I'm glad someone said something nice about Radio Hams on this thread
(which started as being about Christchurch!) or i'd have risked polluting
Christchurch's good rep with all this noise about whackers!
FWIW AREC (NZ's ARES equivalent) are active in Christchurch, mainly on
VHF, though there's been a little activity on HF as well as I gather. I'm
too far away (or too poorly equipped) to verify those reports.
For the most part though the major Telcos are succeeding on providing
sufficient resources to limp things along. Hundreds of Generators are
operating to provide cover for critical comms infrastructure (when not
being stolen!).
Back in September I blogged about the NZ Fire Service's new HAZMAT-Command
vehicles and how they had proven their worth. During that quake they had
~1-2 operational.
http://www.blakjak.net/node/1380
(photos etc)
This is outside the main Christchurch Fire Station where one is currently
operating as Command Unit, taken Yesterday:
http://www.aucklandfirepolice.org.nz/images/christchurch/5.jpg
NZ recently fielded 17 of those trucks, I gather there's ~5 of them
deployed in Christchurch now, plus at least a couple of the
previous-generation command units they replaced. They're equipped with
Cellular, Satcom and Radio.
From what i've seen connectivity is still available for the majority of
Christchurch based ISP's and major networks - assuming their building's
are still servicable. NZNOG is currently collating offers of assistance
from the local NOG community, and there's some wider stuff going on:
http://www.nznog.org/?page_id=31
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/7561
http://business.eq.org.nz/
As usual, if you filter through the crims, scammers and others who would
take advantage of such a situation, there's plenty of good people doing
their bit to assist.
I for one was very grateful to see so much international assistance
popping up promptly too.
Mark
ZL1VMF
Auckland, NZ
On Thu, 24 Feb 2011, Owen DeLong wrote:
FWIW, in my experience, when ARES and RACES both arrive on a scene
together, they rarely get into small arms fire over any thing, rather,
preferring
to work together to help each other set up both repeaters and to coordinate
which parts of the workload will be handled by which operation in order to
maximize the efficiency with which the job gets done.
Perhaps this is unique to California (yeah, I know we're known as the
land of Granola out there), or, perhaps as I perceive, hams world wide
tend to be community-minded decent folks trying to help.
Owen
KB6MER
On Feb 24, 2011, at 2:23 PM, Mike Lyon wrote:
The old pin--through-the-center-of-the coax trick while you go on setting up
your repeater? :)
73's,
Mike
KE6MRE
*snip*