[CALV-AUXCOMM] Reminder - Calvert AUXCOMM Meeting 7:00 PM on Wednesday, April 25th

[Shawn Donley]

All,


A reminder that our April AUXCOMM meeting, normally the third Tuesday, is on Wednesday, April 25th.


TIME:  7:00 PM  (not our usual 7:30)


LOCATION:  Three Brothers, Prince Frederick     https://goo.gl/maps/pojpDkdGkMz


       --- Have a pizza or your favorite Italian dish while we talk


AGENDA:


As you have probably heard, the county is significantly behind in their plans to purchase and install new radios and antennas for our AUXCOMM activities.   This presents an opportunity to conduct a little "thought experiment."  We'll be looking for ideas to answer the following question:


What can we do to provide AUXCOMM emergency communications throughout the county without the use of any government or non-private infrastructure.


This means our own radio equipment, antennas, antenna sites/supports, etc.   No county or company towers, buildings, radios or antennas, including the current voice and packet repeaters at Mt Hope and Prince Frederick since they are located on county/state property and towers. 


The solution could be a combination of fixed assets at our home QTH's plus deployable equipment. 


Also assume we have no permanent equipment/antennas at the primary EOC (courthouse) or the alternate EOC (Barstow) but still need to communicate into and out of those locations using some sort of rapidly deployable gear.  


Minimum requirements:


1. County wide voice comm with minimum number if dead spots.  Possibilities:  HF NVIS on 40M/80M, 10M or 6M SSB/FM, VHF/UHF with deployable repeaters, simplex relays, etc.


2. County wide digital comm.  Possibilities:  packet, WL2K, BPQ network, deployable or packet repeaters or packet repeaters at home QTH's.  Or other alternatives like NBEMS ( http://www.arrl.org/nbems )  or Outpost ( http://www.outpostpm.org/index.php )   http://www.outpostpm.org/index.php


3. WL2K into and out of the county.  May use relay through home QTH (and a backup home QTH) ; HF, VHF. or UHF


High speed microwave Mesh or AREDN ( https://www.aredn.org/ ) might be a player, although it's hard to see how to cover the county without many sites and towers given the county's geography.  But perhaps still worth discussing.


Come with some ideas, diagrams, relevant articles, whatever.  Again, this is just a "thought experiment' but hoping it may generate some good ideas to support our AUXCOMM mission.


tnx


Shawn

N3AE

Calvert EC