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Subj: ARES E-Letter March 16, 2016
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From: CX2SA@CX2SA.SAL.URY.SOAM
To : ARES@WW
The ARES E-Letter March 16, 2016
Editor: Rick Palm, K1CE
In This Issue:
- Amateur Radio Sessions at the National Hurricane Conference, Orlando,
Next Week
- Communications Support for the "Greatest Free Show on Earth"
- Wisconsin's Sawyer County ARES/RACES Receives Donation from Ski Race
Foundation
- Letters: W1HKJ fldigi Suite's flmsg
- Florida Amateurs Take Part In Severe Weather Awareness Day
- Letters: Mass Alert Systems
- Boston Marathon Communications Committee Seeks Amateur-Volunteers
- Biennial Radiation Drill Supported by Southern Florida ARES
- Tech Tips: Crimping Tools
- Letters: Solar Panels
- Maryland-DC ARES Statewide ARDF/SAR for Missing Person
ARES Briefs, Links
------------------
Special Deputy John Krawczak, KJ0P, of Minnetonka, Minnesota, was recently
presented the 2015 Hennepin County Sheriff's Distinguished Service Award and
the 2015 Minnesota Sheriff's Association Volunteer Of The Year Award.
Krawczak is a member of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office Volunteer
Services Division on the Communications Response Team. Twenty radio amateurs
are members of the team that provides public safety and amateur
communications support in emergencies/disasters and community events.
The Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency (PREMA) and other agencies will
participate in a communications drill simulating a tsunami incident, along
with radio amateurs in supporting roles. The exercise is slated for
tomorrow, March 17 at 10 AM local time.The Puerto Rico ARES organization
will be active, and registered on www.tsunamizone.org where more information
can be found. The aim of the exercise is to test the reliability of
communication systems and protocols between centers of tsunami alerts and to
help emergency management agencies to improve their preparedness in the
event of an alert. Since 2010, Amateur Radio operators have played a role in
the exercise, executed in conjunction with the Puerto Rico Seismic Network
(RSPR), the Caribbean Warning Tsunami Exercise (Caribe Wave), FEMA, the
Puerto Rico Emergency Management Administration, and NOAA.
ARRL Officials at Michigan Communications Conference: The 2016 Michigan
Statewide Interoperability Communications Conference held at Great Wolf
Lodge February 22-25 in Traverse City, Michigan, featured the state's
auxcomm protocols, with amateurs playing a significant role in many
presentations and discussions. From the conference summary, "In an
emergency, every link in the chain is critical and those links must be
firmly connected. That means every agency, every leader and every employee
needs to be on the same page and committed to our shared strategic vision of
interoperability."
Armed Forces Day 2016 Communication Test to Include Direct Military-Ham
Contact on 60 Meters (3/1/16); ARES Groups, Individual Hams Support Army and
Air Force MARS Communications Exercise (3/1/16); ARES Team Leverages Radio
Services, Local Media, Internet in Missouri Flood Watch (2/22/16)
Amateur Radio Sessions at the National Hurricane Conference, Orlando, Next
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Week
----
Amateur Radio capabilities will be presented at the 2016 National Hurricane
Conference, which will be held next week in Orlando, Florida, at the Orlando
Hilton hotel. The conference theme is to improve hurricane preparedness as
it has been in past years. All Amateur Radio sessions are free, and all will
be held on Tuesday afternoon, March 22, 2016 from 1:30 to 5:00 PM. Here is
the session breakdown:
NHC Session #1 - 1:30 to 3:00 PM: Dr. Rick Knabb, Director, National
Hurricane Center will discuss the importance of Amateur Radio surface
reporting. Bob Robichaud, VE1MBR, of the Canadian Hurricane Centre, will
present on hurricane meteorological topics and an overview of Canadian
Hurricane Centre operations. Julio Ripoll,WD4R, Assistant Amateur Radio
Station Coordinator will present on National Hurricane Center station WX4NHC
operations.
NHC Session #2: 3:15 to 5:00 PM: Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, Hurricane Watch Net
Manager, will present an overview of the net, use of personal weather
stations and backup power/antenna. Rob Macedo, KD1CY, Director of
Operations, VoIP Hurricane Net and ARRL ARES Eastern Massachusetts Assistant
SEC, will discuss net operations, and best practices in SKYWARN tropical
systems reporting. Ken Bailey, K1FUG, ARRL Assistant Manager of Preparedness
and Response, will present the ARRL Beginner's Course in Ham Radio Hurricane
Preparedness. Finally, a Q&A session and door raffle prizes will be offered.
Amateur Radio presentations will be recorded and live streamed. The
livestream for 2016 will be on You Tube. Livestream links will be as follows:
http://www.nsradio.org/stream
http://www.voipwx.net/files/stream.htm
Communications Support for the "Greatest Free Show on Earth"
------------------------------------------------------------
Mardi Gras is an annual celebration in New Orleans that's tied to the
Christian tradition of Lent before Easter. Sixty-four parades with up to 50
floats each are enjoyed by locals and nearly 1.2 million visitors over the
course of 2 weeks leading up to Mardi Gras day (literally, "Fat Tuesday,"
the day before Lent starts on Ash Wednesday). The multiple daily events of
the Mardi Gras celebration have been called "the world's largest planned
natural disaster." Eric Pickering, KE5BMU, is the City's Deputy Operations
Chief in the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security & Emergency
Preparedness (NOHSEP), and his team is responsible for responding to
unplanned events that are real, likely, or feared.
Of course, a communications infrastructure failure is high on the list of
likely disasters that can be mitigated with planning and practice. And so
Pickering began working closely with two local hams, Rafael Shabetai, W5BAI,
and Cedric Walker, K5CFW. Together they re-activated a station in City Hall
that had been built for NOHSEP by Bob McBride, AE5RN (SK) and began planning
for an expansion into the NOHSEP mobile command post bus. The three had two
goals: involving local hams who could serve as the "eyes and ears" of NOHSEP
in a disaster or emergency, and ensuring that a robust backup communications
network was trained and prepared to take over if the state-wide primary
trunked 800 MHz network stopped working.
Because New Orleans residents still vividly remember the wrath of Hurricane
Katrina in 2005, it's easy to convince them that the goals of operator
preparedness and equipment readiness can mean the difference between life
and death. After Katrina, the trunked public safety network and all
cellphone voice capability shut down. The only remaining communications
channels were via ham-operated VHF and UHF repeaters. And so Pickering,
Shabetai and Walker decided to create a repeater-based training exercise,
centered around Mardi Gras when so many residents/hams are out and about and
likely to be carrying their H-T radios anyway.
Of the 64 parades in the New Orleans area, 29 follow a similar 3.7 mile
route down St. Charles Avenue and along Canal Street in the Central Business
District. Three first aid stations along the route are in operation during
the parades, and arrangements were made to credential ham volunteers to give
them access as bases of operations. Three repeater owners (Southeast
Louisiana Emergency Communications Service W5MCC, Jefferson Amateur Radio
Club W5GAD, and the Greater New Orleans Amateur Radio Club W5UK) granted
access to their machines for the duration of the Mardi Gras exercises. A
mobile command post along the route serves the many city departments that
keep the parade route safe and clear. An operating position in the mobile
command post bus was set aside for net control, and a street sign next to
the bus' parking place served as a convenient temporary mast for a dual-band
vertical antenna. A transceiver from the City Hall station was temporarily
relocated to the mobile command post, but next year a dedicated transceiver
and antenna will be installed.
With operation locations and equipment in place, the team's next task was
recruiting a cadre of volunteers. Pickering made a successful recruitment
presentation at the W5GAD club meeting. The Assistant Section Emergency
Coordinator Matt Anderson, KD5KNZ, plus ARES Emergency Coordinators for New
Orleans Joel Colman, NO5FD, and neighboring Jefferson Parish Nick Frederick,
W4NDF, all stepped up to recruit operators for both field and net control
positions, and all three volunteered as operators. It was decided to limit
operations to the weekend immediately before Mardi Gras day, and to Mardi
Gras day, as these dates have the biggest parades with the highest
attendance. Ten volunteers participated, and check-ins from other hams along
the parade route added to the numbers compiled by each net control shift. No
emergencies were handled, and we were fortunate that the city's regular
emergency communication infrastructure did not need a backup.
The ham community demonstrated that it could serve NOHSEP professionally and
reliably. This was the first year of an organized effort to bring hams into
the NOHSEP operation, and it was incomplete because many parades were not
covered. With the success of this year's demonstration and the goodwill that
was generated, it will be possible to mount a bigger recruitment effort and
provide coverage for more of the 64 parades that make Mardi Gras the
greatest free show on earth. -- Cedric F. Walker, K5CFW [The author is
Professor Emeritus, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tulane University].
Wisconsin's Sawyer County ARES/RACES Receives Donation from Ski Race
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Foundation
----------
The American Birkebeiner Ski Race, known as the Birkie, is North America's
largest cross-country ski race. Held in northwest Wisconsin, the race is 33
miles long, starts in Cable, and ends on Main Street in downtown Hayward.
This was the 43rd year for the Birkie and 10,500 skiers came from the US and
Canada, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, Japan and many other
countries.
Eighteen years ago the Birkie Foundation asked the Amateur Radio community
to help with communications along the race course and amateurs from a
five-county area around Hayward in Sawyer County have been doing it ever
since. There are nine medical and nine food stations along the race course
that provide medical help to those who need it, with the food stations
providing power drinks and refreshments to the skiers. Amateur Radio
operators are at these stations to relay information regarding medical
issues (dropouts, injuries, etc.) and food station needs (low on supplies
for skiers, etc.) back to a net control station, which gives the information
to the Birkie office during the event.
This year the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation donated $2,500 to the
Sawyer County ARES/RACES group to purchase and maintain two new amateur VHF
repeaters in Sawyer County. With this donation, Sawyer County ARES/RACES is
able to replace two old repeaters and the accessories for them. -- Wally
Kruk, N9VAO, Sawyer County ARES/RACES, Wisconsin, Emergency Coordinator
Letters: W1HKJ fldigi Suite's flmsg
-----------------------------------
Many digital mode operators familiar with flmsgthink of it as a forms
utility for use only with fldigi. However, it's also a great cross-platform,
stand-alone program. We have used it to prepare and move forms (ICS,
radiogram, etc.) within our EOC by thumb drive, shared drive and mesh
network. Our county officials can put flmsg on their computers and send the
files to the radio room without any need for transcribing or cut and paste.
We also send flmsg files as attachments to email and radio-email messages
and they may also be placed on store-forward bulletin board systems.
Additionally, amateurs have been working with W1HKJ to make the flsmg
ICS-213 form FEMA compliant and completely compatible for use within the
National Traffic System (NTS). The text can be transported within NTS via
voice, cw and digital modes using the standard radiogram format as a
"wrapper" for the file. NTS-Digital can also handle flmsg files as
attachments to radiograms. -- Steve Hansen, KB1TCE, Knox County
ARES/RACES-CERT, Owl's Head, Maine
Florida Amateurs Take Part In Severe Weather Awareness Day
----------------------------------------------------------
The Lake Amateur Radio Association (LARA) of Lake County, Florida, and its
ARES group were invited to take part in the county Public Safety Department
Emergency Management Division's Severe Weather Awareness Day Exposition held
at the Lake County Fair Grounds in Eustis, Florida on Saturday, February 20,
2016.
The purpose of Severe Weather Awareness Day is to acquaint the citizens of
Lake County with the need to prepare for severe weather events such as
hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or forest fires. The Lake County Emergency
Management Division invited various disaster relief groups to display their
emergency equipment that could be used in such events.
Along with the LARA and Lake County ARES organizations, present were other
groups such as the Lake County Sheriff's Office, Lake Emergency Medical
Service, Lake County Fire Rescue, Southern Baptist-Disaster Relief,
Salvation Army, and the Red Cross. These groups brought had their officials
available to explain their organization's roles. Tours were also conducted.
LARA had their communication trailer on display along with a booth where ham
volunteers explained their role in assisting professional responders in the
event of an emergency. LARA and Lake County ARES members were glad to be
included by the Lake County Emergency Management Division and be given the
opportunity to tell the general public about their roles in disaster relief.
-- Ted Luebbers, K1AYZ, Lake County, Florida ARES PIO
Letters: Mass Alert Systems
---------------------------
Our ARES unit researched various mass notification (alert) system vendors
for a system that would work for us. After two no-cost trials, we have gone
with One Call Now, and their basic pay-as-you-go package for $90 for 1000
"credits" - each notification call or SMS text counts as 1 credit, so our 70
member ARES group with a total of 122 contact numbers would be 122 credits
per notification, giving us eight phone and SMS notifications.
For my first test, I sent Winnipeg ARES Emergency Coordinators, AECs, PIO
and two special tech savvy members (eight in total) an alert exercise
message with request to meet me on the air on a local repeater. It didn't
work well -- I only heard from one of the eight: The recipients were leery
about answering calls from 1-877 numbers. I now have the system set up to
display the "local" number for my ARES pager. For a wider audience test of
Winnipeg ARES members who knew I was looking at a mass notification system
vendor and that I was targeting a specific day for a test (a provincial
holiday in Manitoba), I used the messager to distribute a draft exercise
plan. As a result, for the actual test notification/on-air exercise net, I
heard from half of the Winnipeg ARES membership (many were away for the long
weekend).
A group leader gets a report from the provider for each notification, and
can log in and see a detailed report of which recipients answered and when
they did so. I have made my AECs and PIO "messengers" so they each have a
discrete log-in and can transmit a notification.
This system sure beats our cumbersome, suboptimal, time-consuming telephone
tree fan-out protocol. -- Jeff Dovyak , VE4MBQ, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
ARES
Boston Marathon Communications Committee Seeks Amateur-Volunteers
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) begins its Boston Marathon volunteer
communications work with the slogan "Volunteers Run This Event." Indeed, the
Amateur Radio community has a role in nearly every aspect from Start to
Finish. Preparations are in high gear as Amateur Radio continues to serve in
this extraordinary event -- we need you! Each year around 300 communications
volunteers organize, plan, train and serve the BAA, some 30,000 runners,
10,000 volunteers, and their communities. Registration for Amateur Radio
volunteers remains open with assignments available for new volunteers who
have a passion for public service, and for experienced hands at this
longstanding event. Registration is easy and one-stop. For more information,
click here. -- Brett Smith, AB1RL, BAA Communications Committee Volunteer
Coordinator
Biennial Radiation Drill Supported by Southern Florida ARES
-----------------------------------------------------------
Every two years the St. Lucie (Florida) Nuclear Power Plant is required to
hold an exercise that is chiefly evaluated by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The
purpose of these exercises is to test and evaluate the responses of plant
personnel, law enforcement agencies, emergency management officials, and
communications personnel. This year, the exercise took place on February 24.
The scenario involved overloaded communication systems normally used by the
public, rendering them unusable. ARES would provide radio communications
among the county EOCs and other critical assets/support locations.
ARES teams came and participated from St. Lucie, Palm Beach, Martin, Indian
River, and Brevard counties. Operators successfully employed the UHF
repeater-based Statewide Amateur Radio Network (SARnet) for most
communications as well as an HF net on 7.245 MHz. The dual nets backed each
other up for redundancy/reliability for the ARES mission of supporting each
of the EOCs.
SARnet is a network of linked UHF voice repeaters that serves the State of
Florida. The state Department of Transportation (DOT) network that connects
these amateur repeaters is a stand-alone carrier class microwave network.
The use of this dedicated bandwidth provides a network much more likely to
remain operational during a severe weather event like a hurricane.
All ARES communications tests and requirements were successfully passed and
met, with the use of the dual nets for backup capability being noted and
praised by the evaluators. Martin County ARES also had a display of Go-Kits
that illustrated what they do upon activation. It drew a good audience and
plenty of questions from the responders. The FEMA representative visited
ARES EC Steve Marshall, WW4RX, who discussed the kits and answered questions
about SARnet and a map of its coverage and implications for its usage.
The excellent performance of these county ARES teams could not have been
possible without the leadership and efforts of their county ECs, their
respective net control operators, all other ARES operators and their
assistants, and their respective county Emergency Management personnel.
Thanks also go to the other amateur operators who kept the SARnet and HF
frequencies clear for the duration of the exercise. -- George P. Geran,
KK4AXV, Brevard County Assistant EC; Willie Thompson, KB5FKG, Indian River
County Assistant EC; Steve Marshall, WW4RX, Martin County EC; Charles Benn,
WB2SNN, Palm Beach County District EC; and Steve Lowman, N4SGL, St. Lucie
County EC
Tech Tips: Crimping Tools
-------------------------
A few years ago when Powerpoles started to emerge as the standard connector
for ARES and RACES applications, it was time for me to change out my Molex
connectors. Having no initial success in finding a die set for my Paladin
CrimpALL tool, I noticed that DX Engineering was not only selling a crimp
tool, but also individual die sets for PowerPoles, RG-8, RG8X and
uninsulated and insulated wire connectors. After an exchange of e-mails with
DX Engineering staff, I ordered the PowerPole die set. DX Engineering was
not sure if it would fit my crimp tool but offered to accept its return if
it did not. Eureka -- it fit perfectly as if Greenlee manufactured it!
Subsequently, I purchased the RG-8 and RG-8X die sets for UHF and BNC
connectors.
If any readers owns a Paladin/Greenlee 8000 series CrimpALL tool, they can
be safe in ordering the dies discussed above from DX Engineering. I am in no
way connected with DX Engineering, just a satisfied customer.-- Joseph Walc,
W4EEI, Asheville, North Carolina
Letters: Solar Panels
---------------------
When looking at solar panels, there are three basic technologies: Amorphous,
Poly-Crystalline, and Mono-Crystalline. Amorphous panels are common for
small panels because they are inexpensive and can be cut to any size, but
they wear out more quickly and/or not very efficient. They are usually a
deep brown color. I recommend avoiding them. Poly-Crystalline is a good
technology and should be the minimum acceptable.They are typically bluish
tint and usually have a fractured pattern. Mono-Crystalline are the best.
They last a very long time and have the best efficiency.These typically look
black and usually have cells that look like rectangles with two clipped
corners. There are some flexible panels, but their efficiency is usually not
very good. For my heavy deployable go-kit, I use a solar package similar to
the USA STOCK 100 watt 12 volt Folding Solar Panel with one or two 50 Ah
batteries, depending on the circumstances. -- John Bloodgood, KD0SFY, Pikes
Peak (Colorado) ARES
Maryland-DC ARES Statewide ARDF/SAR for Missing Person
------------------------------------------------------
The mission presented to ARRL Maryland-DC Section ARES: Find a radio beacon
and save a life. It started on Friday, February 26, when an autistic adult
was discovered missing. By Sunday, Section Manager Marty Pittinger, KB3MXM,
and SEC Jim Montgomery, WB3KAS, received an e-mail from Joe Cotton, W3TTT,
explaining the serious situation: "I was called last night by a member of
the Northwest Citizen's Patrol, a partner with Project Lifesaver. An
autistic man was discovered missing by his caretaker on Friday morning, two
days ago." Cotton asked Pittinger and Montgomery if their organization had
the means to locate a Project Lifesaver radio beacon leg bracelet, issued to
incapacitated adults for rapid location, response and safe return. The local
Project Lifesavers point-of-contact in Baltimore needed help.
Pittinger, Montgomery and Cotton, with the CEO of Project Lifesaver,
coordinated action using brief e-mail correspondence and telephone chats to
define search criteria and share technical information. Contact was also
made with local law enforcement agencies handling the missing-person case in
order to set a protocol/format for Amateur Radio operators reporting to the
police departments.
ARRL Atlantic Division Director Tom Abernethy, W3TOM, was consulted and a
plan was created and coordinated to handle this rather unique request.
Section officials contacted local clubs to secure phase doppler radio
direction finder equipment, and acquired the beacon frequency, radio range,
and tone signatures. The goal was to activate the entire Maryland-DC
Section's ARES statewide to perform a QTH-QTV ("stand guard," or listen on
frequency) from every Amateur Radio operator's home station to detect the
beacon and relay its location to local police. Amateur Radio mobile assets
might be needed to determine the beacon's precise location.
Once permission to activate was secured, Section Manager Pittinger issued an
"Activation Announcement" to SEC Montgomery, who alerted and activated all
ARES members to initiate the search plan/protocol. Pittinger then informed
Project Lifesaver coordinators and police that the state-wide ARDF search
was underway.
The Maryland Port Authority identified the missing autistic man at Baltimore
Washington International Airport, and MDC ARES was told to stand down.
Pittinger concluded "We were grateful to learn that the missing man was
located and that we were given the opportunity to assist in a massive safety
of life search." He said "Our knowledge, experience, agility and huge
presence across Maryland and the District of Columbia show our ability to
serve multiple agencies and organizations jointly, seamlessly and rapidly as
an organized team." -- ARRL Maryland-DC Section
____________
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