[Ares-races] Packet

[David Gilmore]

And here I am.

In Ventura county, we maintain a network of packet stations at our
hospitals.  It is our feeling that the hospitals will be the places most
needing packet.

We have a weekly packet check in/drill, that occurs prior to our regular
weekly voice net.

What we have is a few experienced packet individuals.  The rest are trained
to be able to place messages into their own local TNC mailbox.  It is then
the responsibility of one central station to "fetch" the message from that
mailbox, and then deliver it to the recipient.  Sounds a little cumbersome,
but actually works out to be more efficient since that station knows how to
proceed in the most expediant way, and does not interfere with any other
over-the-air packet traffic.  Notification that a message is ready is done
via voice.

We have been fortunate in that the large disasters Ventura County has
experienced (floods, brush fires, Northridge Earthquake) have not required
large lists of stuff from our "customers", and traffic was normally handled
by voice.  However, our drills have shown the above procedures with packet
do work for us.

We are looking at APRS as another way to make packet viable for our
"customers". Being able to post road closures and other stuff via APRS so
that everyone sees it seems to be a handy thing.  APRS is another way to
keep our operators interested in packet as well.

Dave Gilmore, AA6VH
ARES District Emergency Coordinator
RACES Radio Officer
Ventura County

At 01:55 PM 3/8/02 -0800, you wrote:
>Hello Ralph,
>
>While rare, packet is alive.  I strongly agree that packet has great
>advantage over voice when requesting long lists of supplies or what ever.
>You may want to have a contact with Dave Gilmore AA6VH.  He is the DEC for
>the Ventura District of the Santa Barbara Section and usually can be found
>on this mailer or you can contact him at aa6vh@arrl.net .  All of the
>hospitals and a few other critical locations in the District are equipped
>with packet stations.
>
>73 - Howard N6VDV@arrl.net
>
>