[W1SMH] Fwd: The ARES E-Letter for September 21, 2016

[RayCord]

 Excellent articles on a portable APRS digipeater and Emergency Ops

 


Ray 
Deputy Director 
Norton EMA-CERT
70 East Main St 
Norton, Ma. 02766
508-726-1054 cell
 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: ARRL Web site <memberlist at www.arrl.org>
To: raycord <raycord at aol.com>
Sent: Wed, Sep 21, 2016 5:49 am
Subject: The ARES E-Letter for September 21, 2016





If you are having troublereading this message, you can see the original at:
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/ares-el/?issue=2016-09-21


September 21,2016
Editor: Rick Palm, K1CE

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In This Issue:

 

September is National Preparedness Month 
Spotlight: Georgia Mountains' District ARES TrainsOn Public Event Communications Support
Western Washington Section Manager Comments onJune's Cascadia Rising; See September QST Article
Tech Tips: The North Country's Solar Powered APRSDigipeaters
Letters: 12 Hour Shifts
Get on Board the Simplex Contest Train!
K1CE For a Final

ARES Briefs, Links
Amateur Radio Volunteers Needed toSupport Marine Corps Marathon (9/14/16); SKYWARN Youth onthe Air Net Debuts (9/14/16); Mexican Emergency Communication Net Activates for Newton (9/7/16); TropicalStorm Hermine Gains Attention on the Eastern Seaboard, Hurricane Watch NetSecures (9/2/16); ARRLCEO Urges New York City-Area Hams to Join Him as Marathon Volunteer(9/1/16); BigIsland ARES Districts Activate to Support Possible Hurricane Response inHawaii (8/31/16); SKYWARN Set toActivate in Hawaii as Hurricanes Threaten (8/30/16); Nominations Open for the George HartDistinguished Service Award (8/29/16)
September is National Preparedness Month 
Don't Wait.Communicate. Make your Personal, Family, CERT andARES® Emergency Plans Today.
September is National PreparednessMonth (NPM), which serves as a reminder to prepare, now and throughout theyear, for the types of emergencies that could affect us where we live,work, and visit - and certainly for ARES (September also marks the beginning ofthe ARRL SET period, see below) responses. For more information, includinga social media toolkit, visit www.ready.gov/september. In June 2003, ARRL became anofficial affiliate program of Citizen Corps, an initiative within the Department of Homeland Security toenhance public preparedness and safety. The Statement of Affiliation makes ARRL an affiliate under the four charterCitizen Corps programs--Neighborhood Watch, Volunteers in Police Service,Community Emergency Response Teams and Medical Reserve Corps.
See www.ready.gov/make-a-plan to help you make your plans. Also, in recentFacebook posts and tweets from @ARRL_ARES, ARRL Emergency Preparedness ManagerMike Corey, KI1U, gives tips on how to prepare ourselves and our stations foremergency/disaster response. A recent post suggested "communication becomeseasier when you know what band fits your needs. Learn how to determine thebest band for getting the message to where it needs to go." Follow theARRL ARES® program @ARRL_ARES on Twitter. Follow National Preparedness at readygov Follow America's PrepareAthon @PrepareAthon
GetSet for ARRL Simulated Emergency Test (SET)
The ARRLencourages you to consider this year's Simulated Emergency Test andpreparations for it as a demonstration of Amateur Radio's readiness and as anactive participant in National Preparedness Month. Click here andchoose the tab for this year's SET guidelines. SET is a nationwideexercise in emergency communications, administered by ARRL Field Organizationleaders including Emergency Coordinators, District Emergency Coordinators,Section Emergency Coordinators and Net Managers.The SET weekend givescommunicators the opportunity to focus on the emergency communications capabilitywithin their communities while interacting with NTS nets.To participate inthis year's emergency test, contact your local ARRL emergency coordinator ornet manager. ARRL Sections, ARES teams and nets may conduct their exercisesanytime during September through December.

Spotlight: Georgia Mountains' District ARESTrains On Public Event Communications Support
Themountainous Northwest Georgia District ARES program supports four publicevents each year as a public service and training exercises for its operators.This month, the organization is supporting the Georgia Jewel foot races of 35, 50 and100 miles and the seven aid stations situated along the course. ARESoperators establish communication centers at each station and track all runners forevent safety and progress. The 36 hour event in the mountains has only 5%cell coverage, hence the focus on Amateur Radio for essentialcommunications.
Last year, the DEC for the district and for theGeorgia Digital program at large, Frank Dean, K4SJR, moved the operation from aVHF/UHF FM voice platform to Winlink Packet. Dean reported "We sent justunder 400 messages via VHF Packet -- it was so much easier than sending 150runners' information from station to station by voice." "From the start ofthe race in Dalton, we had a complete spreadsheet of all runners and theirlocations on the course."
For this year's event, Deanadded more communications tools at the net control center on the summit ofJohns Mountain (1880') including a 70 cm repeater, six packet gateways withtwo VHF digipeaters, and a portable D-STAR repeater for use with six areaD-STAR repeaters. Systems new and old have been tested twice in the last twomonths, with trials of different antennas and modes at all aid stationsites. Dean reports 100% reliability of packet radio and D-STAR/D-RATS at allaid stations. They are ready to go for this month's event.
Next April, Dean's ARES group will serve the Georgia Death Race -a 70 mile route over 24 hours and 40,000 feet of elevation change, aserious communications challenge.

Western Washington Section Manager Comments on June's CascadiaRising; See September QST Article
Amateur Radio played a major role in the June 6-10 Cascadia Rising 2016FEMA exercise in the Pacific Northwest, discussed in the comprehensive,excellent September 2016 QST article "Cascadia Rising 2016: PacificNorthwest Amateurs Called to Serve" by ARRL Oregon Section Manager John Core,KX7YT, and Western Washington Section Manager Monte Simpson, AF7PQ. Thescenario was a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and consequent tsunami, causing ablackout of all conventional communication channels.
"Amateur Radio operators not only provided communications continuity forEmergency Management agencies, they worked with the Washington State Patrol,Washington State Guard, Washington National Guard, and the FAA," Simpson said inhis recent after-action report. Simpson is also Washington's State RACESOfficer. He said radio amateurs supported approximately 32 city, county,state, tribal, and federal agencies during the event.
"Wewere able to support all our served agencies and clients," Simpsonrecounted. "Volunteers were able to provide communications support on location andduring the planned participation period." He said US Amateur Radioresponders established cross-border communication with the emergency operationscenter in Langley, British Columbia, which was holding its own province-wideexercise, Coastal Response.
"Overall, ourobjectives of being able to communicate with external agencies via voice and Winlink wereachieved," Simpson said. "It was great to be able to participate in anexercise of this magnitude to get a feeling for what it would be like to have thismany people trying to send and receive data. All of our operators feltthis was very beneficial."
Simpson said that includingAmateur Radio as "an actual functional part" of Cascadia Rising was a bigplus, and that the participants felt they were "actually part of the team andnot some ancillary group that was just being tolerated."
Among his recommendations, Simpson said there should be morestandardization on language and forms, as well as coming up with a method ofestablishing contact with communities that lack communication if repeaters go down. Healso advised that ARES and RACES teams exercise their equipment on aregular basis, to avoid unexpected outages and failures during a real-worldevent. - Thanks, Rick Lindquist, WW1ME, ARRL Letter and QST ContributingEditor

Tech Tips:The North Country's Solar Powered APRS Digipeaters
While there are a few good mountaintop Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) digipeatersin northern New Hampshire and Vermont, there are gaps in local coverage --many roads and towns are in valleys, shadowed by high mountains on eitherside, blocking access to the digipeaters. Thus, "fill-in" digipeaters arerequired, critical for support of large ­scale public events such as theProuty CenturyBike rides. For this event, the local Amateur Radio club deploys twodozen trackers, and employs several fill-­in digipeaters for local useand access to the mountaintop machines.
A recentlyintroduced, compact, all-in-one APRS unit (receiver, transmitter, and TNC) iseasily incorporated in the fill-in digipeaters, easily transported by offhighway recreational vehicles or backpack, and capable of operating forextended periods off the grid. A solar powered digipeater can be employed forshort term use as with our bike rides, or as a permanent installation. Here area few considerations we factored into our systems.
Basic Design
First, in selecting the components, economywas an important consideration - theft or vandalism at remote sites isalways a possibility. We used the Byonics MTT4B 10 watt transceiver, packaged in aplastic case about the size of two cigarette packs. The MTT4B drawsabout 50 mA in receive mode, and 1700 mA when transmitting. To conservepower, a system operator can program fixed coordinates into the unit (a GPSreceiver draws about 65 mA when acquiring a set



Componentsfor solar powered digipeater project. (photo courtesy Bob Harris,K9UDX)
 
 
 

 of coordinates).Alternatively, the operator can program the MTT4B to turn the power to the GPSreceiver on only long enough to get a fix and transmit a position packet.By programming the APRS transceiver to insert the call sign of the stationinto the packets it digipeats, the operator can use infrequent positionpackets and still meet FCC requirements for identification.
A plastic ammunition box (dry box) similar to a Flambeau fourteen inch dark greenplastic ammo box model is an ideal enclosure for this project. They arewatertight, even in a heavy downpour. We replaced the lift out tray with a pieceof 1/8" thick Masonite® pressed board, and attached the transceiverto it.
Based on the experience of a fellow ham whooperated a stealth digipeater in the central part of the state, system operatorscan expect to have adequate reserve power for night time and cloudy dayoperation with two 18 amp/hour sealed lead acid batteries, although thebatteries are too heavy to be transported in the plastic dry box for anydistance (the box bows when carried by the handle). A luggage strap could supportthe box with battery, or the batteries could be transported separately andinstalled in the box at the site. Batteries should be kept charged with a35 watt solar panel, which measures about 18" by 26". A charge controllerregulates the amount of voltage going to charge the batteries; longer batterylife results when controllers sense and adjust the output voltage based onthe chemistry and type of battery.
The batteries areplaced in the bottom of the dry box, wired in parallel, and connected firstto the charge controller, before the panel is connected. We placed a smallshelf to fill the gap between the batteries and one end of the dry box,preventing the batteries from shifting and providing a convenient mountingpoint for the controller. We employed the ARES/RACES standard Anderson Powerpole connectors for DC power connections.
It was necessary to breach the sides of the dry box in two or three placesfor wires and cable. Altech sealing glands (available at major nationalelectronics distributors and a network of regional distributors) can be usedto obtain a waterproof seal around the wires and cable. The solar panelcomes with two heavy gauge conductors: we used two sealing glands for thepower leads that bring the solar power into the enclosure. Alternatively, wespliced a length of zip cord to those conductors and use one of the Altechsealing glands for flat wire, reducing the number of holes in the enclosurefrom three to two.
The remaining hole is for the coaxialcable run from the transceiver to the antenna. Since the MTT4Bincorporates an SMA connector for the antenna, the builders purchased an SMA toSO­239 adapter cable made with a couple of feet of good qualitycoaxial wire. With the proper Altech sealing gland, the SMA connector will fitthrough the rubber seal of the gland and when tightened, the sealing glandwill close around the cable. The SO­239 connector is connected to thePL­259 connector from the antenna, and sealed with coax seal.
There is a slot in one end of the Masonite® shelf. Whenplaced in the ammunition box, the shelf will be at about the same level as thesealing gland for the coaxial cable, thus the slot is used to route thecoax from the MTT4B through the sealing gland without undue stress onthe coax.
Installation in the Field and Results
Our first unit was installed near the height of land at anearby farm in 2015. A JetStream fiberglass antenna mounted on a twentyfoot pole completed the setup. It has been in constant operation sincethen (including use in one Prouty Century bike ride). The two batterieshave more than enough reserve power, even after several days of heavyovercast, rain, or winter gloom for the amount of traffic this digipeater



System deployed in the field. (photo courtesy K9UDX)

 
 

 is handling. The solar panelleans up against a tree with its bottom edge about a foot above ground level.It is angled up at about 60 degrees from the ground and faces south. While60 degrees is more than optimal (45 degrees is preferred, depending on thesite's latitude), the steeper angle helps shed any snow during the winter.
The MTT4B transmits its telemetry data (voltageand internal unit temperature) hourly so we can monitor its health remotely.It relays its received packets to the APRS equipment at my home where theyare forwarded to the APRS servers by my Igate. - Bob Harris, K9UDX,Bath, New Hampshire [Harris is a retired programmer for embedded systems.He volunteers for the Prouty Century bike ride and serves as its APRScoordinator, helping the two dozen hams on the road course use APRS. Harrisworks on improving the APRS infrastructure in rural northern New Hampshire].
Letters: 12 Hour Shifts
Granted, long shifts and fatigue often cannot be avoidedin emergency operations, but it comes with a price. Numerous private andpublic studies show that long shifts cause health problems and mistakes.Aside from the wear on personnel, it has been found that errors increase. Soas many emergency responders and the military are often taught, "Rest yourtroops!" Granted, sometimes you may only have two operators to rotate andcover a position all day every day for a week, but everyone needs at leastone six-hour "great sleep" every 24 hours, to avoid excess fatigue. Andalmost no one can really focus for more than two hours at a time, meaning thateven an eight hour shift is too long if there are no breaks. Better torotate in shorter shifts, or at least ensure the personnel literally get up, getout, and stretch their legs every hour or two. Twelve hour shifts are agood way to cause bad things to happen.
Get on Board the Simplex Contest Train!
Last month, we solicited information on locally oriented simplex contestsacross the country, and the readership came through. Here are a few examplesthat may serve as models for local ARES and other groups interested inexercising and enhancing their capabilities.
The Wireless Society of SouthernMaine conducts its 2 Meter FM Simplex Challenge eachFebruary. Originally, the Challenge was created to allow all classesof licensees an opportunity to participate in a contest. It was quicklydiscovered that a great deal of information could be gained about VHF simplexpaths in the State of Maine to aid in emergency communications planning.The inspiration for this contest came from the Plano Amateur Radio Klub, ofPlano, Texas. -- Frank Krizan, K5HS, Founding President, WirelessSociety of Southern Maine
I wrote an article in April2014 QST "The 2M Simplex Sprint - a Contest for Everyone". The contestinspires and boosts membership, garners knowledge of 2-meter simplexoperation and capabilities, and promotes creativity with height, power, andantennas to develop communications strategies and getting to know and networkwith local and regional like-minded operators. Plus, it's just plain fun.
Last year was our banner year for participation andresults. Just like the key to house-buying is location, location, location, sogoes this contest: You have to communicate, communicate, communicate. Formore info, click here.-- Paul Lusardi, N0VLR, Corvallis, Oregon
TheSan Francisco RadioClub (in its 100th year, W6PW) held its second annual 2-meter QSO Party inAugust. More info on the event here. -- David R. Dull, KK6JKC, San Francisco,California
The Aulani Hui Amateur Repeater Club sponsors the Hawaiian Islands GridMadness, an event for all hams in the State of Hawaii. This event isdesigned for fun and to test equipment, coverage and operating skills usingsimplex FM on 2 meters and 70 cm. The idea is to contact as many stations inas many Grid Squares as you can, using simplex only. More here. -- Stan Froseth, AH6KO,Kailua Kona, Hawaii
The Huntsville (Alabama) AmateurRadio Club engaged two Simplex Sprint contests in 2015 and again in 2016 withanother scheduled for next year on June 17, 2017. For complete informationabout the event, including rules, simplex frequencies, past winners,scores, etc., see the club's website here. A custom logging program is availableto assist with scoring. All contacts are multiplied by the power level,and then the number of unique zip codes the operator has logged at the end ofthe 3-hour sprint. We sure found out how far a 5 watt HT can get out withsimplex with some antenna height and elevation. -- M.D. Smith, WA4DXP,Huntsville, Alabama
K1CEFor a Final
I rode out Hurricane Hermine in a cabin in the Suwanneeriver (northern Florida) basin, to the east of landfall, with emergencysupplies, water, and battery-powered station and antennas. During the day,September 1, prior to the storm's arrival, I charged batteries and monitoredarea repeaters and the Hurricane Watch Net on 14.325 MHz. Later thatevening, I checked into the Columbia (county) Amateur Radio Society emergency neton the group's Lake City NF4CQ repeater on 146.94 MHz, listening to weatherreports from operators in the coverage area. After the net closed, Ichecked into the Alachua County ARES/RACES net on Gainesville's 146.82 MHzrepeater. Both nets were controlled by excellent net control stations; the netsran efficiently and effectively. After that net closed, I scanned arearepeaters, and listened to NOAA weather broadcasts. At 1 AM the wind rose,sounding like a freight train; trees and limbs hit the ground. Power mains wentout, but on battery power, I monitored my radios for information. Thanksgo to the Hurricane Watch Net and the area ARES groups and nets cited abovefor a job well done.
_______
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