HollyKing's Journal

At the Seattle ACS meeting last night we talked a bit about the potential for flooding in the Green River valley. I have several friends who live in the area that would be affected by this. Please, take some time and prepare yourselves. You are all too important to me.

I am here if you need any help or information about how to prepare.

This weekend I attended the 2008 Communications Academy that was held at the South Seattle Community College. It was two days of talks on a variety of topics related to emergency communications (emcomm). I was originally going to write up a much longer post about my time but instead I’ll hit the highlights and if anyone wants to know more I’ll add some details.

There wasn’t much new information for me on Saturday. The sessions I attended only covered areas of the topics I already knew. I was hoping that with 90 minutes there would be some deeper discussion, but such was not the case. I did enjoy the lunchtime talk by Dr. Charles Simonyi about his time on the International Space Station as a space tourist.

The last session on Saturday covered Radio Mobile, a free software package for predicting radio propagation. Radio Mobile can download digital elevation model (DEM) data from a variety of sources. This allows the software to add in the effects of terrain to produce very accurate predictions. I’ve been having some problems contacting a few repeaters in the area and I with Radio Mobile I can experiment with different antenna configurations without actually installing them.

Sunday held a lot more interest for me starting with the keynote talk about coming attractions in emergency communications. For instance there are approximately 9,000 amateur radio operators who regularly report emcomm activities. Of those about 1,900 are in the Western Washington Section which is 17% of the total across 71 sections. Go us!

In the break after the keynote I was approached by a member of Bellevue EARS and asked if I would be willing to begin a weekly radio net* for the group. I was a bit surprised but as we talked it was clear that they thought something of my abilities and so I said I would consider it. I’m not an official member yet as the city is still processing my background check, so I wasn’t comfortable bringing up the idea to the Emergency Coordinator (EC) directly. I suggested that they should bring up the idea to the EC and that I was willing to serve.

After lunch I had a chance to talk with N7SIC, the EARS EC, and he was supportive of the idea. He has wanted to have a weekly net for the group but has been overloaded with his EC responsibilities. My next step is to verify that I can reach the repeater with my radio setup and if not to find a place to setup a portable station. There is the possibility of running the net out of the Bellevue Emergency Operations Center if I can pass the double deep inspection to get an access badge.

We also talked about me running a training on NTS traffic handling and the proper way to pass messages back and forth. If this happens I hope some of you will help by coming up with some messages to send to friends or family. I’ll post more about this when the time comes and ask for messages.

Another interesting section was about customizing Joomla! for ARES groups. This talk included a demo of what the Seattle ACS group had created and the lessons they had learned from attempting to customize Joomla! instead of creating a plug-in. The best bit was the news that the group is creating a plug-in of their customizations and will make it available so none of us have to reinvent the wheel.

The last session of the conference was about the new wireless alert system that is a result of the Warning, Alert and Reponse Network (WARN) Act the president signed into law as part of H.R. 4954 the SAFE Port Act. A part I like about the WARN Act is that it included specific timelines for implementation and while the individual mobile service providers do not have to implement the system they are required to notify consumers at the time of sale of that fact. Here are a few notes from the talk:

• The current recommendations specify a 90 character English text message. This is the minimum amount of text that can be sent and reach all current mobile devices.
• Alerts are a one-way notification only and not an information service. There is no guarantee of reception.
• If you look at the US as a whole Spanish is spoken in only 1% of households. If you break this down by counties there are 37 languages and 16 character sets spoken in 1% or more of households.
• There are various levels of alert messages. Consumers can opt-out of all levels except Presidential alerts.
• At the beginning alerts are specific to a county. They will be sent several times an hour so that people travelling into an effected area will receive the alert. The mobile device is responsible for supressing duplicate alerts.
• The audible alert and vibration pattern used for WARN Act alerts can not be set by the consumer or used for any other mobile device function. The consumer can choose audible or vibration notification.
• Alerts can not interrupt a voice call in progress although the consumer may be notified by a beep or screen update.
• There is no fee to subscribers for the alert service, unlike 911 services.

I for one think that these can be useful alerts. The problem is folks who will take down the mobile network as they all try to call 911 or family when they receive an alert. Of course this isn’t a new problem. Just try to make a mobile call at the scene of an accident now.

* A net is a scheduled time for people to meet on a given frequency. Some nets are informal and hams just have a friendly chat. I will be running a directed net which is has formal procedure and policies. This will be a chance to practice the skills that are used during an actual emergency, so that during an actual event everyone will know what to do.

P.S. That ended up pretty long even after I skipped some topics. Oh well... Hi Mom! I think she's the only one who would have kept reading this far.

I have had the same Columbia Sportswear coat for a long time. I don't remember what model it is but I picked it up at a fair in Kansas City years before I moved to the Northwest. The only problem with the coat is I need more pocket space and I lost the hood years ago so my head gets wet when it rains. So I've been checking out new coats from Columbia and other places. A fellow ham recommended the Tactical 4.0 System from SCOTTEVEST. It had all the features I wanted and a total of 52 pockets. 52! I hope it fits and is what I wanted. This is the first time I've ordered from SeV so I have a bit of concern. I'll know on Wednesday because it should be delivered then.

When I joined the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) again they offered a discount on their books. So I took advantage of the offer and ordered quite a few of them. According to the tracking information they should be delivered soon. Mmmm... Books... I don't know where they will all fit though.

Finally I sent off an email to the Redmond ARES Emergency Coordinator (EC) apologizing for dropping the ball on some tasks I had taken. I don't know how he'll react but at least I feel somewhat better for having done something.

Last year I was involved with the Redmond ARES group. I went to meetings, joined the weekly radio nets and participated in a couple of training exercises. Then pretty suddenly I stopped. I stopped because I volunteered for more than I could handle at the time and instead of admit it I just quit participating. As time passed the feeling of failure grew and it became harder to motivate myself to participate. Even writing this post is an exercise of will because it’s easier to hit the delete key and ignore the whole mess. Easy, but I think it’s the wrong answer.

First, I should stand up and face the music. So I screwed up. It’s not the end of the world. I’ll make mistakes in the future. The key is admitting to them and taking corrective action. Learning from them as it were.

Second, I really enjoyed playing around with the radios. I liked being ready to help out in a disaster. Providing support for bike rides, parades and other public events was also a lot of fun. There are a few challenges to operating radios when you live in an apartment but part of the fun is figuring out a way around those challenges. How do I get three days worth of supplies and equipment into a small portable pack?

Tonight is the monthly Redmond ARES meeting, but I have already promised to help cheesentoast move. That means I have until Sunday evening to rig up one of my radios to join the weekly net.

Last night was my first taiji lesson with artspawnchen. I stretched muscles that I didn't know existed. I should get hollyqueen to take pictures of me in each of the positions so that I can compare my current range of movement with what I'll be able to do in the future. I've taken taiji classes before and I've looked long and hard to find a teacher who taught the practical application along with the forms. tylik is a one of those teachers and I am looking forward to learning a lot from her.

I spent my lunch today filling out paperwork for joining the Redmond ARES group and finding other ARES/RACES groups in the area. I found ARES/RACES of King County and Washington State ARES/RACES.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about my hobbies and what I want to accomplish with my life. This has allowed me to find the few hobbies and a purpose for my life. My purpose is to help other people and the practical application of that is volunteering my time and skills for public service and emergency communications. The conflict is that the taiji classes are on Monday nights and the ARES montly meetings are on Monday nights.

I am already missing one class a month for a meeting but that would be two each month if keep to my purpose. Missing every other class is unfair to the teacher, other students, and myself. I think I'll need to check out some of the other teachers that tylik recommended. Someone has to teach a class on other nights.

Last week the FCC held hearings about Hurricane Katrina's impact on communications networks. ARRL Alabama Section Manager Greg Sarratt, W4OZK, spoke about the response from Amateur Radio Operators. You can read the entire article on the ARRL website, but here is a quote for you.

Amateur Radio operators themselves were part of the solution, providing experienced communications operators to replace and supplement local public service communications personnel in the devastated area. These systems of equipment and operators were very effective, not only for amateur purposes but in support of emergency management, Red Cross, Southern Baptist, Salvation Army and many other organizations.

Almost every day I receive email about how another community has passed laws or regulations that limit a ham from installing an antenna to pursue their hobby. This is a bad idea because when a disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, strikes those antennas might be the only thing that allows a community to communicate with the outside world. If you hear of any antenna restrictions in your area I urge you to write your representatives and reject these limitations. Next time it might be you who's sitting in the dark and thankful that a neighbor can send word for help when the phones and internet are down.

Not that I ever listened to that rule. In fact I was on my radio talking with K7EAJ to make sure that I had everything working when he asked me if I wanted to help out with an event. So I agreed and tonight I went to the WCCCA center to attend the training/planning meeting. Next Sunday I'll be on Bald Mountain manning one of the rest stops for the LIVESTRONG Ride.

I've volunteered to help out on other bike rides before but this one is huge. They stopped the registrations at 3,500 riders. I'll be stationed at the first rest stop on the 100 mile loop and the event organizers expect 1,800 riders to take this loop. It's going to be quite busy Sunday morning. ;)

I'm excited that hollyqueen is be volunteering to help out for the same event. We won't be in the same location but I like the fact that we're both doing our part to help. Let's just hope that she doesn't need to be at her station at 5:30am. I don't look forward to a cranky mouse at 5am on a Sunday morning. The riders don't leave the starting point until 7:30am so I shouldn't need to be at my location any earlier than that.

Because of the huge number of riders and the additional tasks I have to do during the event I don't know how many pictures I'll be able to get but I'm going to take the camera and try to get at least a few.

I just received another call from WA7HI. The evacuees are arriving and they need help staffing the booth today. So I'm off to help out with a shift from 2pm to 6pm.

I just received the phone call from WA7HI activating me for ARES service. Portland is receiving refugees from Katrina tomorrow at 3pm and I'll be there from 2pm until 6pm tomorrow to help with communications. I'm glad that I'm finally going to use some of my training to help people. Now I must go gather everything and get it assembled for tomorrow.

73 de KD7LAH

Here I am with another tip. The disaster preparedness guidelines say that you should have one gallon of water per person per day. This should provide enough for drinking, cooking and the minimal amount of hygiene during an emergency. Using bottled water instead of gallon jugs is useful because you can pack them in corners and around other gear to keep your 72-hour kit smaller. Also, it's possible to swap out the bottles to maintain a fresh supply.

You might want to add some water purification equipment as well. The camping purification devices are small and very effective these days. Also a bottle of iodine tablets can make some drinkable, if not very tasty, water. Trust me the stuff doesn't kill you, I once was on an extended backpacking trip where the only water we had available was purified with iodine tablets. I can't tell you how happy I am that you can buy a purifier these days. Ugh... ;)

In other news I received a message from the local ARES group. They're setting up a shelter to receive refugees from New Orleans and they are asking for volunteers to handle health & welfare traffic and man the shelter. I volunteered to help.