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#1
August 31st 05, 07:11 PM
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Brief blurb in Fox News on ham emergency comms for New orleans
Saw this morning a brief mention on Fox News about hams doing health
and welfare emergency traffic for New Orleans. "Only reliable communications in the area". They showed a few ham transcievers, one displaying a 70cm band frequency, another HF rig on 20 meters in the phone subband. This is the sort of disaster that ham radio handles well. Cell phones are mostly out, as well as most any other comm system that needs physical infrastructure to function. |
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#2
August 31st 05, 07:19 PM
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Bob wrote: Saw this morning a brief mention on Fox News about hams doing health and welfare emergency traffic for New Orleans. "Only reliable communications in the area". They showed a few ham transcievers, one displaying a 70cm band frequency, another HF rig on 20 meters in the phone subband. This is the sort of disaster that ham radio handles well. Cell phones are mostly out, as well as most any other comm system that needs physical infrastructure to function. indeed this the sort of thing that the ARS does well I notice no mention of CW simply in passing |
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#3
August 31st 05, 11:54 PM
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"an_old_friend" wrote in message ups.com... Bob wrote: Saw this morning a brief mention on Fox News about hams doing health and welfare emergency traffic for New Orleans. "Only reliable communications in the area". They showed a few ham transcievers, one displaying a 70cm band frequency, another HF rig on 20 meters in the phone subband. This is the sort of disaster that ham radio handles well. Cell phones are mostly out, as well as most any other comm system that needs physical infrastructure to function. indeed this the sort of thing that the ARS does well I notice no mention of CW simply in passing Nor was there mention of SSB, RTTY, PSK, Amtor, and so on. Dee D. Flint, N8UZE |
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#4
September 1st 05, 12:22 AM
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Doesn't matter about MODE...all good morsepersons know that
all amateur radio SURVIVES all possible emergencies, floats on water while the hams walk on water...:-) |
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#5
September 1st 05, 01:08 AM
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wrote in message oups.com... Doesn't matter about MODE...all good morsepersons know that all amateur radio SURVIVES all possible emergencies, floats on water while the hams walk on water...:-) Of course not Len. Not everything survives; the portable and mobile stuff will survive far better than the cellphone towers, police towers and even amateur towers. The smaller towers (usually amateur), however, do have the one advantage of a much smaller windload to carry. The biggest difference might just lie in understanding how things work. A friend of mine with a construction company told me what happened to another construction firm owner. He had his guys working close to Lake Ontario at the bottom of a hill. It ended up they would have to work very late to get the job finished so he told his men to go ahead and use his cellphone to call their wives and let them know they would be running late (this was some years ago). Amateur radio would have run into the same problem except that when you use amateur radio and can only connect to an Ontario repeater (in Canada), you know it by the Morse id sent by the repeater and there is, of course, no charge to connect to Canada. The guy received a long distance phone bill the next month for nearly $1,000.00!!! Cellphones simply connect to whatever they can. As far as the telephone company was concerned, he was in Canada calling long-distance to the U.S. It is up to the user to learn  )I've been involved in exactly two emergency situations. One was on ssb with Hans K0HB and the other was on 500 KHz. Yes, the cw is old, but the situation involving Hans can happen at any time. Amazingly, that huge coast guard tower did *not* survive the typhoon. An hf amateur rig could load a chain link fence and provide reliable communications. So, do tell us your experiences with emergency communications and why you know that amateur radio will always (or never) float. With all due regards, Jim AA2QA |
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#6
September 1st 05, 04:51 AM
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From: Jim Hampton on Aug 31, 5:08 pm
wrote in message Doesn't matter about MODE...all good morsepersons know that all amateur radio SURVIVES all possible emergencies, floats on water while the hams walk on water...:-) Of course not Len. Not everything survives; the portable and mobile stuff will survive far better than the cellphone towers, police towers and even amateur towers. The smaller towers (usually amateur), however, do have the one advantage of a much smaller windload to carry. Really? :-) Maybe you're right. Amateur radio towers are kept up by FAITH. Busy gal that Faith... Hmmm...looking at the terrible scenes in Louisiana and Mississippi, I couldn't help but notice a few police officers about (in New Orleans) with one talking on his police HT. Then, on NBC news with Brian Williams, a video clip showed an antenna- laden Humvee of the Mississippi National Guard. Oh, and the USCG with all those helos and the hoister guy talking with the loader-into-the-basket guy on some kind of radio. Presumably the helo pilots can talk to their base of ops by radio. Oh, and all the news commentators in shirt-sleeves doing their video-audio reporting from on-scene...and various folks telephoning in audio stories. Yup...the whole INFRASTRUCTURE went totally kaput at the end of the Mississippi River! The biggest difference might just lie in understanding how things work. ESPECIALLY everyone's local INFRASTRUCTURE, communications-wise. I've been involved in exactly two emergency situations. One was on ssb with Hans K0HB and the other was on 500 KHz. Yes, the cw is old, but the situation involving Hans can happen at any time. Amazingly, that huge coast guard tower did *not* survive the typhoon. An hf amateur rig could load a chain link fence and provide reliable communications. So, do tell us your experiences with emergency communications and why you know that amateur radio will always (or never) float. 1994 Northridge Earthquake. TOTAL loss of electrical power to about 10 MILLION a few minutes after 4:30 AM. [53 persons died as a direct result of that quake] Some places had severe structural damage, gas main in Northridge ruptured, caught fire, various utility poles and their lines down in many places, a few collapsed freeway overpasses. LAFD and other professional FDs had leased lines that went straight to stations, didn't go through the switching centers of telephone offices. All of them followed the pre-existing emergency plan and rolled out. A few answered radio calls to fires that had broken out (FDs have back-up electrical power for their base stations). PDs were in constant contact by radio, their bases also having backup electrical power. The hospitals of course had their emergency electrical generators going and most of the ambulance services not a part of hospitals were able to communicate by their radios. TOTAL street blackout except for headlights of vehicles, that way until sun-up (late, it was January 17th). Utility companies had the greatest workload of all, but they had their radios and could communicate...just too many places to go to to fix things all at once...but they managed to contact all able employees to get them to work (some going direct to repair sites). Electrical power restoration didn't come back until shortly before noon, a sequential area-by-area turn-on necessary to keep the AC frequency constant. Got my residence power back at 2 PM, could see the TV scenes (TV broadcasters long ago had backup electric power). FEMA was on the scene the next day, doing the first real trial of their flyaway terminals...and set up VIDEO bulletin boards so that folks here could post things for faraway family and friends. About 2:30 PM on the 17th I got a telephone call from my uncle and aunt in Florida, worried call; we were okay and we talked at some length. They had no problem getting through. I got a call about 10 AM (give or take) wanting me to help out with a utility company the next day; no problem getting through to my residence phone. Was there any amateur radio activated here on that 17th of January? I'm not sure. Haven't heard of any locally. All I know is what I've seen of the Greater L.A. Emergency Communications System and its periodic drilling, refining of procedures, etc. Amateurs were not a part of that in 1994. That system worked just as it was expected to, even if it was part of the INFRASTRUCTURE that "was supposed to fail." Ham equipment can "float?" Haven't seen any yet with floation devices. I'm sure someone can jury rig something for them. National HROs and Halliscratchers are all boat anchors and will dutifully go to the bottom of the water. Larry Roll once postulated a Ten-Tec that "floated ashore" to a hypothetical desert island after a hypothetical ship sinking and he used that to send hypothetical messages from that by hypothetical morse code (which didn't require any hypothetical electric power..."CW gets through when nothing else will" and stuff like thet there). Larry had too many hypos perhaps and departed the newsgroup on April 15 last year. My house is 830 feet above mean sea level; am NOT worried about flooding. Now, I'm absolutely sure that amateur radio CAN be a definite help in a big disasterous emergency. Sometime. Besides the documentary film about invading space aliens, that is. I'm just NOT convinced that the INFRASTRUCTURE is going to FAIL to such as extent that amateur radio is "the only possible savior." From what I've seen on the TV news of the terrible destruction from hurricane Katrina, the average amateur radio station in the average New Orleans residence is not only submerged to the roof line, but the electric power to it is out and any emergency generators that might have been at those stations are completely under water. If the shingles of a roof can blow off completely in the downwash of a USCG helo (as has been seen by millions of viewers), you'll have a hard sell to me on saying "amateur radio towers have less wind loading and will survive" because I ain't gonna believe some rinky-dink wire antennas I've seen can hold up under 100+ MPH winds. I WILL believe an NG Humvee with VRCs can do their nevis thing (cloud-burning) and get through to the horizon IN such winds. With most kindest warmest kissy-poo regards, |
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#8
September 1st 05, 04:25 AM
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#9
September 1st 05, 06:04 AM
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From: Dave Heil on Aug 31, 8:25 pm
wrote: Doesn't matter about MODE...all good morsepersons know that all amateur radio SURVIVES all possible emergencies, floats on water while the hams walk on water...:-) I recall your past statements about the commercial communications infrastructure never totally failing in an emergency. ...and you are still mad as heil and can't take it anymore. :-) Well, Leonard the devastation of New Orleans reveals near total collapse of the commercial communications infrastructure. ...and you are there, reporting for ARRL Eyewitless News? Of course you are, and nearly totally collapsed yourself in this mighty Herculean Effort to TELL ME OFF! :-) Hams are there and are producing. They've set up a factory?!? What are they making? Floating Ten-Tecs? The Feds are rushing communications equipment into place but amateur radio volunteers are already on the job: ...and so has NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, Fox News teams, duly reporting LIVE from the scene. Ahem, millions of us viewers around the country have seen those news broadcasts. Was amateur radio handling their LIVE feeds from the disaster areas? Was amateur radio manning those antenna-laden Humvees of the NG? Lissen-up Davie-boy: PARTS of New Orleans are TOTALLY under water. That INCLUDES ham residences and probably some ham equipped vehicles (hard to tell when the tops are under water). EVERYTHING went under in some of that flooding...but NOT everywhere, obviously from the news reports on TV. Davie-boy, I didn't say anything "against" amateur radio as a service, or anything nasty to the CITIZEN volunteers (ham or not) who are busy "producing" on-the-scene. I'm tossing stuff at INDIVIDUAL "commentators" in here. If you got somebody else's ripe tomato, TS for you. You throw them at me all time...I'll save some extra-ripe ones for you, OK? I have nothing but PRAISE for INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS WHO VOLUNTEER TO HELP fellow citizens in a disaster. Been there myself in this part of the country and don't want to see another. Now, get on with YOUR on-the-spot "aid" by tossing nastygrams at all who don't accept the myths and morsemyths about amateur radio. You seem to be obsessed with nastygramming all who disagree with you. Are you a Dudly-the-Pretender Wannabe? Meanwhile, NPRM 05-143 was before the FCC and the public before Katrina had grown to acquire a NOAA name for it. That NPRM might cause the utter destruction of Ham Radio As You Know It! Don't worry. The newcomers will get a Heil Help Net working just for you...someday...and ease your obvious Pain and Discomfort of whatever ails your psyche. |
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#10
September 1st 05, 11:49 AM
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Dave Heil wrote:
the devastation of New Orleans reveals near total collapse of the commercial communications infrastructure. Worse than that - most of the infrastructure of any kind has collapsed. Power is off, water and sewage out of action, roads blocked by water, bridges collapsed. Mississippi appears to have gotten hit even worse, with some communities simply wiped out completely. New Orleans is getting more news coverage in part because it's a city, and in part because it's still under water due to being below sea level. The big picture is still incomplete because some areas are still completely cut off. Nobody really knows how many are dead, but estimates of 1000 or more are the current level. At least half a million people were made homeless. It will be weeks or months before survivors can be allowed back into the New Orleans area - assuming the water can be pumped out. Much of what is still standing will have been so damaged by long-term immersion that it will have to be knocked down. Hams are there and are producing. The Feds are rushing communications equipment into place but amateur radio volunteers are already on the job Some organizations in need of support: American Red Cross www.redcross.org 800-HELP NOW (435-7669) English, 800-257-7575 Spanish Operation Blessing www.ob.org 800-436-6348 America's Second Harvest www.secondharvest.org 800-344-8070 Make a donation and volunteer at the following: (Use the phone to make your donation if the Web sites are deluged.) Adventist Community Services www.adventist.communityservices.org 800-381-7171 Catholic Charities USA www.catholiccharitiesusa.org 800-919-9338 Christian Disaster Response www.cdresponse.org 941-956-5183 or 941-551-9554 Christian Reformed World Relief Committee www.crwrc.org 800-848-5818 Church World Service www.churchworldservice.org 800-297-1516 Convoy of Hope www.convoyofhope.org 417-823-8998 Lutheran Disaster Response www.ldr.org 800-638-3522 Mennonite Disaster Service www.mds.mennonite.net 717-859-2210 Nazarene Disaster Response www.nazarenedisasterresponse.org 888-256-5886 Presbyterian Disaster Assistance www.pcusa.org 800-872-3283 Salvation Army www.salvationarmyusa.org 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769) Southern Baptist Convention -- Disaster Relief www.namb.net 800-462-8657, ext. 6440 United Jewish Communities www.ujc.org 877-277-2477 United Methodist Committee on Relief www.gbgm-umc.org 800-554-8583 (Use the phone to make your donation if the Web sites are deluged.) 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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