ARES Letter for September 28, 2007
The ARES E-Letter September 26, 2007 ================= Rick Palm, K1CE, Editor <http://www.qrz.com/database?callsign=K1CE>, =================================== ARES reports, other related contributions, editorial questions or comments: <k1ce@arrl.net>;;; =================================== + The View from Flagler County This issue is late, owing to my travels in South America. There seems to be more HF beams per capita in Ecuador than anywhere else! Hope you have had a chance to read the article, "A Tour of a Modern EOC," in October QST: It features the new Flagler County EOC, which figures prominently in many of this newsletter's reports from here. The "It Seems To Us . . ." editorial on Interoperability and the recent GAREC-07 is a must-read as well. ____________________ IN THIS ISSUE: + The View from Flagler County + ARES Blotter + IARU Region 2 Meeting Adopts EmComm Working Group Recommendations + GAREC-07 is History and a Success + LETTERS: ARES QSO Party + LETTERS: Human Relations + LETTERS: On Message Forms + SOFTWARE: WXSpots 1.0 + NEW PRODUCTS: Quick Boom to Mast Connection Plate + K1CE For a Final ____________________ + ARES Blotter Northwest Ohio, August 24 -- Heavy rains resulted in near record flood levels. ARES District 1 was especially hard-hit in the Hancock and Seneca County areas, and a command post at the Seneca County EOC was activated. ARES supported numerous agencies, including the Hancock County Emergency Management Agency, area fire departments, American Red Cross, the Sheriff and health district departments. Two shelters were set up, with the largest taking around 250 displaced persons. - from ARRL Letter reports by Karl Erbland, K8ARL, DEC District 1, Ohio; Bob Copas, K8OIL, Hancock County Liaison/Net Control Operator; Bill Davis, N8PTJ, Hancock County EC Mid-Michigan, August 24 - Two tornados damaged towns, and Genesee County ARES and SKYWARN were activated. Randy Bond, N8VDS, spotted the funnel heading for Fenton and reported it to the NWS. About half of the Fenton Community Center's roof was blown off, and debris from the building blew across the road to Fenton United Methodist Church. Genesee County 911 called out the fire departments and activated their Fire Coordination Plan. ARES spotters provided communications via the SKYWARN net and the Fire Coordination net. As more reports of damage came in, the Fenton City and Township Fire Department became overloaded; their communications tower was crippled. Genesee County EC Greg Ybarra, N8HXQ, coordinated the response during this incident and put out a call for help to District 3 EC Greg Allinger, WA8OGJ, who contacted other ARES units in the state, and Amateur Radio operators from nine Michigan counties responded to the Fenton area to help. Hurricane Humberto, September 13 - The Category 1 hurricane came ashore in Texas, and continued eastward toward Louisiana and Mississippi, where flood warnings were in effect. ARES groups were activated. According to Brazoria County (Texas) EC Terry Bowersmith, W5SRG, the county ARES activated a complex Net at 6 PM Wednesday, involving repeaters in Freeport and Alvin. Louisiana SEC Gary Stratton, K5GLS, said Alan Levine, WA5LQZ, DEC for Southwest Louisiana, reported minimal flood damage in his area, and little wind damage. Orange County (Texas) EC Rocky Wilson, N5MTX, reported his county had a massive power outage; all schools were closed, as were most retail stores and businesses. Grundy County, Illinois, August 24 -- Grundy County ARES leadership was called into the county EOC at 8:00 AM on August 24 for possible activation for flooding emergencies. At 11:00 AM a call for operators went out in the event that shelters would be opened. Fifteen people checked into the repeater. At 2:00 PM a shelter was opened at Shabbona School directly across from the EOC. Two operators passed traffic. This shelter was designated a special needs shelter for residents of a nursing home with 125 patients under the direction of Morris Hospital. Medical personnel were also brought in. At 3:00 PM a Red Cross shelter was set up at the Morris High School for residents of flooded areas. Two operators were dispatched to assist the Red Cross. Thirty-seven residents were temporarily housed at this shelter. Eighteen messages were passed between the EOC and the two shelters, comprised mostly of requests for cots and transportation. By 5:30 pm the County had its communications vehicle set up at the special needs shelter and ARES was released. -- Robert Cockream, AB9EE, EC Grundy County, DEC NE Illinois Mayes County, Oklahoma, September 8 -- Zone 5 ARES took the opportunity presented by the Oklahoma DAM JAM bicycle ride to execute a Mutual Aid Exercise in Mayes County, Oklahoma. Despite severe thunderstorms and flash flooding, the exercise came off well and attracted ARES volunteers from around the state. Two of those volunteers, Myrna Cobb, KE5IAD, the Zone 3 Emergency Coordinator, and Victor Stillman, KE5LQU, were driving back to their homes in the Oklahoma City area from the ARES exercise that had just completed. Myrna is with the Grady County Sheriff's department and Victor is a volunteer fire fighter and EMT-B with the Oak Cliff Fire Department. They had just made contact with friends on the K5EOK EARS repeater in Edmond, when a car about 150 yards ahead hydroplaned, and skidded into an 18-wheeler causing both vehicles to wreck. Contacting Frankie Tassone, KE5KQL, on the repeater, they gave him the details of the incident and the location and had him contact the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Using ham radio to have KE5KQL make the call to the OHP allowed Victor and Myrna to respond immediately when they pulled up on the scene. Victor supplied first aid to the victims while Myrna directed traffic to keep the scene clear for the more than 20 minutes it took the nearest group of first responders to arrive. -- Brian Gnad, KB5TSI, Oklahoma DEC for Creek, Rogers and Tulsa Counties + IARU Region 2 Meeting Adopts EmComm Working Group Recommendations The 16th IARU Region 2 General Assembly met in Brazil in mid-September. Actions taken included the establishment of a Region 2 Relief Fund to assist Region 2 Member-Societies whose club stations and buildings, including antenna systems, are damaged by natural disaster. A new MF-HF Band Plan was adopted to embrace emergency networks, among other things. The new band plan can be found at: <http://www.iaru-regionii.org/> Several recommendations from the Region 2 Working Group on Emergency Communications were adopted. These include establishing an Emergency Communications Committee that will be responsible to the Executive Committee for carrying out planning, training and the maintenance of equipment and personnel inventories for emergency assistance deployment. + GAREC-07 is History and a Success [Editor's note: The 2007 Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Conference (GAREC) held in August in Huntsville, Alabama, was a patent success, and was covered extensively in the ARRL Letter and October QST, including the lead editorial "Interoperability." I'm not going to rehash those reports here, but the following are the salient points, and links to GAREC-07 presentations.] GAREC-07 conferees recommended: 1) The introduction of the call sign suffix " /D " for use by stations of the Amateur Radio Service handling traffic related to emergency and disaster situations, and its publication and promotion by the IARU and its Member Societies and by all specialized emergency communications groups; 2) The extension of the "EmCom Party on-the-Air" emergency communication exercises already introduced in IARU Region 1 to Regions 2 and 3; and 3) That studies be initiated by the IARU in cooperation with its Member Societies and with specialized emergency communication groups, on the development and possible introduction of standard codes for use in international emergency communications and on the need for the development of a list of standard resource types. The conferees also supported "the decision of the IARU Administrative Council to collect information from all Member Societies about the status of implementation and application of the revisions to Article 25 of the ITU Radio Regulations resulting from WRC-03. The part of Article 25 concerning Emergency Communications says, "Amateur stations may be used for transmitting international communications on behalf of third parties only in case of emergencies or disaster relief. An administration may determine the applicability of this provision to amateur stations under its jurisdiction" (RR 25.3), and "Administrations are encouraged to take the necessary steps to allow amateur stations to prepare for and meet communication needs in support of disaster relief" (RR 25.9A). GAREC appealed to all IARU Member Societies, as well as specialized emergency communications groups, encouraging the accession to and ratification of the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Response Operations <http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/emergencytelecoms/doc/tampere/S-CONF-ICET-2001 -PDF-M07.pdf> by their respective national authorities. The US has not yet ratified this document, but word was received during GAREC that Ireland announced their accession to Tampere. There are currently 37 countries that have adopted Tampere. The group also appealed to the IARU to further encourage the development and the application of new modes and technologies in emergency communications, and training aids, including the completion of the IARU handbook on emergency communications initiated by the GAREC conferences in 2005 and 2006, as well as the development of a hand-out to inform the public, in particular during major conferences such as the forthcoming WRC-07, as already decided by the IARU Administrative Council in 2005. Conferees also wanted all organizers of contests to include in their respective rules an instruction to the effect that frequencies in the immediate vicinity of the Center of Activity frequencies as proposed by GAREC-05 and subsequently adopted by the competent conferences of IARU Regions 1, 2 and 3 should not be used for contest contacts; these frequencies are 14.300, 18.160 and 21.360 MHz. Links to GAREC-07 Presentations: Most of the presentations made at GAREC-07 are now available on the Web at <http://gaiss.tssg.org/GAREC07/index.html>. A link to this site has also been put on the main GAREC-07 site at <http://www.arrl-al.org/GAREC07.htm> and will be added to the IARU pages at <http://www.iaru.org/emergency/>, from where a link also gives access to the presentations of GAREC-05 and -06. -- Hans Zimmermann, F5VKP/HB9AQS, IARU International Coordinator for Emergency Communications <hb9aqs@arrl.net>;, <http://www.iaru.org/emergency> + LETTERS: ARES QSO Party I like the idea of an ARES QSO Party: Contesting is good practice for operating for long periods of time getting a simple message through correctly in a high-noise, fast-paced environment. Contesters learn more about the operation of radios and characteristics of propagation on different bands at different times of the day. I agree with others to limit the party to the use of simple antennas and 100 watts. Don't have EmComm titles (EC, DEC, etc.) as multipliers. Operation should be limited to emergency power sources only. -- Dave Edenfield, W8RIT <w8rit@arrl.net>; Any ARES QSO Party should make some unique contribution that is not offered by the usual QSO parties. I suggest that a small committee set the rules in advance, and choose four possible weekends. At the first moment the contest could begin, committee members would randomly choose (with dice, coin flips, or the like) which weekend the party begins, and which 6-hour period of the weekend will be the party period. The date and time of the party would not be disseminated until the first moment of the contest period. Would that be fair to hams who receive the simulated activation through a slow means of communications? No, but what's fair about a disaster? -- Gerry Ashton, WY2Y + LETTERS: Human Relations In re the August 15 issue response from Erik Weaver to David Rust's July issue comment, it is one example of why Amateur Radio is struggling to obtain qualified operators for EmComm. It doesn't help to attack other hams. Instead, we need leadership and professionalism. Rust had strong words about the ARES program in his area. He wanted to see value, that local hams were taking care of problems and being involved in their communities while using local repeater resources. I think Weaver missed an opportunity to be positive and to invite those who care about their communities to join him. Next, to then help educate others about how served agencies can work effectively with Amateur Radio organizations. Lastly, to share his hard-earned knowledge of how to "get it right" with other ARES programs in his area. -- Andrew J. Buskey, N3GVL What about self-activation? I did this during the WTC disaster. In the event as discussed, perhaps the people on duty at that time in the Office of Emergency Management had no idea of the ARES/RACES resource. Who was in charge of the shelters? Red Cross? Was there an MOU with them to supply communicators at each shelter? If not, then your local ARES group needs to work on that level and not wait for the OEM to request help. Requests can come from many levels. Red Cross and Salvation Army are but two examples. Public and agency education is of utmost importance.-- Bob Hejl, W2IK + LETTERS: On Message Forms The issue of using the ARRL radiogram and/or the ICS-213 General Message form for EMCOM is alive and well in western Colorado. In CO ARES District 25 we train to use both forms. There are a lot of unanswered questions regarding the exact procedures for transmitting the ICS-213 and converting it to/from the radiogram format. In MARS there is a specific procedure for re-filing a MARSGRAM to/from an ARRL radiogram. I would like the ARRL to develop and promulgate a similar procedure for dealing with the ICS-213 General Message form. I think that this procedure should come from the top downward. Sections or districts can develop their own procedures. However, those would not be uniform across sections, regions, etc. Here is an opportunity for the ARRL to provide leadership where it is truly needed. -- Steve Schroder, KI0KY, Colorado ARES District 25 EC + SOFTWARE: WXSpots 1.0 WXSpots 1.0 seems to be gaining in popularity fast, with more than 850 beta testers and several SKYWARN groups. As a leadership issue, I'd like to see the League officially adopt this software as a reporting tool, and enter it into their MOU with the National Weather Service. Tools such as these can help fill in gaps where repeater coverage makes it difficult to report storm activity directly to net controls. It also can expand the use of cellular phones and broadband networks to expand our coverage. Many amateurs might scoff at using anything other than radios to send SKYWARN reports. I think that attitude reflects poor thinking. Our value to the NWS is that we are trained storm spotters and effective communicators. Getting the message through to the served agency in a timely manner is the mission. What tool we use to accomplish that isn't important. The software is free, appears to be well written and reliable. It may even be possible to write "bridge" programs that will allow this information to be repeated over amateur digital networks, such as D-Star. But we need to agree on a standard so that the NWS and SKYWARN groups can move quickly to implement this new tool. For more information and a link to download the software, please visit <http://www.wxspots.com/>. -- Thanks, as always, to Les Rayburn, N1LF, of High Noon Film, 100 Centerview Drive Suite 111, Birmingham, AL 35216 + NEW PRODUCTS: Quick Boom to Mast Connection Plate See <http://www.ironworksdesign.net/> site or <http://www.connectquick.net/> for a antenna connector that may be highly useful to ARES operators. The designer has been experimenting with anodizing colors to differentiate the different disaster players. FEMA will be reviewing it for possible addition to their "go kits" as well as Red Cross. Each entity may have their own color (red for Red Cross), so that they can deploy many different antennas at EOCs, Communication Vans and other assets and be able to retrieve their own after the event. In the works is a surface plate addition to the system that will make it easy to mount onto a flat surface like the side of a communication trailer. -- Paul J McMahon, K1PJM, 802-989-3290, <paul@ironworksdesign.net>; + K1CE For a Final The ARRL is publishing a new edition of the venerable ARRL Operating Manual, which will feature a revamped chapter on Emergency Communications. Check it out! See you next month! - 73, Rick K1CE
