[MRIC] Fwd: MRIC Minutes

Mon May 5 18:57:10 EDT 2008

Brett,

Please incorporate the following into the MRIC minutes from the April 
26, 2008 meeting rather than just sending them along as an addition.  
That way the concerns expressed by The Baltimore County RO and myself 
become part of the permanent minutes rather than being lost in the 
shuffle and flurry of e-mails that have transpired over the April 26, 
2008 MRIC Minutes.

Harford County RACES has no plans to deploy Winlink2000 in Harford 
County in the foreseeable future for the following reasons:

Winlink2000 is not a mature digital technology as compared to other 
digitals modes of amateur radio communications such as Packet, MT63, 
Hellschreiber, RTTY, etc. that can serve as alternative methods of 
transferring messages and files.

Many consider Winlink2000 to be in its “toddler stage” of development.  
According to many users Winlink2000 is still quite buggy, difficult for 
many to get up and running reliably without user/operator intervention, 
and the transfer and delivery of e-mail is not always performed in a 
timely manner (in other words there are often delays of several days 
between the time an e-mail is accepted into the Winlink2000 system and 
the e-mail is delivered to the intended addressee).  Emergency 
Management personnel need to be able to count on urgent 
messages/tactical information to be delivered in near real time with 
minimal delays.  Unlike other digital and non-digital methods of amateur 
radio communications, Winlink2000 cannot guarantee this.

Winlink2000 is an extremely costly technology and is currently a single 
source technology for the digital hardware.  Unlike various soundcard 
methods of amateur radio digital modes of operation, Winlink2000 relies 
on a proprietary digital format that is currently available from only a 
few sources, and the cost of the hardware is considerably more when 
compared to the cost of a commercially available software package such 
as MixW32, or a shareware or freeware software program such as that uses 
most any soundcard in a Windows based computer, and a PC to radio 
digital interface such as a Tigertronics SignaLink which currently sells 
for under $100.00 at various amateur radio equipment dealers.

Finally, there are at least three redundant systems in Maryland that 
provide connectivity to the various EOCs – our primary RACES client – in 
the form of WebEOC and e-mail service.  Hence, perhaps the only time 
Winlink200 would be necessary is in the event of a catastrophic incident 
that would take out all the normal and backup systems of communications, 
and then, depending upon the nature of the incident, our RACES radios 
might not even be functioning (as in the case of an EM pulse). 

Respectfully submitted,
Pat Scolla, WB0EGR
Harford County RO/EC

brettham at aol.com wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: JTk for Congress <jkryszt at pdsresearch.com>
> To: BrettHam at aol.com
> Sent: Thu, 1 May 2008 11:08 am
> Subject: MRIC Minutes
>
>
>
>
> Brett,
>
>  
>
> Since QTH is a public provider of e-mail it is on the reflector 
> blacklist and is blocked by my organization’s e-mail provider as a 
> spam generator. Therefore, I cannot send to or receive mail directly 
> from the QTH reflector. That said, please incorporate the following 
> statement into the minutes from Saturday’s MRIC meeting. You may also 
> post a copy of this e-mail to the MRIC reflector on my behalf.
>
>  
>
> Regards,
>
>  
>
> Joe, AJ3X
>
> Baltimore County RO
>
> Baltimore County EC
>
>  
>
> In 2006 Baltimore County completed an investigation into a variety of 
> digital communication modes and selected point-to-point, MT63, Tone-63 
> and Packet, as the most cost effective, least complicated and reliable 
> plug and play mode. A complete installation using this mode can cost 
> as little as $200.00 per fixed station. A field deployed operator can 
> use TONE-63 to communicate with another station with nothing more than 
> their laptop, Tone-63 software and a hand held Amateur or Public 
> Safety band radio. In 2007, we began to roll out and implement 
> point-to-point digital communications to participating 
> hospitals/universities with fixed stations, surge centers/shelters 
> with gokits and the EOC. Consequently, at this time, Baltimore County 
> has no plans to implement WINLINK 2000. However, we may revisit 
> WINLINK 2000 down the road as the software matures, support 
> requirements are reduced and  it evolves into a  plug and play system.
>
>  
>
>  
>
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