[SFDXA] HAM COMES TO THE AID OF SAN DIEGO WHEN ITS FAIL SAFE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM FAILS

[WILLIAM MARX]

From Elliot KB2TZ

 
RESCUE RADIO: HAM COMES TO THE AID OF SAN DIEGO WHEN ITS FAIL SAFE 
COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM FAILS
A ham radio operator uses his knowledge of two-way radio to supplement 
communications when power goes out and a failsafe 800 MHz system fails. Bill 
Pasternak, WA6ITF, is in the newsroom with the details:
According to news reports, the power mains problem began near Yuma, Arizona. 
Affected by the September 8th black-out were parts on Southern California, 
South-Western Arizona and Northern Mexico. All of these areas share the same 
power grid and in Southern California alone some 8 million customers lost 
electric service. And when the lights went out in San Diego, so did parts of the 
regions 800 MHz shared emergency communications network. 

The problem that arose was that in some North County service areas mobiles in 
the field could not hear their dispatchers. In other places the dispatchers 
could not communicate with mobile stations. But thanks to some thoughtful 
planning by North County Fire Battalion Chief Don Stevens, KF6ATL, a combination 
of ham radio know-how and an ageing commercial VHF radio system, not all was 
lost:
KF6ATL: “Probably 15 years ago most of the Fire Departments in North San Diego 
County were on the VHF system. Subsequent to that, San Diego County, fot 
inter-operability reasons built a regional communications that they call the RDS 
system. It’s a Motorola system like other Motorola systems throughout the United 
States.
“Before we went to the system we are dispatched on at present, we were one of 
the last holdouts to go onto the 800 MHz system. And when we did that, one of 
the decisions that a couple of us made was not only to keep our (VHF) licenses, 
but also to turn our then remote-base transmitters into repeaters. We felt that 
we were not going to do what a lot of other cities did and that was to 
completely get rid of their VHF infrastructure all together.”
Stevens tells Newsline that while his department is a part of the county wide 
800 MHz system, when the switchover took place he decided to keep the San Diego 
North County VHF system as a back-up:
KF6ATL: “We had about 6 or 7 frequencies licensed to what was then the Fallbrook 
Fire Department which is now the North County Fire Department, and slowly but 
surely I took those licenses and turned three of them into what we call “Command 
Channels” or “Command Frequencies” and we strategically located them on 
mountaintops throughout North San Diego County. 

“One of the first repeaters we put up was at a place called Buffalo Bump. Its on 
Camp Pendleton. It was followed by a same-licensed repeater up on Palomar 
Mountain and then another frequency located on Red Mountain, all within 
eye-sight of Fallbrook. 

“And then I have one other repeater that I consider a low level repeater located 
in downtown Fallbrook.”
That forward planning by KF6ATL paid off then the power failure hit:
KF6ATL: “I was off on the day that the 800 MHz failure occurred with the power 
outage. Luckilly, one of my counterparts who works for the city of San Marcos – 
Dave Schloss – recognized that there was a failure – and like myself – he 
realized that we needed to do something with our 800 system to have redundancy. 
So he reacted quickly and called the Dispatch Center and started moving all the 
traffic over to my North County Fire VHF repeaters.”
We asked Stevens if his experience as a radio amateur helped in the pre-planning 
of the North County VHF radio back up system: 

KF6ATL: “Pretty much everything that I’ve done, Iv’e done myself. I’ve taught 
myself how to program repeaters. The only thing that I didn’t do was to hang the 
antennas.”
In the end, Stevens hopes other communities will do as his did and make certain 
that some sort of back up emergency radio system is in place. This, just in case 
the unthinkable happens and the primary system fails.
For the Amateur Radio Newsline, I’m Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, in the studio in Los 
Angeles.
If nothing else, this is another incident that proves putting all emergency 
communications eggs into a single, supposedly fail-safe system can very easily 
fail is not a very good idea. (CGC, ARNewsline™)