[Ares-races] Packet (in Alaska)

Sun, 10 Mar 2002 21:37:52 -0900

I am pleased to pass along that packet is alive and well in the great state 
of Alaska and has been effectively used to support "The Last Great Race" 
the Iditarod, as well as the Junior Iditarod.  Alaska ARES District 7 has 
undertaken to support the communications for these races as an exercise and 
used packet as a part of that effort.  The ARES portable packet kit in 
conjunction with home stations passed the in and out times and "musher 
grams" of encouragement for the mushers.  This was a result of the efforts 
of many, some of which appear in the Cc's.  There is also a packet station 
at our Anchorage OEM (Office of Emergency Management) along with the other 
radios.  We are running the PAKET software on atleast half of these 
stations and many of the others use KA Gold.  We also run a "Packet Peanut 
Gallery" using the talk mode on a high site during the all of the local VHF 
nets and are steadily building interest and capability.

73 de KL7CY and the group

-----Original Message-----
From:	jack swift [SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent:	Friday, March 08, 2002 2:19 PM
To:	[email protected]
Subject:	Re: [Ares-races] Packet

At 04:35 PM 3/8/02 -0500, Ralph Milnes wrote:
>
>1. There are few other ARES-RACES units to talk to with packet .. the 
County or State OEMs don't seem to be into it. The Red Cross units don't 
seem to have packet support from their ARES units. We'd more or less be 
talking within our little group.
>
>2. It would be hard to maintain a packet network locally .. we just don't 
have that many packet-capable and outfitted operators.
>
>We sense that packet or other digital modes might be useful in emergency 
communications -- it's accurate, uses less frequency time, can run 
unattended, suited for archiving and hard copy print-outs ---  but there 
just doesn't seem to be "critical mass" of operators or interested 
ARES/RACES units around here.
>
>What's it like elsewhere?
>Is there a truly useful role for packet in emergencies (vs. voice)?
	red cross shelter inhabitant information cannot be sent by voice.
	lists of data are more efficiently and accurately sent by digital modes 
(Army MARS prefers digital modes for their formal messages)

>If you're using it successfully, how'd you do it?
	although we have several club-maintained nodes in the area, there are only 
a few packeteers using them. at the time of the exercise, we had 3 people 
who had semi-portable packet setups (laptop/tnc/ht) and used them fairly 
effectively. we should have had more training sessions and since that 
exercise the key semi-portable stations ahve moved out of the area -- i 
think we'd be in trouble now...

>Anybody have experience using packet in actual emergencies? for what?
	used it at a simulated evacuation between the shelters and the ARC office.

>Is it worth it to keep working on "growing" packet?
	grow enough that you will have what you need when you need it

>Anything you can think of to help make it grow?
	ARES unit member acceptance of it's usefulness
	training programs and exercises
	weekly digital nets encouraging the use of semi-portable stations just 
like you encourage the use of ht's and battery-powered bases during your 
weekly voice nets.

>ARRL support?
	it's not a national issue, just local
>easier software?
	there are already plenty of free terminal programs
>easier hardware?
	it's already easy enough (TNC and laptop)
>
>

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
Jack Swift
I.E. Swift Co.
402 Shelden Ave.
Houghton, MI 49931
906-482-0530, 0531, 7766
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

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