Post by thread:[OT] RACES/Ham Radio (was: Re: [OT] New Orleans)

David Van Horn wrote: >>These efforts are stymied by lack of adequate communications. You >>can't send your group out there until you have a way of contacting >>them at any time, and vice versa. The ARRL is trying to send in the >>hams, but that's yet another organization that has to get >>authorization. >> >> >>Isnt that what RACES is setup to do....??? >> >> > >Around here, races has nets for an hour or two where only two people >check in. They sit silent mostly, once they are done "checking in" all >their buddies. They do manage to yell at you if you thought the >repeater was unused, and you started to make a Qso. > > RACES is all but dead. It is not possible to get a new RACES license in the U.S. and hasn't been possible for some time. If one is accidentally allowed to expire, it's gone forever. ARES is the newer, generally better, replacement.. if that's the right word. I'm sure the RACES guys don't want to be "replaced". Sigh... Dave's comments really lead to a different problem... the average age of Amateur Radio operators is slowly going up. It leads to some interesting behaviours seen no where else... when you get large groups of elderly men together (Amateur Radio has always struggled in having females active also), they can be a bit... grumpy? I recently was appointed President of a local large ham radio club. Keeping all the various personalities happy can be interesting... of course my general response to personality complaints is that people need to be responsible for their own happiness... I'm not going to play "repeater cop" beyond keeping the repeaters legal and topics reasonable for an organization with a lot of families and kids that could be listening. There's a group of younger, very active hams bouncing around town on various repeater frequencies here (they even feel they've been "kicked off" some repeater systems) in Denver, who really aren't harming anything, but their topics of conversation and the rapid-fire way they use their radios really annoys the hell out of the older hams. I've been working with them a bit on-the-air to say, "Hey you're welcome on our club's systems, but please remember there are KIDS listening... topics that allude to sexual topics can be very offensive to some of our members, especially those with families who might turn on a radio late and night and hear your conversations. Keep it a family repeater." But it's interesting to see the differences in what's "acceptable" between the groups (while trying to remain non-judgemental). These guys have websites, use IM while they're talking on the radio, and generally have better "modern" technical skills than their older counterparts... but... they say and believe very silly things about how RF and radios work! Right now I try to bridge the gap (I'm a 30-something) between the groups... convince the younger guys to settle down a bit... convince the elder hams to get on that repeater and elmer the new guys a bit... it's kinda fun. And of course the best way to have good neighbors on the air (when it comes to repeaters) is to have plenty of them up to spread everyone out... something about fences and neighbors...? (GRIN) So we're at a crossroads: http://www.w0cra.org/info/squawmtnupdate.html My choice? More systems, more coverage, everything with real emergency power backup, and lots of linking capability to hook the systems together in case of REAL emergency communications need. Nate WY0X

> I recently was appointed President of a local large ham radio club. > Keeping all the various personalities happy can be interesting... of > course my general response to personality complaints is that people need > to be responsible for their own happiness... I'm not going to play > "repeater cop" beyond keeping the repeaters legal and topics reasonable > for an organization with a lot of families and kids that could be > listening. I've even hit walls here with keeping the systems legal! There's that little requirement that you have a control operator.. Well, the response I get here, is that "we ain't needed that before"... and "nobody else does it", which is of course bogus. > There's a group of younger, very active hams bouncing around town on > various repeater frequencies here (they even feel they've been "kicked > off" some repeater systems) in Denver, who really aren't harming > anything, but their topics of conversation and the rapid-fire way they > use their radios really annoys the hell out of the older hams. I hear ya, and I'm supposed to be one of those old fogeys! (almost 50, grandfather..) We do classes, and are pulling in some pretty good new players. Still, one thing I'm glad of, is that there's plenty of activity here, the repeater is almost always active, or at least there's someone there to talk to. I've been to other places, where the local repeaters never have any activity, and you can call and call and never pick up anyone. I've just bought a "flying Dutchman" repeater, rebuilding it now. I'm hoping to move it, all three VHF machines in the county are located within a mile of each other, and that bothers me a lot. A single severe weather event could take out all three.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Nate Duehr" <spam_OUTnateTakeThisOuTnatetech.com> Subject: [OT] RACES/Ham Radio (was: Re: [OT] New Orleans) > RACES is all but dead. It is not possible to get a new RACES license in > the U.S. and hasn't been possible for some time. If one is accidentally > allowed to expire, it's gone forever. The ARRL is working to kill RACES, but depending on where you are, it's not going quietly. The lack of a RACES license isn't much of a problem. State RACES officials can authorize operation on RACES frequencies when needed. > ARES is the newer, generally better, replacement.. if that's the right > word. I'm sure the RACES guys don't want to be "replaced". Sigh... Some would view ARES as a "better" replacement, but that is not generally true of the served agencies, especially state and local government agencies. RACES is more tightly controlled by the state government, which is why governments like it, and the League does not. > Dave's comments really lead to a different problem... the average age of > Amateur Radio operators is slowly going up. This is a problem. And it especially a problem if you consider emergency response under physically demanding conditions such as NO. > Right now I try to bridge the gap (I'm a 30-something) between the > groups... convince the younger guys to settle down a bit... convince the > elder hams to get on that repeater and elmer the new guys a bit... it's > kinda fun. Our local club could use some of you. We have a few kids ... under-20 types, then a lone 40 year old, then after that it's all 50 plus. > My choice? More systems, more coverage, everything with real emergency > power backup, and lots of linking capability to hook the systems > together in case of REAL emergency communications need. Just the other day I had to pass some welfare traffic into Louisiana. I managed to get into 5RN but the La rep had already left. Our 8RN nets are real tough this time of year. I could have waited until the section nets in the evening, but then it would have been another day at least to get to 8RN, and probably another day or two to get into Louisiana. I finally managed to get the traffic out over Echolink. As communicators, we need to be open to ALL technologies. These young kids bring us those skills. I would much rather it had gone out on a CW net (my personal favorite), but in my mind, getting the traffic through was much more important than whether somebody or another thought it was "real ham radio". 72/73 de WB8RCR http://www.qsl.net/wb8rcr didileydadidah QRP-L #1446 Code Warriors #35

Interesting to think that RACES is dead or trying to be killed...being replaced by ARES. RACES, at least I thought, was controlled under FEMA, and to be used when it was a wide spread disaster like the recent events. ARES, under (ok...in my case) more county controlled used for more local issues. Our sheriffs office works directly with our ARES group, being that several of the deputies are hams, including the one over the emergency services group. From the state level, the EOC has a large ham presence, and I do recall seeing the HF radios used by FEMA and RACES. Seems like its all a political issue...who has control over what. Perhaps the one good thing that has come out of this is the awarness of the lack of commincations, and the need for back ups. I have already been approached by one other medic group asking about backups to thier standard modes of commuincations. "John J. McDonough" <.....mcdKILLspam@spam@is-sixsigma.com> wrote: {Original Message removed}

When we started up the emergency comms group here in Delaware County IN, we looked at ARES, RACES, and Skywarn, and finally went with Skywarn. One of the major deciding factors was that Skywarn is completely non-exclusive. RACES, on the other end of the spectrum, only talks to RACES stations, and if you aren't "in the club" well before the event, you can't participate. Our major threat here is severe weather, which also makes Skywarn pretty attractive, since that's pretty much what they do. We have some pretty good community volunteers in a program called "CERT", and things are proceeding nicely. The RACES guys are still there, at least a few of them, but they aren't connected to anyone.. FWIW, I've just discovered a whole new (to me anyway) supplier of repeater gear. Daniels electronics, from Canada, makes a line of repeater systems. What I have here, is their obsolete MT-2 equipment, designed for really severe environments. They show one system, same type as what we have, deployed at the south pole. The only mods were to add mechanical packaging, solar panels, and batteries. I've done a writeup on interfacing to their systems for the repeater builder group. This is what I will be putting in service shortly, replacing some old maggiore gear and other associated "junque" that was in the system when I bought it. The controller is an RC-210 (AVR Mega-128) which I've been working with for a couple years now. I'm always looking for programming ideas to help support the emergency workers. POCSAG paging is going into the system soon, as well as IRLP.