On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 10:28:21 EDT, Foxs Mercantile
wrote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/20/how-a-dumb-software-glitch-kept-6600-calls-from-getting-to-911/

Serves 'em right. That only affected wireless (and cable/VoIP) 9-1-1
access.

Showed two glaring errors -- the E9-1-1 PSAPs should never have
contracted it out to a single-source third party (or any third party,
at that), and the public never shudda' dumped their the wired
telephones because they now had a whiz-band transceiver called a
cell/smart phone. Not too smart in my book.

Notice that ham radio was NOT activated to cover the outage. Was it
on purpose? The decision is left to the reader.

Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

On 10/23/2014 1:47 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
Serves 'em right. That only affected wireless (and cable/VoIP)
9-1-1 access.

You are aware of the numbers we're talking about?

There are roughly 118 million households in the US (as of 2009.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_households
And there are roughly 20% of those without landline service to
their house.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7521323

So, let's see, 20% of 118 million is 23.6 million people that you're
saying do not deserve 9-1-1 service?

Or am I reading that wrong?

Showed two glaring errors -- the E9-1-1 PSAPs should never have
contracted it out to a single-source third party (or any third
party, at that),

Well, this is just you're typical profit driven outsourcing model.
Admittedly, I would prefer certain aspects of our public safety
were done with the idea of getting it right, rather than cost.

and the public never shudda' dumped their the wired telephones
because they now had a whiz-band transceiver called a cell/smart
phone. Not too smart in my book.

Why should they pay for two services when one of them is tethered
to the house? The other is fully mobile and does a wee bit more than
just make phone calls.

Notice that ham radio was NOT activated to cover the outage. Was
it on purpose? The decision is left to the reader.

Actually, I'd like your answer for that.
How is someone with a cell phone supposed to contact an amateur
radio operator? Even if they knew that was what was required?
Or where would the amateurs be deployed and in what fashion?



--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 18:42:56 EDT, Foxs Mercantile
wrote:

Notice that ham radio was NOT activated to cover the outage. Was
it on purpose? The decision is left to the reader.

Actually, I'd like your answer for that.

Activation of EmComm, whether it's called ARES/RACES, ACS, or
otherwise, is at the discretion of the local government's Emergency
Manager - we do not self-activate. If the EM does not feel that s/he
needs our assistance, it's their decision.

How is someone with a cell phone supposed to contact an amateur
radio operator? Even if they knew that was what was required?
Or where would the amateurs be deployed and in what fashion?

The usual activation is to serve as a "bridge" between the PSAP and
the responding agencies and/or the Wire Centers (new name for Central
Offices) per pre-prepared arrangements. Message traffic can be
tactical voice or data.

Bottom line -- It's the responsibility of the carriers to get the
calls to the PSAP and they sure dropped the ball. IIRC there was
backup routing available via Miami FL -- that means a 9-1-1 call went
from a resident in Washington to the local carrier, thence to the
computer in Colorado thence to Florida and then ping-ponged back to
the appropriate PSAP in Washington. Granted it takes milliseconds,
but there are too many vulnerable links as compared to direct routing
from the carrier to the PSAP. The main problem was that the "overload
alarm" at the Colorado center did not kick in until an hour after the
problem hit.

The report is about 150 pages long. If you have problems falling
asleep, get it and read it. You'll be cured.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

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

On 10/23/2014 10:09 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
Activation of EmComm, whether it's called ARES/RACES, ACS,
or otherwise, is at the discretion of the local government's
Emergency Manager - we do not self-activate. If the EM does
not feel that s/he needs our assistance, it's their decision.

And

The usual activation is to serve as a "bridge" between the
PSAP and the responding agencies and/or the Wire Centers (new
name for Central Offices) per pre-prepared arrangements.
Message traffic can be tactical voice or data.

So from just a logistic standpoint, how many amateurs would
have been required to bridge 11 million customers? And where
would they be deployed? The article mentioned this affecting
81 call centers. And how many responding agencies/wire centers
are served by each PSAP? Wouldn't that require at least one
amateur at the PSAP and one more at each served end point?

How rapidly could they be deployed?
Based on the article, I doubt the problem persisted for more
than eight hours. Certainly less than one whole day.

And course, there's the liability issue. Hypothetically, how
many lawyers would be involved if just one amateur dropped the
ball? Or even if they did everything right, and something bad
happened anyway.



--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:31:02 EDT, Foxs Mercantile
wrote:

So from just a logistic standpoint, how many amateurs would
have been required to bridge 11 million customers?

Do not assume that all 11 million customers would be calling 9-1-1 at
the same time. The public relations value of saying "11 million
customers were stranded" is worth its weight in gold when pointing the
finger.

And where would they be deployed?

That's up to the Emergency Manager - that's why s/he's paid the big
(taxpayer) bucks. In reality that would all be in accordance with a
"continuity of operations" plan jointly developed by the EM and the
carriers. That's where the ball fell down, to coin a phrase, not in
the links from the PSAP to the responding agencies, which are the EM's
responsibility. The "intervening cause" (to use a phrase from tort
law) blurs any bright lines of responsibility.

The article mentioned this affecting
81 call centers. And how many responding agencies/wire centers
are served by each PSAP? Wouldn't that require at least one
amateur at the PSAP and one more at each served end point?

Yep, that's how we are "billeted", but that was not the situation at
hand. The situation at hand was the breakdown in the Rube Goldberg
approach to 9-1-1 call routing.

How rapidly could they be deployed?

If the roads are open, how fast can I drive from home to the hospital?
(No more than ten minutes usually).

Based on the article, I doubt the problem persisted for more
than eight hours. Certainly less than one whole day.

It shouldn't have happened at all, is what I'm saying. The "alternate
routing" should have kicked in seamlessly. When I was doing FCC
communications we had no-notice drills of that constantly, including
"the Telco circuits are down, use the HF circuits". Surely Verizon
Wireless et al could do the same sort of exercises.

Best of all, the 9-1-1 traffic from the initial wire center should
have gone to the PSAP directly, but that's a dead horse it seems.

And course, there's the liability issue. Hypothetically, how
many lawyers would be involved if just one amateur dropped the
ball? Or even if they did everything right, and something bad
happened anyway.

When activated, we are covered by the same governmental immunity that
public safety personnel are. The old "Western Union" rule applies -
we are obligated to receive the traffic with no guarantee of eventual
delivery. In plain language - you get what you get.

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

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

[A bit late in chiming in here, but it took a while to locate the
document I was hoping for.]

In article ,
Phil Kane wrote:
On Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:31:02 EDT, Foxs Mercantile
wrote:

So from just a logistic standpoint, how many amateurs would
have been required to bridge 11 million customers?

Do not assume that all 11 million customers would be calling 9-1-1 at
the same time. The public relations value of saying "11 million
customers were stranded" is worth its weight in gold when pointing the
finger.

And where would they be deployed?

That's up to the Emergency Manager - that's why s/he's paid the big
(taxpayer) bucks. In reality that would all be in accordance with a
"continuity of operations" plan jointly developed by the EM and the
carriers. That's where the ball fell down, to coin a phrase, not in
the links from the PSAP to the responding agencies, which are the EM's
responsibility. The "intervening cause" (to use a phrase from tort
law) blurs any bright lines of responsibility.

The article mentioned this affecting
81 call centers. And how many responding agencies/wire centers
are served by each PSAP? Wouldn't that require at least one
amateur at the PSAP and one more at each served end point?

Yep, that's how we are "billeted", but that was not the situation at
hand. The situation at hand was the breakdown in the Rube Goldberg
approach to 9-1-1 call routing.

We had a vaguely similar incident here back in 2009, when some
effectively-targeted vandalism knocked out almost all phone service in
large parts of several counties in my area, during the wee hours of
4/9/2009. Land-line and cell calls were both affected, including
almost all 9-1-1 service. It took most of the day to restore a
substantial amount of the disrupted service.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...ce-3245380.php

Fortunately nobody died (as far as I know) as a result of being able
to call 9-1-1 for medical or fire or police emergencies. It could
easily have been otherwise.

Ham-radio responders were activated by the city and county RACES
organizations, to provide liason communication between public safety
organizations and hospitals, and to serve as points of contact for the
public in case of emergencies. Quite a few hams were posted to fire
and police stations (those being the places that people would tend to
drive to for help). I got a call that morning, was activated as a
RACES MAC (Mutual Aid Communicator, formally called up for service by
my city and then "loaned out" to Morgan Hill), and drove down to
Morgan Hill with my gear.

I spent part of my shift located out in a church parking lot (where a
major road comes down from the hillside residential neighborhoods)
with a sign and cone, ready to call in for help (relieving one of
Morgan Hill's operators who'd been on-shift since dawn), and part in a
CAL Fire station acting as a communications liason to the EOC.

It was a good experience in most regards for the hams. Fortunately,
we didn't encounter any actual life-threatening incidents which
required our services in the moment.

I asked our DEC whether he had any sort of post-incident report in his
files, and he did... and has given me the OK to post it for anyone
interested:

http://www.radagast.org/~dplatt/hamr...tionReport.pdf

And course, there's the liability issue. Hypothetically, how
many lawyers would be involved if just one amateur dropped the
ball? Or even if they did everything right, and something bad
happened anyway.

When activated, we are covered by the same governmental immunity that
public safety personnel are. The old "Western Union" rule applies -
we are obligated to receive the traffic with no guarantee of eventual
delivery. In plain language - you get what you get.

Yup.

In our county, we're signed up as California Disaster Service
Workers... so, when formally activated, we become (in effect) unpaid
employees of the activating government body (city or county), covered
under Workman's Compensation for injuries, and protected by some
limited liability coverage. The coverage only applies as long as
we're properly trained, working within the scope of our training,
properly "activated" for the incident by a government official with
authority to do so, and are properly tracked and supervised during our
deployment (and travel to and fro). The whole county MAC program
here, is about making sure that the ham volunteers *are* properly
trained, and that records of the training are kept, so that the
volunteers can be deployed in ways which don't step outside the "you
are protected" conditions.

These protections would *not* apply to us (or anyone else including
random ham volunteers) who just "jump in" on our own initiative.
We're under strict instructions not to "self-activate", but to wait
for us to be activated by the proper authority. Otherwise, it's like
the preacher said in Blazing Saddles: "Son, you're on your own!"

These protections will *not* keep us (or anyone) from being sued by
J. Miffed Citizen, but they should help get the case dismissed, or at
least properly defended by the activating government body.

On 11/3/2014 5:25 PM, David Platt wrote:
[A bit late in chiming in here, but it took a while to locate the
document I was hoping for.]

And a big thank you for doing so.

We had a vaguely similar incident here back in 2009, when some
effectively-targeted vandalism knocked out almost all phone service in
large parts of several counties in my area, during the wee hours of
4/9/2009. Land-line and cell calls were both affected, including
almost all 9-1-1 service. It took most of the day to restore a
substantial amount of the disrupted service.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...ce-3245380.php

Fortunately nobody died (as far as I know) as a result of being [not ]
able to call 9-1-1 for medical or fire or police emergencies. It could
easily have been otherwise.

Ham-radio responders were activated by the city and county RACES
organizations, to provide liason communication between public safety
organizations and hospitals, and to serve as points of contact for the
public in case of emergencies.

It was a good experience in most regards for the hams. Fortunately,
we didn't encounter any actual life-threatening incidents which
required our services in the moment.

So it took roughly 5 hours for the Amateurs to respond after the initial
incident? And you got a total of 43 people.

I asked our DEC whether he had any sort of post-incident report in his
files, and he did... and has given me the OK to post it for anyone
interested:

http://www.radagast.org/~dplatt/hamr...tionReport.pdf

An excellent report.

In our county, we're signed up as California Disaster Service
Workers... so, when formally activated, we become (in effect) unpaid
employees of the activating government body (city or county), covered
under Workman's Compensation for injuries, and protected by some
limited liability coverage.

These protections would *not* apply to us (or anyone else including
random ham volunteers) who just "jump in" on our own initiative.

Although I have to wonder if the people in charge are fully aware of
their lack of liability in calling us. And if they would tend to
ignore us in the effort of "playing it safe."

--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

In Foxs Mercantile writes:

On 10/23/2014 10:09 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
Activation of EmComm, whether it's called ARES/RACES, ACS,
or otherwise, is at the discretion of the local government's
Emergency Manager - we do not self-activate. If the EM does
not feel that s/he needs our assistance, it's their decision.

And

The usual activation is to serve as a "bridge" between the
PSAP and the responding agencies and/or the Wire Centers (new
name for Central Offices) per pre-prepared arrangements.
Message traffic can be tactical voice or data.

So from just a logistic standpoint, how many amateurs would
have been required to bridge 11 million customers? And where
would they be deployed? The article mentioned this affecting
81 call centers. And how many responding agencies/wire centers
are served by each PSAP? Wouldn't that require at least one
amateur at the PSAP and one more at each served end point?

How rapidly could they be deployed?
Based on the article, I doubt the problem persisted for more
than eight hours. Certainly less than one whole day.

And course, there's the liability issue. Hypothetically, how
many lawyers would be involved if just one amateur dropped the
ball? Or even if they did everything right, and something bad
happened anyway.



--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com


Can't speak for supporting a community of 11 million customers.
However, we know from past recent experience that it is workable for a
community of about 400,000 (Lincoln, Nebraska and surrounding 12
counties). Windstream (nee Lincoln Telephone Company, nee Alltel) saw
their E911 system go down on two separate occasions.

A write-up of one of the incidents may be found at:

http://www.arrl.org/news/telephone-o...il-fool-s-joke

Some of the highlights:

- Amateur radio operators were deployed very quickly and provided
meaningful support during the morning-to-evening outage (about 12
hours or so).

- The 62 volunteers that deployed followed a previously written,
practiced, and activated (on a smaller scale) "Y2K" plan, deploying
to 15 high-profile locations at intersections in the city of Lincoln
at the direction of the Lancaster County Emergency Management
Director and supported by the County's Emergency Operations Center
(EOC).

- As part of the contingency plan, those in need of emergency services
could also go to the nearest police or fire station if practical, so
amateur radio served in an assistive, not substitute, role.

- Citizens were made aware of these contingency plans, and where to go
to make emergency reports, via all electronic media (radio,
television, and Internet).

- The use of trained volunteers, in coordination with the county
government, minimized potential liability. Such plans, admittedly,
seem to be more workable in smaller communities, and in a state like
Nebraska, which is a "contributory negligence" state with an almost
non-existent case-law history of its courts awarding punitive
damages.


(73, Paul, K3FU)

- --
Paul W. Schleck

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

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.14 (NetBSD)

iEYEARECAAYFAlRLCk8ACgkQ6Pj0az779o7zGACfUzX5ykN2Q0 57/J0P04JJH4Kq
hDwAn1TKNQplwAxDUAzpndHmG57vsCuW
=8CSV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

On 10/24/2014 9:31 PM, Paul W. Schleck wrote:
Can't speak for supporting a community of 11 million customers.
However, we know from past recent experience that it is workable for a
community of about 400,000 (Lincoln, Nebraska and surrounding 12
counties). Windstream (nee Lincoln Telephone Company, nee Alltel) saw
their E911 system go down on two separate occasions.

Some of the highlights:

- Amateur radio operators were deployed very quickly and provided
meaningful support during the morning-to-evening outage (about 12
hours or so).

- The 62 volunteers that deployed followed a previously written,
practiced, and activated (on a smaller scale) "Y2K" plan, deploying
to 15 high-profile locations at intersections in the city of Lincoln
at the direction of the Lancaster County Emergency Management
Director and supported by the County's Emergency Operations Center
(EOC).

Some real numbers then.

- As part of the contingency plan, those in need of emergency services
could also go to the nearest police or fire station if practical, so
amateur radio served in an assistive, not substitute, role.

An important distinction.

So I'm thinking 15 "high visibility locations" and 45 or so local police
and fire department locations.

- Such plans, admittedly, seem to be more workable in smaller communities

Scalability always works in your favor in smaller scenarios.


--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com

I will add my own $.02 cents...

By my calculations, there is approximately 700,000 amateur radio licenses.
Out of the 700,000 licenses, not counting contest stations - that holds a call sign, has a trustee, but doesn't physically attach to one individual person.
There is probably at any one time - 100,000 licensee's that are sick, dead or dying. So you can count them out.
There is probably 200,000 that has a license, but doesn't own any equipment / or they only have a handheld - but they don't operate anymore...

That takes it down to about 500,000 licensee's...

Taking into account that the average age of a ham is about 69 years old.
This means that you are going to have another 100,000 that are either too old or too lazy to activate.

You are also going to have about 100,000 that are either working a job or going to school - too young or too busy to activate.

That leaves you with about 300,000 active hams that would be willing to participate in any type of activity.
This is probably how many people we have to operate field days..

The population of the USA is about 316.1 million people. That leaves you with a population of about .015 of 1% of the population that is a licensed amateur.

In my particular county, there is about 6 deploy-able hams.
Out of those 6 - I am the only one that participates in the Ares net - Saturday morning on 75 meters and the RACES net Sunday morning on 75 meters.

Out of all the hams in my county, I am the only one that participates in the Phone Traffic net and I am the only one that participates in the FlDiGi net.

Our county Emergency Coordinator - doesn't even live in our county.
He once lived in the county and he worked in the Emergency Operations Center as a dispatcher. He is now employed as a State Police dispatcher.
If TSHTF - he would have to go to work and wouldn't be available to play ham radio, and 8 hours out of the day - he would be sleeping! So any emergency that happens - would need to be out of convenience - would need to happen when it was convenient for him..
We have a licensed county agent, but he is a glad hand.

I have never heard him operate, and the only time he comes around is when something happens and then he wants everyone to follow him, but he never developed a repertoire with the local hams.

2/3rds of the population lives in the southern half of the county, for which I am the only active ham.
The question becomes - how do you cover an area like this with one ham?
The answer is - you can't!

There are two guys here that I have encouraged to get their license.
The father is for a lack of words - retarded.
The son - is just playing CB radio on the ham bands.

The father works as a greeter and part time cashier at the local Wal-Mart, and the son works as a mechanic at a local trucking outfit.
Neither of them are willing to participate in any kind of training - so in an emergency - they are of little use to me!

Of the 4 guys in the northern half of the county, one is employed as an ambulance driver and is the mayor of his local town.
One is employed as the operator of a saw mill, one is a retired radio tech and the other is almost 85 years old.

That means you would probably get two out of the 4 at any one time.

Some counties has lot's of hams on paper, but when it comes time to participate in any kind of training exercise, all they got is people with walkie talkies. At some point you have to have people with high power radios and HF radios - so you can talk 150 miles - back to the state EOC, and to the section manager - emergency coordinator in Pittsburgh PA.

And this is the reason why hams are not deployed anymore.
There isn't enough people, the people we do have is too old or too involved in their own lives to get involved, and the ones that are willing to get involved are usually old and afraid of computers.

There needs to be some type of mandatory service that all hams should have to perform to get and keep their license, and this should include some type of emergency communications.

Since we have had some children as young as 5 years old - obtain an amateur radio license, it would be very difficult to deploy them in any type of emergency situation. Mainly those children gets a license as a reflection of their parents .. Dad or grandpa is a ham, so they force the kids to get a license, and then they never operate.

So some type of uniform rules needs to be developed to ensure that all of this doesn't die in the next couple of generations...
I don't know how you would implement such a rule, but I would suspect that we need to start doing background checks on everyone we license and we need to have some compulsory service included with the license.

The clubs that gives the tests needs to actively recruit these people into their fold and they need to start doing more things with their members such as EmComms training.