[CTSARA] Field Day: SARA Comparison With GNARC

[Hugo W. Catta]

  Thank you for the extensive explanation of the capabilities of the 
local forces and the planning of SARA in that matter.
For years I've been thinking an imaging scenarios where we could be of 
use to our communities. Could not imagine in my mind a situation in 
which Ham Radio could make a difference other than a situation like a 
cat 5 hurricane, or a major major coordinated attack. I am not sure if 
the L.I. Sound could damp a tsunami coming from the ocean, though.
Due to the overkill, (as you detailed it),  of the current 
infrastructure, the need for Amateur Radio emcomm would be focused on 
the medium to long distance. Katrina is an example.
Types of traffic? Welfare of people and pets; request for supplies, 
personnel, you name it.
Functions to perform? Communicatios. In my case, I can speak faster than 
I can type.
Need for coordination? You bet!
Do we need to overkill too? I don't know. May be may be not.
Coming from a third world country I think a little more globally.
Personally I have only three experiences where the Amateur Radio Service 
made a difference and none of them in local communications. The one that 
tought me the most was in 1985 where there was a major earthquake in 
Mexico City. No Internet or cell phones in those days. There was a 
gigantic comm tower in the city that didn't survive. I don't know the 
Mexican population of the US but you can imagine how many millions of 
worried souls wanted to know if their loved ones were ok. Many Ham Radio 
towers were down and since no power was available in the metro area, the 
HF radio signals from there were tiny at best.
40 or even 20M antennas were more difficult to erect than 15. In a nut 
shell, Since most of the US was in skip most of the time on 15, the 
solution was to "relay" emcomm not to through Curacao but mostly through 
CX and LU lands and via "pigeon" to the US. Just CX1AA, the club I was 
member of at the time, relayed over 4000 QTCs of health and welfare. 
Coincidentaly, or not, the OPs who were most involved were contesters. 
OA stations also helped when the skip was a little shorter. Speed in the 
operation and a good pair of ears allowed the group to handle list after 
list with pencil and paper. Statistics can be FedExed later.
Every year there is an earthquake or a gigantic flood or volcano 
eruption or mud slide somewhere in the world where hams make a 
difference. We just get some vague commentaries through the news or the 
ARRLmay or may not be informed about Ham Activity. Do you know how many 
hurricanes pass through Cuba every year? Hams there have field training 
in real time, every time. We just don't get news of it.
Comes to mind an article I read in Ham Radio Magazine, (excellent 
publication now defunct), about how to handle emcomm after an EMP.... 
I'll look it up.


"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
Albert Einstein.


73,
Hugo - AA1XV



On 06/29/2010 01:06 PM, Jon Perelstein wrote:


> 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
>
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