[CTSARA] Field Day: SARA Comparison With GNARC

Tue Jun 29 13:06:35 EDT 2010

Hi Hugo

Thank you for your comments about trying to expose radio to the younger
blood.  SARA made a concerted effort to get non-hams out for this year's
Field Day and managed to get 15 visitors on the air in the GOTA tent, six of
whom were under 18. 

I am in fact a CW operator, although I am slow as molasses.  I have just
never been able to get myself above 13wpm and mostly hang around 10wpm.  I
do make it a point to get on CW for at least one QSO every time I'm on HF.
There is no doubt that it encourages listening -- especially since I refuse
to use programs like CWget or DM-780 to do the translation for me.  One of
my rigs is an Elecraft K1 (that I built) which I take with me on vacation
along with a Buddipole.  Last year I spent my birthday on Cape Cod and ran
up 21 CW QSOs using the K1 with the Buddipole set up on the base for one of
the towers that held up Marconi's antennas.  It was kind of neat being on
Marconi's site, especially since the shortest distance QSO of those 21 was
into Scotland at five watts (most the K1 can do).  Apparently Mr. Marconi
knew a thing or two about where to site his antennas ... hi hi.

For this year's Field Day, SARA made a point of having at least one each
packet, Olivia, MFSK-16, Throb, and Domino QSOs (I realize that not all of
those are error correcting).  The Olivia QSO was about 14 words each and
must have taken a good 20 minutes to conduct.  We had trouble finding people
using anything but PSK and RTTY, with the result that most of our digital
QSOs were PSK (which sure as hell is not error correcting).  At least one
PSK QSO -- as well as the MFSK-16, Throb, and Domino QSOs -- were conducted
using NBEMS as an effort to provide error correction during the QSO.  In
addition to the logged QSOs, we initiated or received a total of 14 packet
email messages via radio to Winlink, with each consisting of email text and
a Microsoft Word attachment (in the form of a standard format NTS message).
Each of the messages we sent was confirmed back to us via Winlink over radio
(confirmations not included in the count of 14 above).  By prior
arrangement, two of those messages were forwarded from the target recipient
to a second recipient (via Winlink over radio) and then to a third recipient
(via Winlink over radio), and then back to us (via Winlink over radio) to
show that the messages would make it through multiple forwards without loss
of accuracy (confirmations not included in the count of 14 above).  The
messages traveled as far away as Washington DC, California and Texas.

At this point, the number of SARA members able to operate in an emergency
using data is low -- no doubt about it.  I would say that we have four
people in SARA, including me but not including Pierre since he's so active
in both clubs.  When I say data, I mean serious volume message handling
through Winlink, NBEMS, or one of the FEC HF protocols, and not use of a
short packet message or two attached to APRS.  SARA has two more people
training. 

If everything we're being told by ARRL, FEMA, etc. is correct, it seems
likely to me that in an emergency the kinds of things we as hams would be
asked to communicate would mainly be:

1.  Data (e.g., shelter population lists, logistics data) or
2.  High volumes of health and welfare messages that can best be sent
digitally with the expectation of their entering the internet once they
leave the disaster area.  

I think that's especially true for Fairfield County.  Each of our cities is
small (Stamford is only 52 sq miles in total size -- about 20% of which is
water -- and is walkable in four hours or bicycleable in about one hour).
Each has a high population density with no wilderness area (hard for a
downed airplane or hiker to go missing).  Each has relatively large
police/fire/emergency services who have their own sophisticated
communications networks as well as backup power, etc.  We are served by a
large number of cell towers in Fairfield County, in Westchester, and on Long
Island -- and given the population density most of those towers have
emergency generators.  Given our population densities and the number of
Fortune 500 companies headquartered here, most of the major cell phone
carriers consider us to be in the first tier of priority for deployment of
COWs in case of communications emergencies.  The National Weather Service
has multiple overlapping radars (e.g., tornado tracking), not to mention the
weather radars operated by most of the major television stations in the area
(including News12).

As a result, there are not a lot of emergency scenarios that would be best
served by use of voice or CW communications by hams here in Stamford.  We,
as well as GNARC and GBARC and WECA and everyone else, run practice networks
for voice and NTS message-handling by voice, but it's clear that each year
there is less and less  need for voice/CW hams in an emergency -- anywhere
in the Boston-NY-Washington metroplex. 

Thinking back to the 2003 blackout, which covered a very wide area, there
was no loss of cell phone service and no loss of internet.  People without
emergency power couldn't access the internet, but anyone with emergency
power (such as government centers, police, fire, emergency service) had
perfectly clear internet/email/IM, etc. capability.  Similarly, the cell
phone towers all worked throughout the blackout and anybody smart enough to
charge their cell phone from their car (duhhh) had full service for the
entire emergency.  Those with landlines (e.g., SNET) also had full phone
functionality.  

During the March 2010 event, there wasn't a lot of need for us -- except a
communicator (one) was needed in Norwalk at the Red Cross.

My go-kit now consists of an FT-897 (all band, all mode), a Buddipole, a
big-ass 79AH battery that I just bought from West Mountain Radio (I wish
somebody had knocked it into my head just how heavy that thing is), a small
Acer Aspire One netbook, and a RIGblaster PlugNPlay to interface the netbook
into the FT-897 -- plus a lightweight Samlex power supply and a RIGrunner.
I'm probably going to give in and buy a POWERgate.  I know of only one other
club member with a go-kit that includes a computer, although his radios are
VHF/UHF only.  

>From what I've seen, the go-kits that most other people maintain include
VHF/UHF mobile, power capability (e.g., battery), and nothing for data
communications.  It's something that we are going to have to address this
year as we ramp up our data communications capability.

As far as the mention of Curacao, I thought that's where Dan operates for
his DX contesting.  If it's not Curacoa, please substitute the correct
Caribbean island.  It's only fair that we have a little fun with the guys
who advertise "Come see how it's done by the number 1 field day team in
Connecticut."

So, having answered your questions, now let me pose one of my own (it's a
multi-parter):

What are your scenarios for use of ham radio here in Fairfield County in an
emergency (true EMCOMM and not public service)?
-  What are the emergency scenarios?
-  What types of traffic would we be handling?
-  What types of functions would we perform?  
-  What modes of operation would best support our handling of that traffic
and those functions?

73s
Jon
KB1QBZ

-----Original Message-----
From: ctsara-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:ctsara-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Hugo W. Catta
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2010 10:43 AM
To: ctsara at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [CTSARA] Field Day: SARA Comparison With GNARC

  Jon,

Congratulations for the successful Field Day operation!
SARA is doing a _fantastic_ work spreading the radio gospel and especially
exposing radio to the younger blood.
I did not participate in Field Day this year. When I do, I operate CW.
What /high speed /modes with FEC where used at SARA's FD this year?
Fifty eight Q's on data is a good number considering the total data QSOs in
any given Field Day.
How many Hams would you say can be ready to operate in an emergency using
data compared to phone or cw?
See, there will be many more CW messages relied via Curacao and returning to
Fairfield County via carrier pigeon than via high speed (on
HF??) data. (I don't get it,...... why relay, why Curacao and why the
pigeon?).
By the way, among others, one reason to keep practicing CW: You learn to
listen not only CW but you learn to listen, period. Which is the
_foundation_ of any good radio operator in any mode and VERY especially in
emergencies.
Reading your comments I gather than you either do not operate CW or have not
bother to learn it.
Out of curiosity, what would you include in a "go kit"... also what have you
seen included in actual real world go-kits?

73,
Hugo - AA1XV