Hi Rick, I just had to take a break from the .NET C++ compiler to reply to this one, day job work and other demands have slow my responses the past few days, although I will try to reply some of the other messages flying about if I can make the time................
At 12:40 PM 8/26/2006, you wrote: >Running a laptop under emergency conditions is not that practical other >than for short duration events. If you want to have ALE available you >need to keep the software running or else the ALE selcal would be >missed. For regular communications with AC power, then no problem. I have just have to ask, have not storage cells, solar panels and generators made it to your neck of the woods? What class do you participate in during ARRL FD ? I can run my FT-817/AT200PC 1Ghz laptop MARS-ALE station off my Hawker Energy 37Ah battery all weekend long even if the sun shine is poor. Then for 100 watt station operation I can add more batteries or fire up the Honda gas generator. > The >ALE antenna issue is a major one for either portable or fixed though. How's that? I have a NVIS antenna that above that range starts to look like a random wire with gain that is a 125 foot dipole make of brightly jacketed 14ga. wire (could be lesser gauge) that mounted 6 feet above ground, easy to do just about anywhere, easy to make very visible. From the center of that 125 foot dipole span is 28 feet for 300 ohm twin led that raises to 10 feet above ground at which point is hung a CWS ByteMark 6:1 balum with a heavy earth ground and from there 50 ohm coax to the transceiver, over the soil in my backyard this antenna mounted as described is resonant at 3.2Mhz, the LDG AT200PC tunes it from 2Mhz (and lower) to 27Mhz (and higher) with ease for my MARS channels in use. It is basically a full 160-6m antenna with an HF-6m radio like my FT-817 and FT-847 and the AT200PC ATU. This antenna rolls up nicely and fits in a back backpack, if you are lucky enough to just suspend it from trees etc in your target surrounds then poles are not even needed, just dacron rope, although I have various push up and intersecting poles for use as needed. There are even screw together ground rods these days, although I just lug an 8 footer about. >We agree that it was not a good long term move to only allow the entry >level license access to VHF and up. I favor allowing CW and limited >(very limited) additional HF modes on a few bands. Especially bands that >are nearly unused most of the time. On the other hand, there are hams >such as my wife who have little interest in HF DXing or anything like >that. She has recently expressed a slight interest in HF for mobile use >due to our limited distances covered by repeaters, but only for >practical use. > >Having said that, with all the new rigs that have six meters and often >even higher VHF/UHF bands, it is incredibly easy to get on CW/SSB VHF >and up. Even so, there seems to be less interest today than there was >many years ago when it was much harder to get on these bands with other >than AM or FM rigs. Especially when you consider the number of hams who >can get on these frequencies and modes. The VHF and higher frequency >bands have a wealth of potential experimentation, long distance/weak >signal, EME, meteor scatter, high speed linking, etc. But there just is >not an interest by most hams. For example, I have suggested that I can >be QRV 160 through 6 meters on most all sound card modes. But almost no >takers in my area. 6 meters, I love that band, first rig was a 10/6m Kachina 1 in 1979 followed by and FT-680R, still have both, then the FT-736R in the early 90's, added FT-650, FT-847 and FT-817. Sitting at 67 countries, all states by Hawaii, if only I was retired during the last 25 years and around the station more, it was not until the last cycle that I bumped up the power to 100w on 6m. I my go to higher power for the next cycle, I have an SSB 200 sitting here for 100w driver conversion and a National NCL-2000 for 10w (most 6m rigs were 10w drive) driver conversion, time will tell, I prefer the challenge of lower power, though I do have full legal limit when needed, in chasing DX its always my goal to use lower power but some times the conditions and QRM just don't allow it, I even though about the idea of my big Collins on 6 meters, it would not be too terribly difficult to add support for 50Mhz, the tubes at all three stages (6LC6, 6146 x2, 4CX1000A x2) will work at 50Mhz. >In terms of HF e-mail, there is not really enough spectrum space to >handle much traffic. I don't agree at all, but just don't have the time at the moment to hash it over, I will revisit this with you soon. > Especially with the intrusive wide band modes that >take up an entire voice bandwidth. The good news is that PSKmail is a >good start to do exactly what you want. In fact, it is really the only >decentralized e-mail currently available for the amateur bands. For >casual use, Winlink 2000 can work well although it would be risky to >rely on it for emergency use due to its reliance on the internet to >function. > > PSKmail's PSK63 signals are spectrum efficient when compared to Pactor >2 and especially Pactor 3. And over time it is not unreasonable to >expect that PSKmail will improve. > >I quite disagree with you on the ham Katrina response. Having ALE would >have made no difference at all in our response. The fact is that hams >generally were the ones following the rules and moved out of the >affected area. Obviously, once they did that, they were no longer >available to operate from those affected areas and it was not safe to be >sending in untrained individuals to such wide spread disaster areas. >Only the military and trained personnel should be going into such areas >until things are secure enough for untrained. If a ham was trained in >some specialty for disasters, they would be used for that capacity, not >communications. Either way, ALE would not be involved since nets are set >up in advance on known frequencies of operation. ALE was heavily used in Katrina by the USCG, National Guard etc. and those MARS members and ARES stations that went to the scene. Katrina was a natural disaster in the making for the specific geographic area long before that specific storm that was given that name arrived, the magnitude of that particular storm brought with it a wake up call to all Local, State and Federal Agencies as well as the Military regarding the planning for disaster response and the need for reliable HF 24/7 radio-to-radio communications within a NVIS coverage area and then long haul HF out of the disaster region of interest as all other forms of electronic communications within the disaster area can be seriously impaired for some time to come along with other aspects of the infrastructure, so you had better believe that ALE played a huge part in that particular even and will continue to play a big part in future ECOM at all levels, if you don't yet, you will as the facts do and will speak for themselves. >VHF voice is THE main communications medium for disasters. Within Simplex line of sight and portable repeater range when it hits the fan. I can drive my Bronco up the highest hill around and setup and first up a portable Motorola R-100 repeater system as needed, should say a Tornado devastate good area of the county that I live and all the repeater station antenna are down and power is out etc, the local ARES/RACES group which my club has MOU would be back on the air with a repeater as soon as I have the R-100 power on, for the UHF R-100 the little 6 foot Station Master is such a compact 24w repeater station that it and a short run of cable and some Hawker batteries can become an active repeater station from any high building, water tank or whatever in no time and be very effective, the VHF Station Master is more effort, but a lesser antenna can be used for speed in returning to the airwaves. I can reprogram the R-100's quickly and I keep a few mobile UHF duplexers tuned to a number of local repeater pairs for such a need. I only keep one WACOM VHF duplexer tuned as a spare, but we could likely get to the normal repeater stations duplexer and move it after the disaster as needed, UHF is so much more portable etc., > Most of the >communications are going to be tactical and immediate and if you have >had the ARRL ARECC training, you know that it is inappropriate to ever >use any keyboard entered messaging for such messages as there is too >much risk in terms of immediacy. You will occasionally find long >messaging needed for support purposes, health and welfare, etc. so it >has a place, but it is very low in terms of priorities. This is an open debate topic if there ever was one! Its pretty much now SOP from my perspective of all that I am involved with that as soon as you have traffic that approaches 1/2 sheet of 9 1/2 by 11 paper you are looking for errors to introduced into the message content and delay in processing if it is not send via digital communications means. As to ARRL ARECC I have been able to allocate time to achieve level II certification. >My wife and I have actually been up all night providing communications >support for one of the Wisconsin Adventure Races. This event is an >intense activity including lengthy hiking through extremely difficult >terrain, accessing numerous targets (and proving you were there), >switching to canoe or kayak and negotiating over a very tricky river, >switching to bicycle and riding about 5 hours round trip to another >distant site to climb and then rappel down a 170 foot cliff and return >to the starting point. > >We primarily used VHF voice with some use of Winlink 2000 via VHF Telpac >and some simplex, but mostly repeater access. We could have done it >different ways. While HF would be nice, there was only a couple of >operators who even have the license to operate HF, much less have any >interest in HF operations of this type. I wish there was more interest, >but it just is not there with most hams. Having the proper mix of resources to include the license class of the Amateur involved are issues WRT ARS ECOM, you can take advantage of HF if you only have a No Code Tech license. /s/ Steve, N2CKH >73, > >Rick, KV9U > > >expeditionradio wrote: > > >Hi Rick, > > > >You bring up some good points. > > > > > > > >>Rick, KV9U wrote: > >>- The technology you recommend requires considerable extra > >>equipment (computers/interfaces/frequency agile antennas > >>and band hopping) which is fairly complicated > >> > >> > > > >Actually, it requires nothing more than the usual ham radio rig and a > >laptop. As for the ALE to initialize the contact, you can now buy an > >HF radio in the US$1000 to US$1500 cost range that has ALE built in. > > > > > > > >>We are now finding that with newer hams, there is less interest > >>than ever in anything beyond VHF and maybe UHF voice. > >> > >> > > > >In USA, that is almost entirely due to an antiquated licensing, > >testing, and band control structure that has unwisely relegated most > >new hams to VHF and UHF. Most of them do not survive the boredom of > >VHF/UHF repeaters, and rapidly fade away from the ham community. > >Hopefully, that will change soon, as it already has in many other > >countries of the world, and more hams will join HF operation. > > > > > > > >>- If you do not use this technology on a frequent basis, it > >>will not be there when the emergency occurs. > >> > >> > > > >I agree completely with you on that point. For that to work, there > >needs to be a good reason for hams to use such systems in normal > >everyday operation. Having fun is a good reason :) HF email and > >messaging that is internet-connected provides one motivation, but it > >should not stop there. It needs to have each station be able to > >function on a stand-alone basis, de-centralized, peer-to-peer, and > >seamlessly internet-independent when it is required to function in > >that manner. It should be "On Demand" and not require complex operator > >start up sequences, scheduled nets, manual operator monitoring, or > >phone calls to friends. It should provide the whole gamut, a variety > >of desirable normal ham activity such as instantaneous real-time > >propagation analysis to real ham stations, status and activity > >reporting, DXing, locating, and casual QSOs. > > > > > > > >>- In a real emergency it won't be necessary to notify anyone on > >>HF. It will be very obvious. > >> > >> > > > >Agreed, disasters are often obvious, but the fact that they are > >obvious doesn't necessarily provide the communications. The Katrina > >disaster was an excellent example of obviousness without responsiveness. > > > > > > > >>Amateur radio fills that interoperability now with standard > >>VHF voice. > >> > >> > > > >In a disaster scenario, I don't believe VHF can be relied upon to > >fulfill anything but strictly local comms. The repeaters go down in > >many kinds of disasters. And the ones that remain are for voice traffic. > > > >Bonnie KQ6XA > > > > > >. > > > > > > > > > > > >Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org > > > >Other areas of interest: > > > >The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ > >DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy > discussion) > > > > > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org > >Other areas of interest: > >The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ >DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) > > >Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol (band plan policy discussion) Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/digitalradio/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
