FL
hkneller@fgcu.edu
Topic 41 of 53 [radio]: Emergency Preparedness in times of crisis
Response 2 of 4: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Sep 30, 2001 (11:41) * 44 lines
Dave Hughes (dave) Sat Sep 29 '01 (12:02) 42 lines
The radios are, by and large off the shelf. But the FCC Part 15 Rules
limit the 'radiated power' from the antennas, not just at the radio.
So one can, physically, feed the radios into large, higher gain
antennas, and get much longer ranges. Which is against the FCC Rules.
And one can put 'amplifiers' between the radio and the antenna, boosting
radiated power. Again, getting longer range or penetrating (trees,
buildings) power.
Freewave of Boulder sells the Defense Department their standard 1 watt,
6 db antenna-gain radios, AND a 5 watt, inline amplifier, that kicks
their range from 5-10 miles to 50 and 100. Because I was doing NSF
controlled experiments for wireless for education, I legally used the
amplifier between the tiny Hispanic town of San Luis, and 30 mile
distant Alamosa, to connect up the school, free. (While US West wanted
$2,000 a month to link them wired). But the school could not do that
legally, themselves.
After Clinton visited Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, the poorest in the
nation, wringing his hands about the 'digital divide', I calculated
that I could connect up every single Indian family abode, wirelessly,
free from the center line of the narrow reservation, at 10mbps (ethernet
speed) carrying data and voice over IP, and feed it into the net,
and voice US West in Rapid City, SD, for maybe $5 million total,
charge maybe $5 a month per family to make it worth something, and
pay running costs.
And I handed the whole plan to Cisco, which had just gotton into the
Wireless business and ladle's out millions (at least then) for
grants, and suggested they do it pro-bono to show what could be done,
not only domestically, but across the world, profitably for any
US radio manufacturer, if the FCC and Dept of Commerce just pulled their
head out of their a**. But they choked.
So the same technology Hedy Lamarr invented in 1941 to help us win the
war against the Nazis, and which is now being used in the guidance
system of cruise missles, is the same technology that can link anyone
on this globe to the net at ridiculously low cost (primarily the
radio) and which is the same techonology I have offered in another
item here in attack, to help defend us from chemical/biological attack.
But there are none so blind
Topic 41 of 53 [radio]: Emergency Preparedness in times of crisis
Response 3 of 4: Marcia (MarciaH) * Mon, Oct 8, 2001 (17:22) * 3 lines
Thanks for this - Ihave been posting such things in Geo and in Radio 32. UIf this is really a topic for emergency preparedness, would someone please link it to Geo conference, please. I have much to add and will remove my topic which is similar. Thanks.
I am unable to telnet or to ftp, even before I crashed Geo. Please someone fix it... PLEASE!!!
Topic 41 of 53 [radio]: Emergency Preparedness in times of crisis
Response 4 of 4: KA6ATN Paul (terry) * Sun, Sep 12, 2004 (17:49) * 24 lines
Author: Dave R (---.166.45.216.susc.suscom.net)
Date: 09-12-04 17:59
For anyone with access to either an amateur radio HF radio (and ham license) or shortwave receiver, here are some of the frequencies that are currently being used for emergency communications into and out of the affected areas of hurricane Ivan.
1. 14.325 - Hurricane Watch Net - Weather and radio traffic into and out of the affected area. URL: http://www.hwn.org/ for additional information and http://www.hurricanecity.com for audio feeds (broadband best).
2. 14.338 - Addtional traffic for Cayman, Cuba, and Yucatan.
3. 14.283 - Caribus (health & welfare)
4. 14.300 - International Maritime Net
5. 21310.0 USB Health & Welfare (Spanish)
6. 21390.0 USB Inter-Americas (health & welfare)
7. 14265.0 USB Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio (SATERN)
8. 3950 Hurricane Watch Net (alternate)
Depending on your location, propagation (signal quality) may affect the reception of your radio. An outside wire antenna is best but some shortwave radio's have antennas that will pickup even the most distant signals.
Hope this information helps. Dave - Call Sign - AI9D
radio conference 
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