I haven't heard any ARES activity related to the hurricane. Were
there any HF nets? Is there any activity coming out of the areas that
are still without power? Does ARES still exist, other than on paper?

--
Klystron

In article ,
Klystron wrote:
I haven't heard any ARES activity related to the hurricane. Were
there any HF nets? Is there any activity coming out of the areas that
are still without power? Does ARES still exist, other than on paper?

I don't know what operations might still be going on, but there
were definitely ARES/RACES callouts last week:

http://www.arrl.org/news/as-hurrican...d-call-to-help

There was an ARES booth at the recent ARRL National Convention
in Santa Clara.


Patty N6BIS

On Mon, 5 Nov 2012 22:31:33 EST, Klystron wrote:

I haven't heard any ARES activity related to the hurricane. Were
there any HF nets? Is there any activity coming out of the areas that
are still without power? Does ARES still exist, other than on paper?

I don't have any details about ARES activity in Hurricane Sandy. But
I suspect that ARES/RACES helped out. You should see some info on the
ARRL web site as soon as they recover from the hurricane.

ARES is alive and well in my part of the U.S.: Nevada. In my town of
Pahrump, NV (60 miles west of las Vegas), our ARES group is active
with about 25 members (out of 350 licensed hams in a town of 35,000
population). We meet once a month, have a weekly 2-meter net, and
have several drills and public assistance events (parades, races,
etc.) each year. We work closely with Nye County Emergency Management
Services. We use their building for meetings and training as well as
for VE exams. The county purchased HF, VHF and UHF ham gear complete
with antennas for use in their buildings in Pahrump, Beatty and
Tonopah.

Dick Grady, AC7EL
To respond to me privately, email to:
My Call at My Call dot org

If you do a internet search - you will find that ARES did nets on 20 meters, 40 meters and 80 meters.

The local ARES also did nets on 2 meters.

The problem with ARES is that they don't do much when there is not a storm and most of the people who belongs to ARES is old and they do not want to do much to help people besides talk on the radio.

Unless there is a viable group of ARES members that can be deployed on a moments notice - they are of no use to anyone when the call goes out.

And with the general mindset - most Amateur Radio Operators - at least a majority of them only has a Technician Class License, hence they cannot participate in ARES activities.

Most VE's gives the Technician Class License exam and then hangs the new ham out to dry.
The new ham - usually is cheap and only buys a cheap walkie talkie and then they wonder why no one wants to talk to them, or why their walkie talkie is no good in a disaster when they cannot talk to the local repeater - because it is either gone, or the power doesn't work and the batteries went dead or the generator does not work.

What we need to do is impress upon the clubs more activities which involves the new hams and trying to get them to upgrade to general class and trying to get them to purchase HF radios and resonant antenna's...

That is the other beef - if all you have is a G5RV and the net is up on 80 meters - you can't talk to anyone.
I hear the same innane comments all the time about how I have a antenna tuner and it can tune my antenna up so I can talk on other bands with my G5RV.

The problem is - it is not resonant - hence it doesn't listen very well.
Unless the other peoples signals are booming into your receive - the G5RV does no good on other bands... Even the MFJ 949 manual warns the user about trying to use the G5RV on 40 or 10 meters.... But no one listens - because of the CB'r attitude..

Maybe this is why no one knows anything about ARES in your local area.

In western Pennsylvania there was two nets,, one was digital and the other was phone on 80 meters..
When the one operator got tired of running the net - he just quit AB3ER was his call sign.
Some people moved down to 40 meters...

The problem is - in New York City - there is not a lot of room for someone to put up a 80 meter dipole to operate and they still have some phone and some cell phone service and people are not crying for help.

The ARES would be deployed via the American Red Cross, along with others using the SATERN net and the Salvation army..

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In Channel Jumper writes:

[...]

And with the general mindset - most Amateur Radio Operators - at least a
majority of them only has a Technician Class License, hence they cannot
participate in ARES activities.

[...]

A General-class or higher license is not required for ARES, either
nationally:

"Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other
local or national organization is eligible to apply for membership in
ARES."

(http://www.arrl.org/ares)

or any local ARES organization I've ever joined. Most local ARES
organizations make extensive use of Technician-class licensees and
repeaters. Local repeaters seem to be a bit more survivable than your
experiences suggest. Even if repeaters are somehow not available,
point-to-point communications with directional antennas and/or
higher-power radios can be used successfully in an emergency.

If you don't have equipment beyond basics like an HT or mobile VHF/UHF
rig, opportunities to staff positions at hospitals or Emergency
Operations Centers (EOC's) are also available. Owning equipment capable
of operating under emergency power is desired, but not required, to
participate in ARES.

Local ARES groups I have joined welcome all sincerely interested
amateurs, and if you show up consistently to meetings, classes, and
exercises, you will get meaningful training. And day-to-day
participation isn't just practice. Weather spotting, siren testing, and
support for public events occurs many times a year with most local ARES
groups. As the quote attributed to Woody Allen says, "80 percent of
success is just showing up." So, if you want to help make ARES succeed,
please consider showing up.

(73, Paul, K3FU)

- --
Paul W. Schleck

http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/
Finger for PGP Public Key

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On Wed, 7 Nov 2012 11:15:07 EST, Channel Jumper
wrote:

If you do a internet search - you will find that ARES did nets on 20
meters, 40 meters and 80 meters.

The local ARES also did nets on 2 meters.

The problem with ARES is that they don't do much when there is not a
storm and most of the people who belongs to ARES is old and they do not
want to do much to help people besides talk on the radio.

Talking on the radio passing messages IS their job in an emergency.
And this IS helping people.

Unless there is a viable group of ARES members that can be deployed on a
moments notice - they are of no use to anyone when the call goes out.

Agreed. But I believe that most ARES units are able to be deployed at
amoments notice. We in Pahrump, NV can, and have been, deployed at a
moments notice.

And with the general mindset - most Amateur Radio Operators - at least a
majority of them only has a Technician Class License, hence they cannot
participate in ARES activities.

A technician license is all you need to join ARES and to be effective.
See http://www.arrl.org/ares Quoting from this page, "Every
licensed amateur ... is eligible to apply for membership in ARES."

There's plenty of need for VHF/UHF communications in an emergency. Not
everything happens at HF. Besides, in a localized disaster, VHF/UHF
is all you need.

Most VE's gives the Technician Class License exam and then hangs the new
ham out to dry.

The Pahrump VE Team does not do that. To every exam candidate,
whether they pass or fail, we pass out the following flyer:
http://www.ac7el.org/Congrats_What_Now.doc
One side says that we know that you will have many questions and we
are available to help, both in helping you decide what equipment to
buy or build, and in organizing an antenna-raising party. We list
names and phone numbers of ARES members who will help newbies. On the
back of the flyer is an explanation of our ARES organization and an
invitation to join us.

I posted this file to the usve group on Yahoo Groups, which is
restricted to VEs in the USA. I got many replies thanking me and
saying that they will adapt the flyer to their own location.

Dick Grady, AC7EL
To respond to me privately, email to:
My Call at My Call dot org

In article ,
Paul W. Schleck wrote:

In Channel Jumper
writes:

[...]

And with the general mindset - most Amateur Radio Operators - at least a
majority of them only has a Technician Class License, hence they cannot
participate in ARES activities.

[...]

A General-class or higher license is not required for ARES, either
nationally:

"Every licensed amateur, regardless of membership in ARRL or any other
local or national organization is eligible to apply for membership in
ARES."

(http://www.arrl.org/ares)

Yup. Probably half of my city's registered ARES participants hold a
Technician license, and most of these Techs have gone through the
background checks needed to be formally sworn into RACES as well.

My city ARES/RACES Emergency Coordinator (my boss in this stuff) was a
Technician for the first five or six years of my participation. He
was Morse-code-averse, and didn't go for his General until the FCC
eliminated the Morse Code proficiency requirement.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

On Tue, 6 Nov 2012 14:03:16 EST, wrote:

I don't have any details about ARES activity in Hurricane Sandy. But
I suspect that ARES/RACES helped out. You should see some info on the
ARRL web site as soon as they recover from the hurricane.

A close and dear friend (who is an Extra Class ham) was deployed as
part of an ARES team to a Red Cross shelter in an affected area in one
of the mid-Atlantic states. She reported that there were more Red-X
people than evacuees, plenty of donuts, and really horrible coffee.

Name, location, and call sign withheld to protect the guilty...Her
husband thinks evil thoughts about me anyhow.... G

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

On Wed, 7 Nov 2012 11:15:07 EST, Channel Jumper
wrote:

And with the general mindset - most Amateur Radio Operators - at least a
majority of them only has a Technician Class License, hence they cannot
participate in ARES activities.

Our ARES/RACES group operations are mostly on VHF/UHF - both simplex
and through well-protected repeaters - where a Tech license holder is
fully permitted to operate. Only the link from the county EOC to the
State OEM is on HF and that only because the state bought the
equipment after the big storms of 2007 and gave it to us.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

I think that the person who used the Woody Allen quote might have been the person who might have gotten it the most - had they read what I wrote.

If you can operate from at home - on your own station, without doing anything or making any effort - this is the point I was trying to make when I said all they want to do is talk on the radio... TALK - not travel, not spend their own money, no do anything to help.

People likes nets - they like to be a part of something.
Its called the Herding instinct - they want to be a part of a group or herd.

In an emergency - SIMPLEX is the prefered mode of communications.
YOU MUST EXPECT THAT WHEN YOU GET THERE, THERE WILL NOT BE ANYTHING THERE FOR YOU TO USE.

Just ask anyone that responded to Hurricaine Katrina in Louisiana or Mississippi...

When you show up for an emergency, you need to have more then just a walkie talkie and a pocket full of batteries.
You can't expect the disaster people to provide everything for you.

You need to have your own place to stay - the back of a van or pick up truck is mininum. Your own radio equipment, your own food - enough for about 10 days. Your own clothes and toiletries - including water, because you never know what you are going to find once you get there.

I just came from New York City on Monday, and all I can say is if you saw the filth and the destruction - its unimagineable.
I was telling the natural gas crew that was going in behind me - not to expect much and to post one person just to watch the truck while you work.
We had a real problem with looting..
Here we were trying to fix things to make things better and the people were stealing things to sell out of the back of my truck.
I went so far as to ask if they all had their tetnus shots and if they brought a gun. Once it gets dark out - there is no law - unless you have the national guardsmen in the area. There is no gasoline!

The world runs on gasoline.

If they get the opportunity - they will poke a hole in your gas tank and drain the gasoline out of your tank and steal it.
It was more like an apocalypse then anything else..

Just imagine 1 million people going out on your main street and taking a dump twice a day for a week.
That is what it was like, after the sewage treatment plant was overcome by the water and was overloaded and just spewed raw sewage into the sea water.

Even after going through the Holland Tunnel - Manhanttan was unlike anything that I had ever saw before. Yuck!

Long Island NY I can't even describe... It was that bad.

The tower crews were paid state rate which amounted to about $221 a hour to work on Sunday and about $180 to work Saturday to get the radio system back up and running in New Jersey.. They still couldn't get many volunteers... I saw more crews running out of New York then what was going in.

One fourth of all the cell towers were down - basically the people believed that they would not fail. When the storm hit - even the towers that had generators and batteries - worked until the batteries went dead and the generators ran out of fuel. The people in a panic - overloaded the system by all trying to talk on the remaining cell towers. Some 911 communications was offline - but they did not publish which towers no longer worked - to keep the looters away from those area's.

The other thing is with 8 million people without power - when their cell phone went dead, they had to way to recharge the batteries.
The stores were empty - because the shelves were bare.

The only thing left in the one store was some boxes of Dcon - rat poison.

There wasn't any electric to run the gas pumps for the stations that did still have gasoline.
Nobody ever expected that something like this could ever happen to them.
And because it wasn't in Louisiana or Mississippi - help came immediately...
Just because these people are more important then the people from Mississippi and Louisiana.

The only difference was these people were not as desperate as the people from the south during Hurricaine Katrina.

As for the coffee - coffee is made to disguise the taste of the treated water.
If you look historically - the worlds coffee supply was bought up by the USA during WW II and the worlds TEA supply was bought up by the British...

You get your water out of a untreated water pipe - spigot - and see how long it is before you get disentary..
There was no electric to run the water filtering plant, and the water intake for the plant was in the raw sewage.

The water buffalo with the portable water was the prefered source for Red Cross and Salvation Army.

The people who still had working automobiles - were able to leave - if they had enough gasoline. While the people who lost everything were stuck where they were.

They do not need your donations..
These fools that are loading up the trucks and sending supplies are only wasting their time.
As others has said - there is more then enough doughnuts and coffee to go around.
Once the people gets tired of drinking bottled water - they will start complaining - just like they did in Hurricaine Katrina.

The insurance companies have been contacted and they will all be getting their checks.
Some of those homes that were destroyed, were built as summer cottages, which were later converted into homes.
They were built in the wrong place and to the wrong standards.
Hopefully the insurance companies will realize this and will give these people the money to move somewhere else or not to build in the same location.
Or to build to a better standard then before.

I could go on and on....