[HCARC] Fwd: Monday Night HCARC Net 27 Nov 17

Tue Nov 28 11:50:43 EST 2017

Yes, there needs to be some planning.   That planning needs to include 
the area we need to cover, the kinds and general locations of the kinds 
of emergencies we expect in our area and the equipment available to us.

We have check-ins/members in Kerr, Gillespie, Bandera, Kendall and 
Medina Counties.  In my opinion the kinds of emergencies we are likely 
to face are traffic accidents on I-10 involving multiple vehicles and 
perhaps HAZMAT, flooding in the valleys, wildfires, and possibly a 
tornado or wind damage.  All in all our area is pretty safe.  We have 
the 38/98 repeater near Kerrville (which has had numerous problems in 
the last year or so).  There is also a 16/76 repeater in Fredericksburg 
and a 440 repeater at the Kerrville State Hospital.  The 440 repeater 
has pretty limited coverage and I don't think many in the club have 440 
equipment. I don't know if we could run nets on the Fredericksburg 
repeater but I believe it has some connection with the club but I don't 
really know its status.  Probably about half the active stations on the 
Monday night net are from outside Kerr County.  I believe the only 
check-ins to the net using hand held radios are all in Kerrville.  The 
current N5HR location provides good coverage.  A repeater at the Red 
Cross building would be unlikely to be usable outside of Kerrville.

The stations in Gillespie County using 25-50 W and an outside antenna 
seem to be able to work each other.  That includes AF5UX, AD5UZ, AC4CA, 
K5EWS, W4WJ W3XO and K5KS.  Here in Harper I can hear some of the Kerr 
County stations.  Monday night I could hear K5HV and KK5IA on the input 
frequency and I have heard others.   I can't hear any of the hand-helds 
in Kerrville.  Some of the Kerrville hand-helds seem to have a problem 
using the N5HR repeater at the best of times.  Signals tend to be weak 
and very dependent on position of the hand-held.

There are several easy tests we need to run.  1 - have a 2 meter base 
station on from the Red Cross building to see how many can hear it.  
That should give us an idea of the utility of a repeater at that 
location.  2 - see who can hear each other on simplex, and particularly 
if any of the hand-helds can be heard. 3 - see who can access the 
Fredericksburg repeater, and particularly if any of the hand-helds can 
access it.

My belief is that the hand-helds are only useful as a local net with 
several stations within a mile of so of each other and any communication 
outside of that area will require a well equipped mobile or portable 
station.  I recall several years ago some discussions about several 
linked repeaters around this area to provide coverage but that idea died 
as expensive and impractical.

Any way, that's my immediate thoughts on the subject.  It seems we have 
a choice of a few stations that can cover a couple counties or a bunch 
of hand-helds primarily usefull only in Kerrville when the repeater is 
working.

Kerry

On 11/28/2017 9:07 AM, kd5wdq . wrote:
> Crap!  did it again.  only replied to Harvey, not the reflector.
>
> Forward to reflector...
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "kd5wdq ." <kd5wdq at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2017 09:02:36 -0600
> Subject: Re: [HCARC] Monday Night HCARC Net 27 Nov 17
> To: "Harvey N. Vordenbaum" <tower2 at stx.rr.com>
>
> Team,
>
> I agree on a backup plan.  Preached this before.
>
> Here is my concern, simplex will limit a net to only a few folks.
> And in a REAL emergency, your going to need "all hands on deck".
> (many will only have HT's in a real emergency.)
>
> Come on team, think big -- get some long term goals!
>
> Get a second repeater, then fall back on simplex.  Although it's good to
> practice in simplex, so everyone knows what to do if necessary.
>
> So it goes like this:
> main repeater
> second repeater (put on a pole at red cross?)
> simplex
> smoke signals, carrier pigeons, etc
>
> My belief is this: it's good to have a backup plan, but it has to be
> thought out!
> Ask yourself who's gonna be able to operate in an emergency.  IMO, a secondary
> repeater will serve more, even if it's not in the best of locations.
>
> AF5SA
>
> On 11/28/17, Harvey N. Vordenbaum <tower2 at stx.rr.com> wrote:
>> Yes, I could do that.
>> I could use my top of the mast 2 M gain antenna (55 ft. + 18 ft.) which I
>> normally use for APRS.
>> And with 100 w. from the TS2000 I could surely be heard over the area.
>> We'll find out how many can change their radio to simplex. I would have to
>> be able to listen on the repeater input side as well.
>> That brings up another problem: turning the repeater off/on by remote
>> control.  Hello Gerry?
>>
>> Hv
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: hcarc-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:hcarc-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
>> On Behalf Of Kerry Sandstrom
>> Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2017 7:25 AM
>> To: hcarc at mailman.qth.net; kerryk5ks at hughes.net
>> Subject: [HCARC] Mondat Night HCARC Net 27 Nov 17
>>
>>
>> Last nights net was a disaster due to problems with the repeater.  We've
>> talked about having a net that doesn't use the repeater.  I think its time
>> to really look into this now.  We could , in the absence of repeater
>> problems set aside one week a month to run a net without the repeater.  In
>> addition, whenever the repeater is not working properly we could fall back
>> to the net without a repeater.  Yes, there will be some who won't be able to
>> check-in.  Perhaps this net will encourage them to upgrade their station so
>> they can check-in.  The simplest approach would be to run a net on 146.98
>> simplex.  That way, if the repeater is having a problem, it is just turned
>> off and we all use .98 simplex for the net.  That way people will hear
>> activity on the normal net frequency whether the repeater is in use or not.
>>
>> Bottom line - we've had enough problems with the repeater that it is past
>> time to figure out how we can have a net without the repeater.  You can't
>> terminate a disaster because the repeater is not working properly!
>>
>> Kerry, K5KS
>>
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