[HIham] Queen Island Tsunami Observations

[Roland AH6RR]

Aloha All,

All in all everything went very well during the Tsunami on Saturday except!
The BIWARN repeater system was tied up by a group of Hilo side hams that had
no relevant information what so ever. Once the Tsunami Warning was issued
the Kona side turned the link on (we keep it turned off due the same bunch
that yak all day long) to get information it takes me 20-25 minutes to reach
my work place from home and the whole way I could not get in to ask for
updated information. I tried the 147.02 machine and found that it now
requires a tone to access and in the dark while driving I did not want to
even try to put the tone in. I went back to the BIWARN system and still
could not get in and the operators here on the Kona side had a hard time
talking to each other until we shut the link down. When there is an
emergency going on there does not need to be any chatter on the repeaters
unless it pertains to the emergency ONLY and stuff like "wow man I am
hearing 3 dogs howling like howling at the moon that I have never heard
before that's weird" does not belong on the BIWARN SYSTEM during an
emergency if you want to talk nonsense either go to simplex or 11 meters and
get off the link system. I am asking the HILO Club to train these operators
properly or not allow them to use the LINK System. Of course the next day
they were all patting themselves on the back and saying what a great job
they did with the Tsunami Net they had WHAT A LOAD of JUNK. I did call the
Section Manager the next day and informed him of the problem and hopefully
things will be done about it. I was able to get into the 147.02 machine once
I was at work on my HT and got more information and was able to pass
information to net control about the evacuation of the Alii Drive area in
Kona and the traffic problems that the County of Hawaii CD needs to address
because if a real bad Tsunami comes along with little notice there will be
loss of life because of traffic stuck on the roads next to the water. 

 

 

Roland Spoon AH6RR

Contest Call KH7B

ARRL Section Traffic Manager