[CALV-ARES] Operating before, during, and after a disaster

[Eric Christensen]

On Friday, September 11, 2015 11:56:34 AM James Tetlow wrote:
>  Thus getting on the air "after the apparent" danger has past is what I do,

Jim, you bring up a good point.  Most communications systems are engineered to 
be around before a disaster (for alerting) or to be available after a disaster 
(portable or hardened sites).  With a few minor exceptions, there usually 
isn't a requirement for communications *during* a disaster.

As an example, during Hurricane Isabel, we had three fire calls, two collapse 
structure calls, and several EMS calls pending in 911.  It's great that we 
still had the capability to communicate with our fire stations but we weren't 
sending them out in the storm.

The same went for amateur radio.  We had simplex coverage to our shelter but 
had there been a request from there we would have just had to sit on it.

I suspect most of us don't have hardened radio stations that are able to 
survive all types of weather and other disasters.  I think it's perfectly fine 
to disconnect all your antennas, crank down/over your towers, and pull 
vulnerable antennas to the ground during expected large events (like 
hurricanes).  This would likely mean that during the storm your stations won't 
be thrashed around and damaged meaning that immediately after the storm you'll 
be able to erect your antennas, connect your radios, and get back on the air.

We're lucky here that we have good, local repeaters that many of us can at 
least hear with an HT.  Monitoring the repeater is a great way to get 
information even if you can't talk back.  If a few people can hit the repeater 
with their HTs, or even with a small station that can be kept up during a 
storm, then they can relay information on the repeater for everyone to hear.

> Maybe incorporate some of the plans from Bill's FEMA link.

I've been using the same resource that Bill passed around for some currently-
published and a few soon-to-be-published articles on the AUXCOMM website.  
FEMA definitely has some good resources for getting yourself and your family 
prepared.  We'll likely talk more about this during September's meeting.

> ...I found out I
> could get into Salisbury's machines very easily with my 25ft to the top
> vertical dual band antenna. Never thought to try them because of the
> distance before, especially since I couldn't hit Alexandria!  Salisbury did
> open up D-Star for me. 

Yeah, Salisbury might be a bit further away but there is definitely less "stuff" 
in the way!  If everyone can hit one or two of the repeaters over there we may 
try to designate one of them as a backup for us.

Glad you are back up on D-Star.  Perhaps we can meet up and talk about it more 
now that you can access a system, again.

73,
Eric WG3K
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