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I wonder where they'll start the search to fill their needs?
Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives'
By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. "On the ground, the people that get there first can't talk to each other because the radio communications don't work," Kean told CNN Sunday. "They haven't got enough what's called spectrum." News media last week reported that police forces in New Orleans City and the three surrounding parishes all use different and incompatible radio equipment. Experts say that proper equipment and training and freeing up more and better frequencies are essential pre-requisites for reaching the holy grail of full communications interoperability for first responders. Kean said a bill in Congress to provide more spectrum was stalled. "Nothing has been happening, and again, people on the ground -- police, fire, medical personnel -- couldn't talk to each other." "That's outrageous and it's a scandal and I think it cost lives," he concluded. At issue are the recommendations of a 1995 congressional panel that, as TV broadcasters transitioned to digital transmission -- which takes up a much smaller fraction of the spectrum -- the frequencies freed up would be allocated to first responders. Now a bipartisan group of lawmakers is making a new push for the legislation. "We have not kept the promise we made 10 years ago," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., calling the situation "a black eye" and "an embarrassment" for lawmakers. She and Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., have written to Speaker of the House Rep. Denny Hastert, R-Ill., to ask for a suspension of the normal rules of debate so that a bill to enforce a deadline for handing the relevant frequencies to first responders can be passed this week. In the Senate, a similar measure, sponsored by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., is currently before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Spokesman Amy Call said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R.-Tenn, was working with Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Stevens, R- Alaska to try and get that bill to the floor soon, too. "The Leader saw first hand on the ground the challenges, and is working with several members about further fixes in this area," Call told United Press International at the weekend. The parts of the spectrum identified by the 1995 Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee report are in the high 700-Mhz range -- which experts say is ideal for use by emergency services because signals sent over these frequencies can penetrate walls and travel long distances. "This (part of the spectrum) is prime real estate," said Yucel Ors of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, a non- profit that represents first responder and emergency management communications specialists. But, he added, "There are squatters on it," referring to the TV broadcasters. The law passed in response to the 1995 report set a Jan. 1, 2007, target date for broadcasters to free up that part of the spectrum. "But there's a huge get out for them," a congressional staffer who has worked on the issue told United Press International. Broadcasters are not required to relinquish their spectrum allocation until 85 percent of households in their market have the equipment needed to receive digital signals. The staffer said that this creates "a chicken and egg" problem -- without a firm date for the transition from analogue, there is no incentive for viewers or broadcasters to upgrade to digital equipment, and penetration remains well below the 85 percent baseline in most major markets. Broadcasters and their supporters say that imposing a deadline would penalize those viewers who cannot afford new equipment, and that households replace electronic goods like TV sets every few years, arguing this should lead eventually to major markets crossing the 85 percent threshold. But Michael Powell, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, testified last year to the Senate commerce committee that the 85 percent penetration test could result in transition being delayed for "decades or multiple decades." "It is time to tell the broadcasters to get out of the way," said Weldon, blaming "the lethargy of Congress -- both parties and both chambers" for the failure to move on this issue before. Ors said that broadcasters had also lobbied hard against a deadline. "They have more resources than we do," he said, "First responders are busy on the front lines, we don't have as much time as they do to lobby Congress." Experts are keen to stress that spectrum is just one of the pieces in the interoperability jigsaw. "Even if the ... deadline is imposed," said the congressional staffer, "this is going to take some time." The other pieces of the puzzle include equipment and training, but as Ors points out, even in these areas, delays in freeing up the spectrum become a problem. "Until there's a firm date (for the transition) public safety agencies can't make the investments in the equipment they need" to make use of the new frequencies, he told UPI, adding that manufacturers were also loath to spend money developing and marketing equipment which could remain effectively unusable until some yet-to- be-determined date in the future. But the trickiest piece of all, according to the congressional staffer, is what he called "the human element," and Ors refers to as planning. "Without clear planning (by neighboring jurisdictions), without proper staffing and training, you can have all the spectrum and equipment you need and it won't get you there," said Ors. "There are cultural problems between fire departments and police forces and (emergency medical services)," said the congressional staffer. And in huge disasters like Hurricane Katrina has caused, a lack of interoperability can be the least of first responder worries. Kenneth Moran, acting director of the homeland security office in the Federal Communications Commission, told a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday that interoperability had been only one among many problems in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- which blew down transmission towers and cut power in huge swathes of the Gulf coast. "We did see interoperability problems," he said, "But the biggest problems we saw initially were things that were needed to get the (cellular and broadcast) networks up and that tended to be security issues, staging of personnel to get them in there and ... also trying to get fuel (for generators) into the areas until the power would come up." But responders say that -- in a situation of prolonged crisis like the one in Louisiana -- the time before and after the towers go down and the power goes off is as important as any other. "Good, strong communications help you prepare better and recover faster," said Harlin McEwen, a retired FBI official and the chairman of the communications and technology committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...2-033839-5152r -- 73, de Hans, K0HB -- Member: ARRL http://www.arrl.org SOC http://www.qsl.net/soc VWOA http://www.vwoa.org A-1 Operator Club http://www.arrl.org/awards/a1-op/ TCDXA http://www.tcdxa.org MWA http://www.w0aa.org TCFMC http://www.tcfmc.org FISTS http://www.fists.org LVDXA http://www.upstel.net/borken/lvdxa.htm NCI http://www.nocode.org |
Sure, they can nibble at the ham bands. But there's not much spectrum
to be had from them below 400 MHz. All of 6, 2 and 220 only adds up to about two TV channels. What you're really seeing is a push to end NTSC TV transmissions, and go to DTV exclusively. IMHO 73 de Jim, N2EY |
wrote in message ups.com... Sure, they can nibble at the ham bands. But there's not much spectrum to be had from them below 400 MHz. All of 6, 2 and 220 only adds up to about two TV channels. What you're really seeing is a push to end NTSC TV transmissions, and go to DTV exclusively. IMHO 73 de Jim, N2EY Hello, Jim I'm not sure they'd want anything below UHF. If you are inside of a steel building, I suspect they'd be better off at higher frequencies as they will tend to bounce around and find an egress far easier than VHF. A 6 meter HT is going to have antenna/ground efficiency problems as well. It is far better than 10 (or 11, for that matter), but still is limited with a small antenna and a far from satisfactory ground. Plus the wavelength is going to have a difficult time getting outside of a building. 2 meters is better, but still lacking. 440 is better, but up around 1 GHz would probably be better than the VHF television channels. 73 from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA |
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KØHB wrote:
Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. "On the ground, the people that get there first can't talk to each other because the radio communications don't work," Kean told CNN Sunday. "They haven't got enough what's called spectrum." News media last week reported that police forces in New Orleans City and the three surrounding parishes all use different and incompatible radio equipment. Experts say that proper equipment and training and freeing up more and better frequencies are essential pre-requisites for reaching the holy grail of full communications interoperability for first responders. Kean said a bill in Congress to provide more spectrum was stalled. "Nothing has been happening, and again, people on the ground -- police, fire, medical personnel -- couldn't talk to each other." "That's outrageous and it's a scandal and I think it cost lives," he concluded. At issue are the recommendations of a 1995 congressional panel that, as TV broadcasters transitioned to digital transmission -- which takes up a much smaller fraction of the spectrum -- the frequencies freed up would be allocated to first responders. Now a bipartisan group of lawmakers is making a new push for the legislation. "We have not kept the promise we made 10 years ago," said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., calling the situation "a black eye" and "an embarrassment" for lawmakers. She and Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Penn., have written to Speaker of the House Rep. Denny Hastert, R-Ill., to ask for a suspension of the normal rules of debate so that a bill to enforce a deadline for handing the relevant frequencies to first responders can be passed this week. In the Senate, a similar measure, sponsored by John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., is currently before the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Spokesman Amy Call said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R.-Tenn, was working with Commerce Committee Chairman Sen. Ted Stevens, R- Alaska to try and get that bill to the floor soon, too. "The Leader saw first hand on the ground the challenges, and is working with several members about further fixes in this area," Call told United Press International at the weekend. The parts of the spectrum identified by the 1995 Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee report are in the high 700-Mhz range -- which experts say is ideal for use by emergency services because signals sent over these frequencies can penetrate walls and travel long distances. "This (part of the spectrum) is prime real estate," said Yucel Ors of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, a non- profit that represents first responder and emergency management communications specialists. But, he added, "There are squatters on it," referring to the TV broadcasters. The law passed in response to the 1995 report set a Jan. 1, 2007, target date for broadcasters to free up that part of the spectrum. "But there's a huge get out for them," a congressional staffer who has worked on the issue told United Press International. Broadcasters are not required to relinquish their spectrum allocation until 85 percent of households in their market have the equipment needed to receive digital signals. The staffer said that this creates "a chicken and egg" problem -- without a firm date for the transition from analogue, there is no incentive for viewers or broadcasters to upgrade to digital equipment, and penetration remains well below the 85 percent baseline in most major markets. Broadcasters and their supporters say that imposing a deadline would penalize those viewers who cannot afford new equipment, and that households replace electronic goods like TV sets every few years, arguing this should lead eventually to major markets crossing the 85 percent threshold. But Michael Powell, then chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, testified last year to the Senate commerce committee that the 85 percent penetration test could result in transition being delayed for "decades or multiple decades." "It is time to tell the broadcasters to get out of the way," said Weldon, blaming "the lethargy of Congress -- both parties and both chambers" for the failure to move on this issue before. Ors said that broadcasters had also lobbied hard against a deadline. "They have more resources than we do," he said, "First responders are busy on the front lines, we don't have as much time as they do to lobby Congress." Experts are keen to stress that spectrum is just one of the pieces in the interoperability jigsaw. "Even if the ... deadline is imposed," said the congressional staffer, "this is going to take some time." The other pieces of the puzzle include equipment and training, but as Ors points out, even in these areas, delays in freeing up the spectrum become a problem. "Until there's a firm date (for the transition) public safety agencies can't make the investments in the equipment they need" to make use of the new frequencies, he told UPI, adding that manufacturers were also loath to spend money developing and marketing equipment which could remain effectively unusable until some yet-to- be-determined date in the future. But the trickiest piece of all, according to the congressional staffer, is what he called "the human element," and Ors refers to as planning. "Without clear planning (by neighboring jurisdictions), without proper staffing and training, you can have all the spectrum and equipment you need and it won't get you there," said Ors. "There are cultural problems between fire departments and police forces and (emergency medical services)," said the congressional staffer. And in huge disasters like Hurricane Katrina has caused, a lack of interoperability can be the least of first responder worries. Kenneth Moran, acting director of the homeland security office in the Federal Communications Commission, told a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday that interoperability had been only one among many problems in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- which blew down transmission towers and cut power in huge swathes of the Gulf coast. "We did see interoperability problems," he said, "But the biggest problems we saw initially were things that were needed to get the (cellular and broadcast) networks up and that tended to be security issues, staging of personnel to get them in there and ... also trying to get fuel (for generators) into the areas until the power would come up." But responders say that -- in a situation of prolonged crisis like the one in Louisiana -- the time before and after the towers go down and the power goes off is as important as any other. "Good, strong communications help you prepare better and recover faster," said Harlin McEwen, a retired FBI official and the chairman of the communications and technology committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It is an interesting idea. It is good to see that despite the search for villains, such as "people are dying because the television broadcasters aren't using digital" sort of talk, that they *do* realize that there is a human element going on. But that isn't the way we think these days. Even though time and time again, the "trained operator" comes out of the woodwork to help in these emergencies, too many years have passed with our societies hatred of the trained and competent person. Are our emergency management systems going to put up with the expense of the trained operator? More likely what we'll do, will be to make up some sort of infrastructure dependent system that relies on machinery and electronics to "allow" an untrained person to "access everything". And of course, the next time the wheels fall off, the same situation that is going on now will happen. Just some thoughts.... - Mike KB3EIA - |
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K=D8HB wrote: Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. "On the ground, the people that get there first can't talk to each other because the radio communications don't work," Kean told CNN Sunday. "They haven't got enough what's called spectrum." .. . . and on and on and on . . My ongoing understanding has been that there is already gobs of wide open UHF spectrum space already available via all the unused UHF TV channels. Even in very large metropolitan areas. Each one of those channels is 4 Mhz wide or something like that, how many emergency services NBFM channels can be squeezed into 4 Mhz? A *bunch*! I realize that some of those TV-free channels are already being used by non-TV comms here and there but in every locale it seems to me that there's gotta be at least a few TV channels still wide open and available. Beats me . . Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. Some big burg or another has a major disaster to deal with and say they have 500-1000 first responders out on the streets with the best of the best current-tech trunking gear Motorola has to offer and all the base infrastructure has survived, everybody can talk with everybody. So what? They wind up with a monumental tower of babble like we have on 20 phone when a new one shows up 14.195 where everybody is stepping on everybody else and they're worse off than they were before the politicians got into the act with both feet. --=20 73, de Hans, K0HB -- w3rv |
"KØHB" wrote in message ink.net... Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. their problem is not how much spectrum, but having some channels where they can all talk to each other. i would say that 2m would be good for them to confiscate, along with all the repeaters and existing radios that use it. this should give them a flexible enough chunk of spectrum, complete with an installed set of repeaters nation wide and a large number of easily reprogrammed radios that can do not only repeaters but simplex and even digital communications. |
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Dave wrote: "KØHB" wrote in message ink.net... Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. their problem is not how much spectrum, but having some channels where they can all talk to each other. i would say that 2m would be good for them to confiscate, along with all the repeaters and existing radios that use it. this should give them a flexible enough chunk of spectrum, complete with an installed set of repeaters nation wide and a large number of easily reprogrammed radios that can do not only repeaters but simplex and even digital communications. Except that if they need some place wher they can all talk to each other, they sure as heck don't need the entire 2 meter band! That is of course unless they are pumping out a mighty wide signal. The idea is incorrect at it's very root. - Mike KB3EIA - |
"an_old_friend" wrote in message oups.com... Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: KØHB wrote: Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. "On the ground, the people that get there first can't talk to each other because the radio communications don't work," Kean told CNN Sunday. "They haven't got enough what's called spectrum." . . . and on and on and on . . My ongoing understanding has been that there is already gobs of wide open UHF spectrum space already available via all the unused UHF TV channels. Even in very large metropolitan areas. Each one of those channels is 4 Mhz wide or something like that, how many emergency services NBFM channels can be squeezed into 4 Mhz? A *bunch*! I realize that some of those TV-free channels are already being used by non-TV comms here and there but in every locale it seems to me that there's gotta be at least a few TV channels still wide open and available. Beats me . . Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. That is because it is monumentally easier to blame the problem on the bandwidth used by Television than it is to blame those actually responsible. No you are roughly half right below Fact is, if the trained communicators who can use the conditions of the various VHF/UHF, and HF bands to their advantage are called in at early notice, the emergency conditions can be handled quite proficiently. No extra bandwidth needed. Just trained and competent operators. the other thing needed is inteligent planing and prediection of what may be needed , but then I suppose you could say that was part of having trained and competent operators - Mike KB3EIA - What counts is what happens when things *don't* go according to plan and one has to change mode, bands, or whatever. This may include, but not be limited to, mf, hf, vhf, uhf, fm, ssb, or digital modes (even including *gasp* cw). That separates the men from the boys. 73 from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA |
Jim Hampton wrote: "an_old_friend" wrote in message oups.com... Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: K=D8HB wrote: Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. "On the ground, the people that get there first can't talk to each other because the radio communications don't work," Kean told CNN Sunday. "They haven't got enough what's called spectrum." . . . and on and on and on . . My ongoing understanding has been that there is already gobs of wide open UHF spectrum space already available via all the unused UHF TV channels. Even in very large metropolitan areas. Each one of those channels is 4 Mhz wide or something like that, how many emergency services NBFM channels can be squeezed into 4 Mhz? A *bunch*! I reali= ze that some of those TV-free channels are already being used by non-TV comms here and there but in every locale it seems to me that there's gotta be at least a few TV channels still wide open and available. Beats me . . Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. That is because it is monumentally easier to blame the problem on the bandwidth used by Television than it is to blame those actually responsible. No you are roughly half right below Fact is, if the trained communicators who can use the conditions of the various VHF/UHF, and HF bands to their advantage are called in at early notice, the emergency conditions can be handled quite proficiently. No extra bandwidth needed. Just trained and competent operators. the other thing needed is inteligent planing and prediection of what may be needed , but then I suppose you could say that was part of having trained and competent operators - Mike KB3EIA - What counts is what happens when things *don't* go according to plan and = one has to change mode, bands, or whatever. This may include, but not be limited to, mf, hf, vhf, uhf, fm, ssb, or digital modes (even including *gasp* cw). That separates the men from the boys. Indeed Flexiblity is good (if very rare thing these days) Indeed one thing I have always advcated (and which worked pretty weel around here this summer during fireseason) was that Ham stations should have dare I speak it CB radio capity as well, so when a fire caught eh 800mhz tower in the area and the ems folks switched to their CB back up we could help them by relaying from staions at one end of the fire to the other Jim NOT flaming just asking you to share Do you realy see some senario where in the current lack of use of CW outside the ARS that Morse encoded Cw would play a real role? If so please share, the best I have seen is some varraint on the Indepence Day one =20 73 from Rochester, NY Jim AA2QA |
Jim Hampton wrote:
"an_old_friend" wrote in message oups.com... Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: KØHB wrote: Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. "On the ground, the people that get there first can't talk to each other because the radio communications don't work," Kean told CNN Sunday. "They haven't got enough what's called spectrum." . . . and on and on and on . . My ongoing understanding has been that there is already gobs of wide open UHF spectrum space already available via all the unused UHF TV channels. Even in very large metropolitan areas. Each one of those channels is 4 Mhz wide or something like that, how many emergency services NBFM channels can be squeezed into 4 Mhz? A *bunch*! I realize that some of those TV-free channels are already being used by non-TV comms here and there but in every locale it seems to me that there's gotta be at least a few TV channels still wide open and available. Beats me . . Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. That is because it is monumentally easier to blame the problem on the bandwidth used by Television than it is to blame those actually responsible. No you are roughly half right below Fact is, if the trained communicators who can use the conditions of the various VHF/UHF, and HF bands to their advantage are called in at early notice, the emergency conditions can be handled quite proficiently. No extra bandwidth needed. Just trained and competent operators. the other thing needed is inteligent planing and prediection of what may be needed , but then I suppose you could say that was part of having trained and competent operators - Mike KB3EIA - What counts is what happens when things *don't* go according to plan and one has to change mode, bands, or whatever. This may include, but not be limited to, mf, hf, vhf, uhf, fm, ssb, or digital modes (even including *gasp* cw). That separates the men from the boys. Let us face it, the firemen, police and rescue workers are not trained in operating radios, save for mashing the PTT button. their training lies elsewhere, and they do a *lot* of training already. The idea that these non-RF oriented folks would know that say, it is 2000 hours, so they should switch to a different frequency, or that they need to get a message to someone 1000 miles away, but not 50 miles away, and at 3 in the afternoon, so they should use yet another frequency is just a little much to expect. So here we have the Hams, many of whom are trained and competent operators, and who are willing to volunteer their time and sometimes health, to helping others, not unlike volunteer firefighters. It isn't as dramatic in most cases, yet it is still volunteerism. Perhaps the Ham haters can focus their sharp wit on the volunteer fire fighters? - Mike KB3EIA - |
From: "Jim Hampton" on Wed 14 Sep 2005 00:51
"an_old_friend" wrote in message Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: K=D8=88B wrote: Responders' lack of spectrum 'cost lives' By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor Published 9/12/2005 11:40 AM WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Former Sept. 11 commission Chairman Tom Kean says first responders in Louisiana not having had access to radio spectrum needed for interoperable communications "cost lives," as it did at the World Trade Center. "On the ground, the people that get there first can't talk to each other because the radio communications don't work," Kean told CNN Sunday. "They haven't got enough what's called spectrum." . . . and on and on and on . . My ongoing understanding has been that there is already gobs of wide open UHF spectrum space already available via all the unused UHF TV channels. Even in very large metropolitan areas. Each one of those channels is 4 Mhz wide or something like that, how many emergency services NBFM channels can be squeezed into 4 Mhz? A *bunch*! I realize that some of those TV-free channels are already being used by non-TV comms here and there but in every locale it seems to me that there's gotta be at least a few TV channels still wide open and available. Beats me . . Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. That is because it is monumentally easier to blame the problem on the bandwidth used by Television than it is to blame those actually responsible. Everyone so far has been only partly right but mostly WRONG. There is considerable spectrum space on UHF and VHF and low microwaves to handle more than enough voice communications within LOS in any locale. Anyone who has been tracking the FCC allocations above 30 MHz for the last decade will know that and will also know that the move to DTV caused a massive re- alignment of broadcast TV channels, enough to free considerable spectrum at UHF. What reporter Waterman didn't get into involves other factors: 1. The vast majority of VHF-UHF radios used by public safety, utility, and businesses are one to four-channel fixed-frequency types. That is quite fine for ordinary operations. 2. The frequencies assigned to these PLMRS radios is decided by the frequency coordinating groups for the various land mobile radio services. Some searching around at the FCC site will uncover the names and address of all those frequency coordinators. 3. Only the Public Safety radio groups bother to get into so-called "emergency" (non-ordinary) frequencies which are not involved in their public safety real-emergency day-to- day operations. Some locales don't have such, others do. Those that NEED spectrum ALREADY have it. They do NOT have the capability to tune to every single channel possible; public safety agencies seldom NEED such capability in regular 24/7 day-to-day emergency communications. Fact is, if the trained communicators who can use the conditions of the various VHF/UHF, and HF bands to their advantage are called in at early notice, the emergency conditions can be handled quite proficiently. No extra bandwidth needed. Just trained and competent operators. The available equipment needs to be able to RE-tune to all-out- emergency channels. the other thing needed is inteligent planing and prediection of what may be needed , but then I suppose you could say that was part of having trained and competent operators What "training" and "competency" is needed with a single-channel push-to-talk handheld transceiver? That "training and competency" gets settled within a single day on nearly every police force and fire department in the USA. What counts is what happens when things *don't* go according to plan and o= ne has to change mode, bands, or whatever. This may include, but not be limited to, mf, hf, vhf, uhf, fm, ssb, or digital modes (even including *gasp* cw). That separates the men from the boys. Some of the "men" in authority in New Orleans didn't have their brains in right on the "planning" or the execution of any "plan." Plain simple fact was that the severity of hurrican Katrina and the breaching of dike/canal walls that caused all the flooding. [no comment on the idiocy of expanding a city in areas which are already BELOW lake and Gulf water levels] NO government agency radio base station is going to function UNDER water unless built for that; the operators of same can't be expected to work them. NO AMATEUR RADIO EQUIPMENT WILL WORK UNDER WATER EITHER. Don't anyone kid themselves or break arms patting each other on the back. Underwater training and competency is NOT in any ham radio disaster plan, classes, or certificates-of-completion. It's obvious that New Orleans city government needed to have MOBILE base stations for emergencies caused by such extensive flooding. Ask yourself if the New Orleans radio amateurs had anything like that or had ham equipment that would work under water. It should also be obvious that everyone concerned should have prepared for Force Five winds insofar as keeping radio antennas up and functioning. Few were. Mainly, those government antennas that did survive did so in greater numbers than ham antennas. If NOBODY can get through flooded areas to interior non-flooded areas by land vehicle, the only other possibility is by air. The most competent, trained, knowledgeable amateurs couldn't do it unless they also had access to helicopters. Any RICH hams in New Orleans? Ones rich enough to afford their own private helo? It's patently obvious that NO ONE in the New Orleans area had any remotely valid "plans" for much surviving 120 MPH and greater winds. Government, commercial, amateur, doesn't matter. Some COULD have had spare antennas and masts stowed in a robust shelter, antennas that could be erected reasonably quickly to get back "on the air." Some COULD have had spare electrical generators that would NOT be under water for the worst possible flood level rise. Then there would have to be spare radio equipment that would NOT be flooded or perhaps the base stations moved either to higher-than-flood- level ground or on upper stories. For the latter there would have to be emergency rations and accommodations for base station crews who might be stuck in their base operations whatever. New Orleans sits practically on the Gulf of Mexico and is exposed to hurricanes and tsunamis. That over half the city area is UNDER average adjacent water levels is remarkable in itself...if not stupid planning. In their growth they could have looked to the Netherlands for some ideas, Holland having centuries of experience in keeping out the sea. Did they? I don't know. Radio MODE or even Frequency discussions are DUMB and pointless if nearly everything of the equipment is under water or doesn't have good antenna structures. |
Michael Coslo wrote:
wrote: . . . . . . TV-free channels are already being used by non-TV comms here and there but in every locale it seems to me that there's gotta be at least a few TV channels still wide open and available. Beats me . . Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. That is because it is monumentally easier to blame the problem on the bandwidth used by Television than it is to blame those actually responsible. That part of it is ignorable media fluff. Fact is, if the trained communicators who can use the conditions of the various VHF/UHF, and HF bands to their advantage are called in at early notice, the emergency conditions can be handled quite proficiently. No extra bandwidth needed. Just trained and competent operators. Don't agree. First responders are not "radio operators", they're firefighters, medics, police at multiple levels and all the rest. Given a big enough disaster like the New Orleans hurricane onsite FEMA operatives, the Coast Guard, any number of military units from all the services also land in the middle of it. All any of 'em care about is to be able to squeeze their mic button and make the right things happen right now so that they can get back to the reasons they're where they are. Expecting them to competently fiddle-fart with some 500 channel HT or another puts the onus on them if they can't "get through". Ain't gonna happen, no way, nohow. What I think should happen is the development and deployment of some sort of "super" emergency operations centers staffed by highly trained dispatchers who know how to seamlessly patch the first responder specialists making the initial call into the specific specialists they need to contact. "Center Medic 23-7, I need a chopper to airlift, I have a patient in critical condition." 23-7s exact location pops up on the dispatcher's GPS/radar screen as does the location of a USGG chopper which is a half mile away from the medic and his patient. The dispatcher punches a button then and tells 23-7 he's plugged into the chopper. 23-7 tells the chopper what he needs. "OK 23-7, this is Coast Guard Delta six, got it. I'm two minutes out coming in from the southwest." Done. Build these centers into long-range air-refuelable aircraft which can be anywhere over the U.S within hours when they're needed and can loiter over the area for days at FL 30. The military has had AWACS birds with this basic type set of capabilities for decades. They work. We need a few quasi-civil versions. - Mike KB3EIA - w3rv |
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Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: Michael Coslo wrote: Don't agree. First responders are not "radio operators", they're firefighters, medics, police at multiple levels and all the rest. Given a big enough disaster like the New Orleans hurricane onsite FEMA operatives, the Coast Guard, any number of military units from all the services also land in the middle of it. I must not have made myself clear Brian. The answer is not in freeing up the BW now occupied by analog television. The answer for communications in a disaster is trained and competent operators. I agree with all that. And the trained operators should be called in when the regular comms first go out, not after a few days. I don't agree here - depending on what I think you mean by "trained operators". Local governments can't train and store reserve dispatchers who are only activated for drills in preparation for major emergencies, won't work. Emergency dispatching is an art and skill which has to be used on a very regular basis or the dispatchers lose the edge they need to do the job properly when a "big one" hits unexpectedly. In those cases the local authorities can call up all shifts of their regular crews to get a sufficient amount of manpower and their reserve radios on the air. But in order to get any benefit out of an approach like this the dispatch centers have to be able to almost immediately be expanded and able to keep operating thru hell and high water for an extended period. None of those type facilities are in place that I've ever heard about. What I think should happen is the development and deployment of some sort of "super" emergency operations centers staffed by highly trained dispatchers who know how to seamlessly patch the first responder specialists making the initial call into the specific specialists they need to contact. I doubt that there will be the money for that. Good idea tho'. A couple $80 million civil AWACs planes and $10 million a year to maintain and staff 'em is chicken feed. Problem is that Haliburton will have already drained the till before Boeing and Motorola get their passes at it. - Mike KB3EIA - w3rv |
wrote in message oups.com... Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: Michael Coslo wrote: Don't agree. First responders are not "radio operators", they're firefighters, medics, police at multiple levels and all the rest. Given a big enough disaster like the New Orleans hurricane onsite FEMA operatives, the Coast Guard, any number of military units from all the services also land in the middle of it. I must not have made myself clear Brian. The answer is not in freeing up the BW now occupied by analog television. The answer for communications in a disaster is trained and competent operators. I agree with all that. And the trained operators should be called in when the regular comms first go out, not after a few days. I don't agree here - depending on what I think you mean by "trained operators". Local governments can't train and store reserve dispatchers who are only activated for drills in preparation for major emergencies, won't work. Emergency dispatching is an art and skill which has to be used on a very regular basis or the dispatchers lose the edge they need to do the job properly when a "big one" hits unexpectedly. In those cases the local authorities can call up all shifts of their regular crews to get a sufficient amount of manpower and their reserve radios on the air. But in order to get any benefit out of an approach like this the dispatch centers have to be able to almost immediately be expanded and able to keep operating thru hell and high water for an extended period. None of those type facilities are in place that I've ever heard about. What I think should happen is the development and deployment of some sort of "super" emergency operations centers staffed by highly trained dispatchers who know how to seamlessly patch the first responder specialists making the initial call into the specific specialists they need to contact. I doubt that there will be the money for that. Good idea tho'. A couple $80 million civil AWACs planes and $10 million a year to maintain and staff 'em is chicken feed. Problem is that Haliburton will have already drained the till before Boeing and Motorola get their passes at it. - Mike KB3EIA - w3rv it seems like the key is that there is no bridge between the various agencies that can coordinate the activities. the red herring is that their radios can't talk to each other. in most metro areas there are adequate frequencies and equipment to coordinate the local activities, and plenty of dispatchers to do the job... keeping them on the air during a disaster may be a problem that could be addressed, but its not a frequency allocation question, its more of making sure they have adequate facilities and backups. I would bet that most police and fire and even local emergency operating center personnel would agree that they would not want the feds showing up and starting to talk to them on their existing frequencies, they are going to be busy enough with their own work and don't need an outside group showing up trying to 'help' them who isn't familiar with their normal operating procedures, the area, the people, and all that other stuff. what would appear to be needed is a way for fema, national guard, coast guard, etc to get coordinated with the local authorities... and to do that there are really 2 or 3 levels of coordination needed: 1. planning, pre-positioning, testing, training, all that stuff that happens BEFORE a disaster. all the plans in the world are great until you walk into the eoc and can't plug in your equipment because the connectors are wrong, or the local official starts talking about doing one thing and the plan you have in hand calls for something else. 2. strategic coordination... that high level, big area, stuff... the governor's level decisions vs feds and national agencies about when to send them in, where and when are they to take over operations and who has over all control, when to evacuate and where to, etc. this would seem to be one of the big areas where Louisiana had problems. 3. tactical coordination... this seems to be where some people think the problem is, this is where frequency allocations and equipment compatibility come into play. i.e. what happens when the local red cross and national guard meet the local fire department at the evacuation center, who talks to who and on what radio and using which jargon. I don't think in most cases that this really requires all that much new stuff, if the first two levels of coordination have been worked out then this should be simple... get one person from each agency that needs to work together and sit them down in a fixed or mobile command post and let them do their thing. frequent training of these groups is one thing that is probably missing these days... how often do radio operators and officers from national guard units, fema, and other agencies sit down and run exercises with local police and fire and redcross and hams? |
wrote Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. I have a real hard time believing anyone has been killed by a spectrum shortage. Or did Katrina suck up all the RF spectrum when it came thru. I wonder how they would have fared if comm managers had paid more attention to survivability (site/antenna/power generation integrity, generator shielding/protection/placement/fuel availability). This isn't quite as glamorous as whiz-bang Trunking & Mobile data systems but it's certainly more important. 73, de Hans, K0HB |
Dave wrote: wrote in message oups.com... Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: Michael Coslo wrote: Don't agree. First responders are not "radio operators", they're firefighters, medics, police at multiple levels and all the rest. Given a big enough disaster like the New Orleans hurricane onsite FEMA operatives, the Coast Guard, any number of military units from all the services also land in the middle of it. I must not have made myself clear Brian. The answer is not in freeing up the BW now occupied by analog television. The answer for communications in a disaster is trained and competent operators. I agree with all that. And the trained operators should be called in when the regular comms first go out, not after a few days. I don't agree here - depending on what I think you mean by "trained operators". Local governments can't train and store reserve dispatchers who are only activated for drills in preparation for major emergencies, won't work. Emergency dispatching is an art and skill which has to be used on a very regular basis or the dispatchers lose the edge they need to do the job properly when a "big one" hits unexpectedly. In those cases the local authorities can call up all shifts of their regular crews to get a sufficient amount of manpower and their reserve radios on the air. But in order to get any benefit out of an approach like this the dispatch centers have to be able to almost immediately be expanded and able to keep operating thru hell and high water for an extended period. None of those type facilities are in place that I've ever heard about. What I think should happen is the development and deployment of some sort of "super" emergency operations centers staffed by highly trained dispatchers who know how to seamlessly patch the first responder specialists making the initial call into the specific specialists they need to contact. I doubt that there will be the money for that. Good idea tho'. A couple $80 million civil AWACs planes and $10 million a year to maintain and staff 'em is chicken feed. Problem is that Haliburton will have already drained the till before Boeing and Motorola get their passes at it. - Mike KB3EIA - w3rv it seems like the key is that there is no bridge between the various agencies that can coordinate the activities. the red herring is that their radios can't talk to each other. Yup. It is a function of bandwidth, distance, congestion and other stuff like that. in most metro areas there are adequate frequencies and equipment to coordinate the local activities, and plenty of dispatchers to do the job... keeping them on the air during a disaster may be a problem that could be addressed, but its not a frequency allocation question, its more of making sure they have adequate facilities and backups. I would bet that most police and fire and even local emergency operating center personnel would agree that they would not want the feds showing up and starting to talk to them on their existing frequencies, they are going to be busy enough with their own work and don't need an outside group showing up trying to 'help' them who isn't familiar with their normal operating procedures, the area, the people, and all that other stuff. what would appear to be needed is a way for fema, national guard, coast guard, etc to get coordinated with the local authorities... and to do that there are really 2 or 3 levels of coordination needed: There is a way. Exists right now. The problem in this particular disaster is that the emergency services lagged way behind the disaster. 1. planning, pre-positioning, testing, training, all that stuff that happens BEFORE a disaster. all the plans in the world are great until you walk into the eoc and can't plug in your equipment because the connectors are wrong, or the local official starts talking about doing one thing and the plan you have in hand calls for something else. 2. strategic coordination... that high level, big area, stuff... the governor's level decisions vs feds and national agencies about when to send them in, where and when are they to take over operations and who has over all control, when to evacuate and where to, etc. this would seem to be one of the big areas where Louisiana had problems. 3. tactical coordination... this seems to be where some people think the problem is, this is where frequency allocations and equipment compatibility come into play. i.e. what happens when the local red cross and national guard meet the local fire department at the evacuation center, who talks to who and on what radio and using which jargon. I don't think in most cases that this really requires all that much new stuff, if the first two levels of coordination have been worked out then this should be simple... get one person from each agency that needs to work together and sit them down in a fixed or mobile command post and let them do their thing. frequent training of these groups is one thing that is probably missing these days... how often do radio operators and officers from national guard units, fema, and other agencies sit down and run exercises with local police and fire and redcross and hams? The problem as I see it is that the radio comms are kind of like a swimming duck. Above the water line there is not a lot of stuff going on. Below the line is all kinds of activity. Are the emergency organizations going to employ pay and train competent radio operators who are capable of figuring out where they need to be frequency wise? I doubt it. If so, I wanna apply for that job. In this group, we've discussed the contesting issue, in which others and myself have claimed that it is practice for emergency operations. One regular poster in particular heaps a lot of scorn on those who believe it is practice. But it is. These operators would have to be frequency agile, as well as know what frequency that they should use in a given situation. They need to be able to copy weak signals, and be patient. But I can just about wager a months salary that whatever "new" system we end up with, it will be heavily infrastructure dependent, and designed so that someone who knows nothing about radio and electronics will just mash their PTT button. And it will work perfectly in drills. And it will fail miserably when the "big one" hits it. Then the hams with their "old technology" will come out of the woodwork again. - Mike KB3EIA - |
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From: Michael Coslo on Sep 14, 1:46 pm
wrote: Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: Michael Coslo wrote: Don't agree. First responders are not "radio operators", they're firefighters, medics, police at multiple levels and all the rest. Given a big enough disaster like the New Orleans hurricane onsite FEMA operatives, the Coast Guard, any number of military units from all the services also land in the middle of it. I must not have made myself clear Brian. The answer is not in freeing up the BW now occupied by analog television. The answer for communications in a disaster is trained and competent operators. I agree with all that. And the trained operators should be called in when the regular comms first go out, not after a few days. I don't agree here - depending on what I think you mean by "trained operators". Local governments can't train and store reserve dispatchers who are only activated for drills in preparation for major emergencies, won't work. Emergency dispatching is an art and skill which has to be used on a very regular basis or the dispatchers lose the edge they need to do the job properly when a "big one" hits unexpectedly. I think for all practical concerns, the trained operators are us. From what I have seen in the short time that I have been a Ham, there is a learning curve to become a proficient operator. And although A person can become proficient of course, it takes some time. We get training all the time in our contests, and the occasional more formal emergency training events. "Training in [radio] contests?!?" To do WHAT? Win points? "In the short time that you have been a ham," you've become a proficient law enforcement person, a medic, a fireman, are able to wade through flood waters, put up antennas in 100+ MPH winds and enunciate clearly into a microphone or mash your fist on a code key as befits a 1940s radio op on a B-17 over Germany? Remarkable. Maybe I should try that. All I had to do in the 1950s was learn and practice the art of land warfare. ["close with, and destroy the enemy!"] In those cases the local authorities can call up all shifts of their regular crews to get a sufficient amount of manpower and their reserve radios on the air. But in order to get any benefit out of an approach like this the dispatch centers have to be able to almost immediately be expanded and able to keep operating thru hell and high water for an extended period. None of those type facilities are in place that I've ever heard about. The Greater Los Angeles Emergency Communications Center was set up just that way prior to January 17th, 1994, and functioned very well. No warnings whatsoever beforehand. At a few minutes past 4:30 AM the Northridge Earthquake hit, the Pacific Intertie was broken, and the entire area of about 10 million residents was without ANY electric power. The Center worked, the outlying government- utilities industry communications worked on emergency generators (already there) and mobile, vehicle power. I repeat, NO warning ahead of time. How much warning did New Orleans have? 3 days, 4, 5? Hurricanes spawn in mid-Atlantic and the Carribean and take days to come ashore, all the time tracked by NOAA. Plenty of time for all those hams with their indestructible ham radios to be On The Scene as First Responders! They are all "trained and competent" in emergency radio, right? Drill regularly in those "radiosport" contests? READ all about it in QST? A couple $80 million civil AWACs planes and $10 million a year to maintain and staff 'em is chicken feed. Problem is that Haliburton will have already drained the till before Boeing and Motorola get their passes at it. Hey! you stole my line!...really! ;^) Tsk. "AWACs?" You guys have lost way too many grey cells to ionizing radiation while being under the fantasy of "training and competence" by virtue of sitting in front of your radddios tweaking knobs and imagining you are all he-roes. Five of those abandoned-and-later-flooded dozens of empty school busses in New Orleans could have been used. No damn "$80 million" costs involved there. With over half the city of New Orleans BELOW sea level for YEARS, the government of the city of the Big Easy didn't use their brains...for YEARS. Does your ham radio FLOAT? Can your ham antenna stand up under Force 4 winds? Or is your "training and competence" only tied up with classroom work, talking it up with the students, and imagining How Good you all are? |
K=D8HB wrote: wrote Lotta nonsense in this article, bunch of clueless politicians going at it as usual. I have a real hard time believing anyone has been killed by a spectrum sh= ortage. Or did Katrina suck up all the RF spectrum when it came thru. Heh. I wonder how they would have fared if comm managers had paid more attenti= on to survivability (site/antenna/power generation integrity, generator shielding/protection/placement/fuel availability). This isn't quite as glamorous as whiz-bang Trunking & Mobile data systems= but it's certainly more important. You bet. No dispatch centers no radio period. I've been chasing down articles on the subject for the last couple days. I haven't found anything which specifically gets into the current condition of the EOCs but bits and pieces indicate that the power and land line systems are coming back up much faster than the municipal radio systems. But we're talking about the Big Easy here which is not exactly the national model for governmental planning and efficiency. This is the town where 10% of it's police force quit on the spot and headed out of town when Katrina landed on 'em. So who knows what shape their first-responder's infrastucture is in? For all we know maybe all the New Orleans EOC "sump pump operators" have quit too and the water is still ten feet deep in the operations room . . Homeland Secuity gotta get into this field and lay down the national standards for siting and construction of the EOCs and all their paraphernalia.=20 =20 73, de Hans, K0HB w3rv |
"Michael Coslo" wrote Are the emergency organizations going to employ pay and train competent radio operators who are capable of figuring out where they need to be frequency wise? "First responders" are not radio operators. They are firemen, policemen, medical personel, ambulance drivers, etc., etc., etc. To these people a radio is just another tool --- they need to just "mash the PTT" like you describe, and communicate their message. THIS IS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE! Communications should be transparent to these people, and require no training at all beyond simple circuit procedures. The failures of communications in New Orleans were not because of lack of spectrum, nor lack of "competent radio operators", but lack of properly hardened communications facilities, and lack of backup for those facilities. Prime example --- the New Orleans PD EDACS MA/Comm 800 MHz radio system functioned well during and immediately after the hurricane, but then natural gas service to the prime downtown transmitter site was disrupted and the generator was out. (No gas, no generator. No generator, no transmitter.) Owners of the site would not allow installation of LP gas tanks as a backup to piped gas, meaning generators did not have any fuel when the main lines were cut. Further compounding the situation was the fact that the PD EDACS acted as a hub of the area Inter-Operation system with 17 hard-patched RF links to a variety of other agencies in NO and nearby cities/parishes. When the EDACS went down, it pulled all those inter-op links down with it and the whole first-responder comm system imploded, reduced to little "islands" of communications that couldn't inter-communicate. Airlifting a thousand "competent radio operators" into the area would not have improved communications at the level of the "feet on the street" cop, fireman, or medical person one iota. As I see it, two mundane planning changes could have prevented this train wreck.... 1) Emergency fuel supplies at the transmitter site (a 2,000 pound tank of LP lasts weeks). 2) A star or mesh (rather than a hub) topology of the mutual-aid/other interop links which didn't allow a single point of failure to crash the whole system. 73, de Hans, K0HB |
Jim Hampton wrote: wrote in message ups.com... Sure, they can nibble at the ham bands. But there's not much spectrum to be had from them below 400 MHz. All of 6, 2 and 220 only adds up to about two TV channels. What you're really seeing is a push to end NTSC TV transmissions, and go to DTV exclusively. IMHO 73 de Jim, N2EY Hello, Jim Hello I'm not sure they'd want anything below UHF. If you are inside of a steel building, I suspect they'd be better off at higher frequencies as they will tend to bounce around and find an egress far easier than VHF. A 6 meter HT is going to have antenna/ground efficiency problems as well. It is far better than 10 (or 11, for that matter), but still is limited with a small antenna and a far from satisfactory ground. Plus the wavelength is going to have a difficult time getting outside of a building. 2 meters is better, but still lacking. 440 is better, but up around 1 GHz would probably be better than the VHF television channels. Agreed on all that but what I'm saying is that it's not what that blurb is really all about. As Hans, K0HB and others have pointed out, the big problems in NO aren't about lack of spectrum. They're about lack of planning and lack of good system design. What I think that blurb is really all about is the desire fo some to turn off their NTSC TV transmitters. And I can't say I blame them. Most TV stations here in Philly are simulcasting DTV and NTSC. That's expensive, both in tower rental, power and labor costs, and because the NTSC stuff is all going to be worthless when they finally shut it down. The migration to DTV has taken a long time and it's going nowhere fast. The stores keep selling NTSC TVs, VCRs, etc., so the 'installed base' isn't shrinking. DTV sets still cost a pretty penny, and if someone doesn't watch that much TV it's not a high priority to replace an NTSC set. How many more years and dollars before they can shut off the old NTSC transmitter? That's the big issue. One solution is to distribute set-top boxes that convert DTV signals to NTSC, so that you can watch the DTV transmissions on your NTSC set, tape them on VHS, etc. But who is going to pay for it? By wrapping the issue in disaster-communications bunting, the whole thing can be made to look as if it's in the national interest to shut down NTSC broadcasting ASAP. The red herring is that the freed-up spectrum will somehow enhance disaster comms. --- You get down to the museum yet? They have a working pre-NTSC B&W/color TV set complete with color wheel... 73 de Jim, N2EY |
wrote: Jim Hampton wrote: wrote in message ups.com... Sure, they can nibble at the ham bands. But there's not much spectrum to be had from them below 400 MHz. All of 6, 2 and 220 only adds up to about two TV channels. What you're really seeing is a push to end NTSC TV transmissions, and go to DTV exclusively. IMHO 73 de Jim, N2EY Hello, Jim Hello I'm not sure they'd want anything below UHF. If you are inside of a steel building, I suspect they'd be better off at higher frequencies as they will tend to bounce around and find an egress far easier than VHF. A 6 meter HT is going to have antenna/ground efficiency problems as well. It is far better than 10 (or 11, for that matter), but still is limited with a small antenna and a far from satisfactory ground. Plus the wavelength is going to have a difficult time getting outside of a building. 2 meters is better, but still lacking. 440 is better, but up around 1 GHz would probably be better than the VHF television channels. Agreed on all that but what I'm saying is that it's not what that blurb is really all about. As Hans, K0HB and others have pointed out, the big problems in NO aren't about lack of spectrum. They're about lack of planning and lack of good system design. What I think that blurb is really all about is the desire fo some to turn off their NTSC TV transmitters. And I can't say I blame them. Most TV stations here in Philly are simulcasting DTV and NTSC. That's expensive, both in tower rental, power and labor costs, and because the NTSC stuff is all going to be worthless when they finally shut it down. The migration to DTV has taken a long time and it's going nowhere fast. The stores keep selling NTSC TVs, VCRs, etc., so the 'installed base' isn't shrinking. DTV sets still cost a pretty penny, and if someone doesn't watch that much TV it's not a high priority to replace an NTSC set. or watchs mostly news type shows (I really don't need a HDTV pic of Bill ORiely or Neil Cavuto) But localy NO HDTV is avable at all and DVDs don't take advantage iof it so why should I pay for one? How many more years and dollars before they can shut off the old NTSC transmitter? That's the big issue. One solution is to distribute set-top boxes that convert DTV signals to NTSC, so that you can watch the DTV transmissions on your NTSC set, tape them on VHS, etc. But who is going to pay for it? By wrapping the issue in disaster-communications bunting, the whole thing can be made to look as if it's in the national interest to shut down NTSC broadcasting ASAP. The red herring is that the freed-up spectrum will somehow enhance disaster comms. --- You get down to the museum yet? They have a working pre-NTSC B&W/color TV set complete with color wheel... 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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KØHB wrote: "Michael Coslo" wrote Are the emergency organizations going to employ pay and train competent radio operators who are capable of figuring out where they need to be frequency wise? "First responders" are not radio operators. They are firemen, policemen, medical personel, ambulance drivers, etc., etc., etc. To these people a radio is just another tool --- they need to just "mash the PTT" like you describe, and communicate their message. THIS IS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE! Communications should be transparent to these people, and require no training at all beyond simple circuit procedures. Design the system that will always be up, will allow anyone to communicate to anyone anywhere with no knowledge of anything by the users, aside from turning the radio on, adjusting the audio, and mashin' that button. Then pay for it! Then watch what happens when the big one hits. The failures of communications in New Orleans were not because of lack of spectrum, nor lack of "competent radio operators", but lack of properly hardened communications facilities, and lack of backup for those facilities. They probably needed backup for the backup too.... Prime example --- the New Orleans PD EDACS MA/Comm 800 MHz radio system functioned well during and immediately after the hurricane, but then natural gas service to the prime downtown transmitter site was disrupted and the generator was out. (No gas, no generator. No generator, no transmitter.) Owners of the site would not allow installation of LP gas tanks as a backup to piped gas, meaning generators did not have any fuel when the main lines were cut. You suggesting reactors for power supplies? The hyper complicated system that you describe only adds to the infrastructure needed to support the system. Further compounding the situation was the fact that the PD EDACS acted as a hub of the area Inter-Operation system with 17 hard-patched RF links to a variety of other agencies in NO and nearby cities/parishes. When the EDACS went down, it pulled all those inter-op links down with it and the whole first-responder comm system imploded, reduced to little "islands" of communications that couldn't inter-communicate. Airlifting a thousand "competent radio operators" into the area would not have improved communications at the level of the "feet on the street" cop, fireman, or medical person one iota. As I see it, two mundane planning changes could have prevented this train wreck.... 1) Emergency fuel supplies at the transmitter site (a 2,000 pound tank of LP lasts weeks). 2) A star or mesh (rather than a hub) topology of the mutual-aid/other interop links which didn't allow a single point of failure to crash the whole system. You're coming in on the end of the issue with suggestions of how the beginning should be handled. You'll admit that is a lot simpler? I suspect that nature can eventually beat anything that we can design. What if it was a Cat 5 storm? What if the base of the bulletproof system was washed away? I doing a bit of devils advocate here Hans. Your ideas are good, especially the mesh idea as opposed to a hub. But nature has a way of accelerating entropy that beats most of the things that we can come up with. - Mike KB3EIA - |
"Michael Coslo" wrote Design the system that will always be up, will allow anyone to communicate to anyone anywhere with no knowledge of anything by the users, aside from turning the radio on, adjusting the audio, and mashin' that button. You have it precisely correct. I knew you'd catch on! You suggesting reactors for power supplies? Where did I suggest that? The hyper complicated system that you describe only adds to the infrastructure needed to support the system. Actually, the EDACS at New Orleans was pretty compact, simple, and straightforward compared to most major metropolitan areas. Certainly wasn't "hyper complicated". Your ideas are good Of course they are. I made my living for many years in telecommunications planning/configuration. -- 73, de Hans, K0HB -- Homepage: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~k0hb Member: ARRL http://www.arrl.org SOC http://www.qsl.net/soc VWOA http://www.vwoa.org A-1 Operator Club http://www.arrl.org/awards/a1-op/ TCDXA http://www.tcdxa.org MWA http://www.w0aa.org TCFMC http://www.tcfmc.org FISTS http://www.fists.org LVDXA http://www.upstel.net/borken/lvdxa.htm NCI http://www.nocode.org |
From: Michael Coslo on Wed 14 Sep 2005 16:23
Dave wrote: wrote in message Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: Michael Coslo wrote: it seems like the key is that there is no bridge between the various agencies that can coordinate the activities. the red herring is that their radios can't talk to each other. Yup. It is a function of bandwidth, distance, congestion and other stuff like that. Disagree. It is PLANNING AHEAD for contingencies. Case in point is the so-called "Tactical" channels used by the LAPD. Normal operation of radio units uses a common working frequency. Where more than one group of radio units need to work together, they use a "TAC" (for tactical) channel that is preassigned...such as "TAC ONE" or "TAC TWO." LAPD has the planning on what to do if a base station is suddenly inoperative. The same goes for the LAFD. In the workload of public safety radio services, they are NOT playing radio games or "working weak signals" or the other radio-only activities done by amateurs. They have their regular duties NOT involving playing with radios. what would appear to be needed is a way for fema, national guard, coast guard, etc to get coordinated with the local authorities... and to do that there are really 2 or 3 levels of coordination needed: There is a way. Exists right now. The problem in this particular disaster is that the emergency services lagged way behind the disaster. PLANNING AHEAD sometimes lags behind...but that is NOT due to the alleged "lack of spectrum" as a reporter wrote. With NO fall-back on contingency planning the agencies fall down. That's an ORGANIZATIONAL PLANNING thing, something to be done way ahead of time. A small part of that is radio use. If worst comes to absolute worst, "communications" can be effected by runners (couriers, hand-carrying messages between operations bases as was done in ancient military times)...individuals who carry messages by hand or by mind or whatever to keep the bases in touch. Let's look at what was observed and uncovered by news services about New Orleans. That city has been on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico for well over a century and has expanded such that over half of it is BELOW sea level, BELOW lake level. They depend on a dozen-plus huge pumps to continuously drain the city. Do they have a fall-back plan in case of pump failure or levee breach? Doesn't seem so. Centralized communications bases with no secondary bases planned, not enough some small boats to get around, not enough "high-rise" vehicles to get through shallow flooded areas. No interconnecting streets from above sea level areas to other above sea level areas...or dedicated communications lines that would be above sea level. Anyone who has looked at TV news coverage should have seen dozens and dozens of big yellow school busses sitting in a flooded motor pool (apt name, "motor pool") EMPTY and unused. "High rise" types which have greater-than-average-vehicle road clearance and could have gotten through for evacuation before the flooding was complete. UNUSED in the one-day pre-storm evacuation order issued by the Mayor. Each of those school busses would have been more than adequate to hold portable radio base stations with operators after transporting evacuees to higher ground. The problem as I see it is that the radio comms are kind of like a swimming duck. Above the water line there is not a lot of stuff going on. Below the line is all kinds of activity. What in the world are you trying to say there? Are the emergency organizations going to employ pay and train competent radio operators who are capable of figuring out where they need to be frequency wise? I doubt it. If so, I wanna apply for that job. You want to be in a group that was inept at planning ahead? Clue: MANAGEMENT of a city is SUPPOSED to do that PLANNING AHEAD (of some sort) to handle emergency contingencies. It is NOT "up to the 'radio operators' to seek out 'new operating locales.'" In this group, we've discussed the contesting issue, in which others and myself have claimed that it is practice for emergency operations. One regular poster in particular heaps a lot of scorn on those who believe it is practice. But it is. "Scorn?" No. IMPROPER ANALOGUES, yes. Have YOU EVER worked in any sudden emergency situation? Explain how that is "comparable" to radio contesting. These operators would have to be frequency agile, as well as know what frequency that they should use in a given situation. They need to be able to copy weak signals, and be patient. No, those operators MUST KNOW THEIR LAND TERRITORY and ORGANIZATION of all the First Responders. They MUST KNOW and be ABLE TO IMPROVISE IMMEDIATELY if part of that pre-esisting organization becomes incommunicative or inoperable or cut off by such things as impassible roadways. A sudden emergency/disaster condition involves LIFE and DEATH. NO radio contact contest is about life and death. But I can just about wager a months salary that whatever "new" system we end up with, it will be heavily infrastructure dependent, and designed so that someone who knows nothing about radio and electronics will just mash their PTT button. And it will work perfectly in drills. And it will fail miserably when the "big one" hits it. Make your one month salary amount payable to the American Red Cross. You lost BIG TIME. I'll just cite a near-"big one" incident that happened 11 1/2 years ago...precisely at a little past 4:30 AM on 17 January 1994. The Northridge Earthquake. TOTAL primary electrical power failure for 10 million residents. Several building collapses. 53 died directly. One natural gas distribution main line fractured and on fire. Some freeway overpasses collapsed, blocking all vehicles there. The Emergency Communications Center for Greater Los Angeles was functional, ramping up as more and more personnel arrived. PDs had emergency electrical power for base stations, as did FDs. FDs were alerted and informed through leased telephone lines that did NOT go through telephone switching centers, thus remaining open, working. LAFD was rolling on many fires, one I could see from my high back yard vantage point (hard to miss against total blackness). Even the utilities were equipped with emergency power. Mobiles kept on working and rolling; one LAPD vehicle went face down a collapsed overpass when unable to stop in time. Utility workers were called up on the infrastructure telephone system, told were to report for work. The infrastructure communications system WORKED and the First Responders responded and started on their enormous work load, all by just "mashing their PTT buttons" and communicating. Then the hams with their "old technology" will come out of the woodwork again. They did NOT do so here 11 1/2 years ago. This terrible infra- structure that was supposed to "fail" did NOT fail. Yes, NORMAL telephone service was bogged down AT FIRST by panic. That settled down. Utilities could call through their leased lines OUT to workers; that plan was in place and working. There was adequate EM spectrum allocation for all concerned to do First Responding. PLANNING and drilling and ORGANIZATION done well before the event tied everyone together. The enormity of the repair workload ahead rather put a damper on "playing with radios" or "fooling around, tuning a band for new contacts." There was NO warning, NO time to prepare ahead. For any sudden emergency event a PLAN - with sufficient drilling and training - MUST exist beforehand. If radio amateurs are a part of that plan, fine. They can help. But, such a PLAN must concern the FIRST RESPONDERS first. THEY are the ones ON THE SCENE first. Now all you easties can bitch and moan and call names of "six land" people and all that, but we DO have plans that have been PROVEN by ACTUAL TEST to WORK. In a sudden emergency with absolutely NO warning. The Gulf Coast region had over three days warning to prepare. Did they have an adequate PLAN of how to handle anything? Ask them. If you need some ideas on what to do and how to plan, come west. We've done it and survived. Or maybe you can go to the storm-ravaged, disaster-prone region south of Hartford and learn all there is to know to be prepared? Your option. |
wrote: From: Michael Coslo on Wed 14 Sep 2005 16:23 Dave wrote: wrote in message Michael Coslo wrote: wrote: Michael Coslo wrote: it seems like the key is that there is no bridge between the various agencies that can coordinate the activities. the red herring is that their radios can't talk to each other. Yup. It is a function of bandwidth, distance, congestion and other stuff like that. Disagree. It is PLANNING AHEAD for contingencies. Case in point is the so-called "Tactical" channels used by the LAPD. Normal operation of radio units uses a common working frequency. Where more than one group of radio units need to work together, they use a "TAC" (for tactical) channel that is preassigned...such as "TAC ONE" or "TAC TWO." LAPD has the planning on what to do if a base station is suddenly inoperative. The same goes for the LAFD. In the workload of public safety radio services, they are NOT playing radio games or "working weak signals" or the other radio-only activities done by amateurs. They have their regular duties NOT involving playing with radios. what would appear to be needed is a way for fema, national guard, coast guard, etc to get coordinated with the local authorities... and to do that there are really 2 or 3 levels of coordination needed: There is a way. Exists right now. The problem in this particular disaster is that the emergency services lagged way behind the disaster. PLANNING AHEAD sometimes lags behind...but that is NOT due to the alleged "lack of spectrum" as a reporter wrote. With NO fall-back on contingency planning the agencies fall down. That's an ORGANIZATIONAL PLANNING thing, something to be done way ahead of time. A small part of that is radio use. If worst comes to absolute worst, "communications" can be effected by runners (couriers, hand-carrying messages between operations bases as was done in ancient military times)...individuals who carry messages by hand or by mind or whatever to keep the bases in touch. Hand carry is still done in some cases for security, or as a back up Let's look at what was observed and uncovered by news services about New Orleans. That city has been on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico for well over a century and has expanded such that over half of it is BELOW sea level, BELOW lake level. They depend on a dozen-plus huge pumps to continuously drain the city. Do they have a fall-back plan in case of pump failure or levee breach? Doesn't seem so. Centralized communications bases with no secondary bases planned, not enough some small boats to get around, not enough "high-rise" vehicles to get through shallow flooded areas. No interconnecting streets from above sea level areas to other above sea level areas...or dedicated communications lines that would be above sea level. Anyone who has looked at TV news coverage should have seen dozens and dozens of big yellow school busses sitting in a flooded motor pool (apt name, "motor pool") EMPTY and unused. "High rise" types which have greater-than-average-vehicle road clearance and could have gotten through for evacuation before the flooding was complete. UNUSED in the one-day pre-storm evacuation order issued by the Mayor. Each of those school busses would have been more than adequate to hold portable radio base stations with operators after transporting evacuees to higher ground. The problem as I see it is that the radio comms are kind of like a swimming duck. Above the water line there is not a lot of stuff going on. Below the line is all kinds of activity. What in the world are you trying to say there? Are the emergency organizations going to employ pay and train competent radio operators who are capable of figuring out where they need to be frequency wise? I doubt it. If so, I wanna apply for that job. You want to be in a group that was inept at planning ahead? Clue: MANAGEMENT of a city is SUPPOSED to do that PLANNING AHEAD (of some sort) to handle emergency contingencies. It is NOT "up to the 'radio operators' to seek out 'new operating locales.'" In this group, we've discussed the contesting issue, in which others and myself have claimed that it is practice for emergency operations. One regular poster in particular heaps a lot of scorn on those who believe it is practice. But it is. "Scorn?" No. IMPROPER ANALOGUES, yes. Have YOU EVER worked in any sudden emergency situation? Explain how that is "comparable" to radio contesting. These operators would have to be frequency agile, as well as know what frequency that they should use in a given situation. They need to be able to copy weak signals, and be patient. No, those operators MUST KNOW THEIR LAND TERRITORY and ORGANIZATION of all the First Responders. They MUST KNOW and be ABLE TO IMPROVISE IMMEDIATELY if part of that pre-esisting organization becomes incommunicative or inoperable or cut off by such things as impassible roadways. A sudden emergency/disaster condition involves LIFE and DEATH. NO radio contact contest is about life and death. But I can just about wager a months salary that whatever "new" system we end up with, it will be heavily infrastructure dependent, and designed so that someone who knows nothing about radio and electronics will just mash their PTT button. And it will work perfectly in drills. And it will fail miserably when the "big one" hits it. Make your one month salary amount payable to the American Red Cross. You lost BIG TIME. I'll just cite a near-"big one" incident that happened 11 1/2 years ago...precisely at a little past 4:30 AM on 17 January 1994. The Northridge Earthquake. TOTAL primary electrical power failure for 10 million residents. Several building collapses. 53 died directly. One natural gas distribution main line fractured and on fire. Some freeway overpasses collapsed, blocking all vehicles there. The Emergency Communications Center for Greater Los Angeles was functional, ramping up as more and more personnel arrived. PDs had emergency electrical power for base stations, as did FDs. FDs were alerted and informed through leased telephone lines that did NOT go through telephone switching centers, thus remaining open, working. LAFD was rolling on many fires, one I could see from my high back yard vantage point (hard to miss against total blackness). Even the utilities were equipped with emergency power. Mobiles kept on working and rolling; one LAPD vehicle went face down a collapsed overpass when unable to stop in time. Utility workers were called up on the infrastructure telephone system, told were to report for work. The infrastructure communications system WORKED and the First Responders responded and started on their enormous work load, all by just "mashing their PTT buttons" and communicating. Then the hams with their "old technology" will come out of the woodwork again. They did NOT do so here 11 1/2 years ago. This terrible infra- structure that was supposed to "fail" did NOT fail. Yes, NORMAL telephone service was bogged down AT FIRST by panic. That settled down. Utilities could call through their leased lines OUT to workers; that plan was in place and working. There was adequate EM spectrum allocation for all concerned to do First Responding. PLANNING and drilling and ORGANIZATION done well before the event tied everyone together. The enormity of the repair workload ahead rather put a damper on "playing with radios" or "fooling around, tuning a band for new contacts." There was NO warning, NO time to prepare ahead. For any sudden emergency event a PLAN - with sufficient drilling and training - MUST exist beforehand. If radio amateurs are a part of that plan, fine. They can help. But, such a PLAN must concern the FIRST RESPONDERS first. THEY are the ones ON THE SCENE first. Now all you easties can bitch and moan and call names of "six land" people and all that, but we DO have plans that have been PROVEN by ACTUAL TEST to WORK. In a sudden emergency with absolutely NO warning. The Gulf Coast region had over three days warning to prepare. Did they have an adequate PLAN of how to handle anything? Ask them. If you need some ideas on what to do and how to plan, come west. We've done it and survived. Or maybe you can go to the storm-ravaged, disaster-prone region south of Hartford and learn all there is to know to be prepared? Your option. |
an_old_friend wrote:
wrote: From: Michael Coslo on Wed 14 Sep 2005 16:23 That's an ORGANIZATIONAL PLANNING thing, something to be done way ahead of time. A small part of that is radio use. If worst comes to absolute worst, "communications" can be effected by runners (couriers, hand-carrying messages between operations bases as was done in ancient military times)...individuals who carry messages by hand or by mind or whatever to keep the bases in touch. Hand carry is still done in some cases for security, or as a back up "Colonel Morgan, I want to take this message from our headquarters in New Orleans and swim to Baton Rouge with it. Be back in fifteen minutes." Dave K8MN |
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Dave Heil wrote: an_old_friend wrote: wrote: From: Michael Coslo on Wed 14 Sep 2005 16:23 That's an ORGANIZATIONAL PLANNING thing, something to be done way ahead of time. A small part of that is radio use. If worst comes to absolute worst, "communications" can be effected by runners (couriers, hand-carrying messages between operations bases as was done in ancient military times)...individuals who carry messages by hand or by mind or whatever to keep the bases in touch. Hand carry is still done in some cases for security, or as a back up "Colonel Morgan, I want to take this message from our headquarters in New Orleans and swim to Baton Rouge with it. Be back in fifteen minutes." of course true to form dave decideds to be stupid in his attacks Dave K8MN |
an_old_friend wrote:
Dave Heil wrote: an_old_friend wrote: wrote: From: Michael Coslo on Wed 14 Sep 2005 16:23 That's an ORGANIZATIONAL PLANNING thing, something to be done way ahead of time. A small part of that is radio use. If worst comes to absolute worst, "communications" can be effected by runners (couriers, hand-carrying messages between operations bases as was done in ancient military times)...individuals who carry messages by hand or by mind or whatever to keep the bases in touch. Hand carry is still done in some cases for security, or as a back up "Colonel Morgan, I want to take this message from our headquarters in New Orleans and swim to Baton Rouge with it. Be back in fifteen minutes." of course true to form dave decideds to be stupid in his attacks I think you've mixed up a few of the words. I've decided to attack stupid comments. You quoted an entire multi-paragraph post just to insert your gem. Now that you've had time to digest my response, do you think hand-carrying of messages between two distant points, with flood waters all around is a good idea? Do you think there was any necessity for a high degree of security for most messages being passed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? Dave K8MN |
Dave Heil wrote: an_old_friend wrote: Dave Heil wrote: an_old_friend wrote: wrote: From: Michael Coslo on Wed 14 Sep 2005 16:23 That's an ORGANIZATIONAL PLANNING thing, something to be done way ahead of time. A small part of that is radio use. If worst comes to absolute worst, "communications" can be effected by runners (couriers, hand-carrying messages between operations bases as was done in ancient military times)...individuals who carry messages by hand or by mind or whatever to keep the bases in touch. Hand carry is still done in some cases for security, or as a back up "Colonel Morgan, I want to take this message from our headquarters in New Orleans and swim to Baton Rouge with it. Be back in fifteen minutes." of course true to form dave decideds to be stupid in his attacks I think you've mixed up a few of the words. I've decided to attack stupid comments. You quoted an entire multi-paragraph post just to insert your gem. Now that you've had time to digest my response, do you think hand-carrying of messages between two distant points, with flood waters all around is a good idea? Do you think there was any necessity for a high degree of security for most messages being passed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? gee I did exactly as you did but I did not quote a multi paragraph post Never said it would be, however Hand carry esp of list of stuff at a given site to another site using the driver of the turck moveing the fright seems entirely practical either as primary or as back up also Never claimed security was an issue with Katrina stuff, merely that security is a prime reason why Hand carry is resorted in commo Indeed I was correcting Len on a matter of fact, Hand carry is still used today, not merely in ancient times as he claimed. Indeed I never mentioned katrina in my correction of Len you decided to make a stupid attack of a statement that was rock solid in in truthfullness showing you don't deal with issues instead you deal in personal attacks, and stpuid ones at that OTOH sending some one by boat with a message from NO to Batron Rouge could not have worked worse than what WAS done in the aftermath of Katrina, but again 15 mintues doesn't cut it Dave K8MN |
From: K=D8=88B on Sep 15, 12:20 pm
"Michael Coslo" wrote Design the system that will always be up, will allow anyone to communica= te to anyone anywhere with no knowledge of anything by the users, aside from t= urning the radio on, adjusting the audio, and mashin' that button. You have it precisely correct. I knew you'd catch on! Takes Michael a LONG time to catch on. I doubt if he'd make a good First Responder. :-) You suggesting reactors for power supplies? Where did I suggest that? You didn't, Hans, but Michael may be hyped on "cold fusion." What he seems to be fusing is dissent. ANY startable emergency electric power generator is good if there is STORABLE fuel at the ready. It was so in the 1950s and the good old PE-95 truck-transportable diesel motor run generator. [used to fire one up on the bimonthly readiness check at FEC Hq in Tokyo, in the blockhouse at Pershing Heights, now the Hq of the Japanese Self Defense Force] In the FIRST east coast electrical blackout, one NYC hospital didn't do good planning. They had a good electric power generator, but the compressed-air STARTER (big diesel engines for that usually used compressed air) was operated from 230 VAC! Luckily they were able to borrow a roll-around gasoline-powered compressor to start their electric generator. :-) Back then in the 60s the FAA had air regs that all airport runway lighting had to have emergency electric generation. The FAA had forgotten to include regs for all the ATC radios! Pilots in the air managed to "direct" their own traffic and nobody in the air was hurt. FAA added/amended regs to include generators shortly after. A couple decades later, another generation of beaurocrats later, they didn't plan well enough on the Los Angeles Center ATC "upgrade" in Palmdale. Result was an outage of several hours due to a not-fully-tested auto-start-generator computer tie-in system. Some folks just don't want to listen to what had already been experienced, thought they had all the answers, didn't TEST all the "innovations." The hyper complicated system that you describe only adds to the infrastr= ucture needed to support the system. Actually, the EDACS at New Orleans was pretty compact, simple, and straightforward compared to most major metropolitan areas. Certainly wasn= 't "hyper complicated". The Greater Los Angeles area could be described as having a "hyper- complicated" public safety radio area. Thing is, every one of the 84 cities and suburbs got together, including the County and State, making a workable system with fall-back provisions and contingency accommodations. It got the acid test nearly a dozen years ago and PASSED. The lessons learned were incorporated later to improve it. New Orleans, mostly built on ground BELOW sea level (I didn't know that before Katrina hit), should have had enough small boats for all those First Responders. Did they? Didn't seem like many on the TV news. Most radios don't float well. Neither do the folks (First Responders) who "just mash their PTT buttons" NOR the hams. Your ideas are good Of course they are. I made my living for many years in telecommunications planning/configuration. Your ideas are good to me even if you didn't have the background. Logical thinking and consideration of ALL factors are necessary. Contingency thinking, being able to do work-arounds for the unexpected, is an absolute necessity of managers. Case in point occurred locally at the Burbank Airport (now Bob Hope Airport) nearly four decades ago. The FAA control tower in the old terminal building was above the main restaurant at the airport. On a Saturday there was a big grease fire in the restaurant kitchen requiring evacuation of all, including tower personnel. FAA had no plans for any backup. Neighboring airport towers advised all of the situation, a few air carriers diverted to land elsewhere. Meanwhile, Pacific Airomotive, a big aviation service company at BUR, grabbed some of their radio gear and set up a makeshift tower communications place on one of their large trucks now emplaced near the runway intersection. FAA was happy and rules changes by telephone made it "legal." That was completed within three hours of the evac order. That temporary "tower" functioned for over a week afterwards until the regular tower was deemed habitable and a few toasted wires replaced. I heard most of it over a civil aviation band receiver, including a radio news helicopter hovering near the temporary "tower" getting the news data for live feed on BC. The FAA didn't throw up their hands and vamoose. Pac Aero was neighborly and responsive, had enough radio gear to make it happen with the aid of two other local aero service companies. The only ones hurt were the owners of the restaurant suffering bank account attacks; it never opened again. Flights resumed though there was more airfreight then (Flying Tigers). Those involved "knew their territory" and managed work-arounds. A decade later a new FAA tower was built very near the site of the temporary one. Folks in management positions acted positively, innovatively, and MADE IT HAPPEN. |
From: on Thurs 15 Sep 2005 03:43
Jim Hampton wrote: wrote in message What I think that blurb is really all about is the desire fo some to turn off their NTSC TV transmitters. And I can't say I blame them. Okay, so you DON'T understand the coding system of DTV that evolved through MPEG and the Grand Alliance. Use all those "IQ smarts" and that double degree to understand it. The Grand Alliance test program was long and thorough (8 years?) and has plenty of literature to eddicate you. Most TV stations here in Philly are simulcasting DTV and NTSC. That's expensive, both in tower rental, power and labor costs, and because the NTSC stuff is all going to be worthless when they finally shut it down. No, it won't be "worthless" sweetums. You've never worked in any TV station and don't know what's involved. The NTSC video transmitter is basically a linear AM type and can transmit ANY digital signal fed to it. Yes, it will require a few add- ons to meet whatever DTV specs there are, but it can be made compatible. The basic ham HF transmitter is really a SSB (AM) linear yet it can do on-off keying with just a few circuit changes built-in. Same, same. The NTSC aural transmitter is straight Class C for FM. It can be altered and retuned to FM BC or any other FM transmit frequency in VHF or UHF. ALL of the RGB camera/film/slide/tape "studio" equipment is the SAME for either system. That's what is being used NOW for all those simulcasts. Video and audio control consoles are the Same. Same = Same in math terms. The major thing added between NTSC and DTV is the ENCODER for DTV and the necessary "air monitors" to monitor the transmitters. All those Tektronix (and others') "vector scopes" will be obsolete. So are things like the Local Subcarrier Generator and Synchronizer for NTSC. Not major cost items. Philadelphia is NOT the center of United States television production...just one of many major market areas in the USA. The migration to DTV has taken a long time and it's going nowhere fast. On the contrary. New DTV transmitters for locales requiring channel reassignments have been sold and installed for some time. They ARE working out fine. The stores keep selling NTSC TVs, VCRs, etc., so the 'installed base' isn't shrinking. Those same stores (Circuit City, Best Buy, et al) are doing just fine selling LCD/Plasma/Projection DISPLAY units that are COMPATIBLE. You need to read the advertisements more often. Check out the DVDs which are rapidly REPLACING mag tape. DTV sets still cost a pretty penny, and if someone doesn't watch that much TV it's not a high priority to replace an NTSC set. I just don't see any marketing person coming to you for "customer insight" on what to sell! :-) How many more years and dollars before they can shut off the old NTSC transmitter? That's the big issue. How many years before YOU decide to go solid-state in a ham transmitter you "designed and built for yourself?" :-) One solution is to distribute set-top boxes that convert DTV signals to NTSC, so that you can watch the DTV transmissions on your NTSC set, tape them on VHS, etc. But who is going to pay for it? Real customers is who. [not you, of course...] Get a clue. DVD has replaced magnetic tape for recordable TV. Check any TV rental store. Read those ads you ignore. DVD RECORDERS are available. My wife's computer has a DVD recorder built-in as well as DVD playback through the computer. With a thin flat-screen display the linearity is superb and so is the "gamma" (linearity of contrast/brightness). DTV Coupled with DVD recording and thin flat-screen displays is a whole order of magnitude BETTER than Betamax ever was. VHS mag tape recording got excellent a decade ago and the prices have been dropping while the general economy has grown more expensive. VHS is doomed, has been doomed by DVD, just as much as CDs doomed the vinyl disc recording. CDs and DVDs are BETTER than the old media. Cable TV is now the leading TV input to households nationwide. Cable TV is cutting over to digital transmission from the head end to neighborhoods, the neighborhoods having ALREADY added a second cable line in many service areas. Nearly all Cable services offer rentable set-top-boxes to decode digital into analog TV visual-aural or NTSC RF. My wife and I have one of those with its own remote and extra services such as "view-on-demand" (a bit like TiVo, but only in general). We get MORE free channels plus more premium channels plus some two dozen free audio-only "channels" just for listening. Superior picture, no RFI as was once seen on analog service. Yes, it costs more. Yes, there is more pleasure with it. Wife and I bought a little palm-sized still/motion-picture camera (with image stabilization) that records in a 512M or 1Gig memory chip. Costs less than $200. The Panasonic still camera that records on a SuperDisk (size of a 3 1/2" floppy, holds over 450 images in hi-res) cost $600 in 2000. Still works fine. Technology just keeps getting better. Maybe you want to make that some paranoic charge to defeat Eastman Kodak? Sorry, Eastman is doing digital cameras too. By wrapping the issue in disaster-communications bunting, the whole thing can be made to look as if it's in the national interest to shut down NTSC broadcasting ASAP. The red herring is that the freed-up spectrum will somehow enhance disaster comms. Tsk, tsk. You should take your anti-paranoia pills REGULARLY. The DTV channel reassignment FREED UP SPECTRUM for MANY radio services. If you had followed the Mass Media Bureau and OET at the FCC you would have seen that...and the several auctions for users ALREADY past. Lots of information there, just look around to see what is what...or indulge in meaningless paranoia. Your choice. Both ways are free. A Revision of the HUGE Part 2, Title 47 C.F.R. frequency allocation table appeared last week in the Federal Register. You might want to check it out and compare it with old tables from 1995 to see the differences on what happened to all those big UHF TV bands. The DTV channel reassignment problem was complex yet the FCC (through OET?) did a masterful job of figuring it all out. You can even download the computer program that figured it all out from the FCC website. You DO know how to program a computer, don't you? You get down to the museum yet? They have a working pre-NTSC B&W/color TV set complete with color wheel... That was the old "CBS System." Saw one in Chicago around 1948 at an NAB demo. Pretty at the time. But DOOMED from the beginning on display size plus flicker to some viewers. Anything larger than 15" diagonal needed a projection system...the color wheel couldn't be made stable or reliable at 32" diameter or larger and certainly not quiet enough. Have you examined the Texas Instruments "micro mirror" chip that is used for digital light projection. Thousands of little deformable mirrors, one per pixel, that replacing the projection CRT. Technology advances, gets on the market and customers buy it. Nifty system, ey? But you aren't in the loop. Too bad. Just play with your morse code radios and be happy. |
Len:
I have given "free power" quite a bit of thought. Even if a method existed, all govt's, indeed, all peoples would almost be fools to allow it to be unleashed. (and my "conspiracy theory mentality" notices a few strange deaths of individuals evolving themselves with such efforts--but probably just a coincidence grin) Think about a muslim terrorist (or a group of them!) with an unlimited energy supply, perhaps we would be wise in what we wish for--I can easily imagine a scenario which makes the new orleans disaster look mild... John .... MAJOR SNIP! ... |
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