It works!

Last night I checked into the two monthly ARES/RACES nets that I make an effort to attend. Both Joseph and Marianne got home late from school/work, respectively.  I ended up checking into the earlier 7:00 PM Middlesex County ARES/RACES net from the dinner table, using the handheld. Bad manners, I know, but you do what you have to.

John N2DV,  our Emergency Coordinator for Middlesex County, who is a reader of this blog and was NCS for the net, caught me on the air afterward and asked me if I had checked in using the new J-Pole. I must have been a little noisy with the handheld, which is spotty, depending on where I am in the house, or how I hold it. We talked for a bit and I explained the situation.

John W2VTV, our Section Emergency Coordinator must have been listening as well, because when I checked into the 8:00 PM NNJ ARES/RACES net, he told me upon check in that the J-Pole was doing a good job. I have no idea as to whether I was dead full quieting or not, but even if I wasn't, it doesn't matter. Just the fact that I was audible enough to be heard well and check in and participate from the inside my house was success enough for me.

For the record, this is a KB9VBR J-Pole.  It's made from copper tubing and will last longer upon this earth than I will, in all probability. It's fed with RG-8X coax. I know, not the best choice for VHF/UHF but it's good enough. Even with cable loss, there's enough Watts to get the job done that I need it to do. As per the instructions, I made a choke balun of (5) four inch (10 cm)  windings of the coax and placed them about one foot (30 cm) from the feed point. A two liter soda bottle is the exact diameter needed and made a good form to wind the coax around. The antenna itself is being supported by four sections of surplus military mast. That puts the base of the antenna roughly at a height of about 24 feet (7 meters). The antenna itself is about a meter long, so the tip is at 8 meters - roughly. Maybe a bit more or a bit less.

Buying an antenna does go against my grain a bit. I like to build my own whenever possible - especially for portable use and Field Day. But this one is made of really good material and I never brazed/soldered copper tubing before. I figured by the time I bought a butane torch so that I could do the job myself, it would probably end up costing more in materials and time than if I just purchased one. So I'll tell myself that I'm supporting the economy and am helping a fellow Ham put food on the table for his family. C'est la vie.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Once more, we prove our worth

Amateur Radio's role in the false nuclear attack alert in Hawaii.

http://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/0002/how-amateur-radio-played-a-role-in-the-hawaii-eas-emergency-response/341139

It always pays to keep training, to be alert; and to be ready for anything - even non-emergency emergencies.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Emergencies

This coming Saturday is the annual Simulated Emergency Test.  Amateur Radio operators who volunteer with Public Service and Emergency Management agencies throughout the United States will be getting on the air, sending an receiving drill messages. This is done in preparation for "If this had been an actual emergency" - re, the verbiage of the National Emergency Broadcasting messages.

Here in Middlesex County, New Jersey, our simulated emergency is another hurricane scenario.

How appropriate. because in the following couple of days,this may become a very real possibility:

Meet Hurricane Matthew.  He's a nasty bugger. Today, he's dropping 40 inches (100 cm) of rain (yes, you read that right) on portions of Haiti and Cuba. This hellion may make landfall somewhere over the Carolinas early Sunday morning, if he doesn't turn out to sea.

If he hugs the coast, New Jersey will be in for a lot of rain, coastal flooding and a wicked storm surge sometime Sunday into Monday.  Not exactly the way you want to start off your week.

Our barrier islands and low laying coastal towns are already making plans for evacuations and other hurricane preparedness activities.  We've been very lucky in New Jersey as we haven't been hit hard since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Let's hope we dodge another bullet with Matthew.  If not, and Amateur Radio ops are needed by our towns or counties - we're ready.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Exciting times in Middlesex County!

Last evening, I attended a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) "Meet & Greet" that was hosted by the Middlesex County Office of Emergency Management.

First, a little background .... Middlesex County is the second largest county, population-wise in New Jersey. Only Bergen County has a larger population. We are one of the most densely populated counties in New Jersey with a density of 2,621.6 people per square mile (as of 2010). There are several major thoroughfares that pass through Middlesex County, including the New Jersey Turnpike (I-95), the Garden State Parkway, I-287, as well as US Route 1, US Route 9 and US Route 130 - just to name a few.  In addition, there are numerous miles of railway (both freight and passenger) that run through the County. All this to give you an idea of how busy it is around here.

Last night's meeting was designed to bring the various municipal CERT Coordinators and their teams together, to meet each other as well as to be informed about goings on at the County and State levels. And what was so good to hear is that both the State of New Jersey and Middlesex County are dedicated to the CERT program - funding it, training it, deploying it, making use if it.

The State and County are not only dedicated to fully utilizing CERT, but are also dedicated towards enlarging and improving the existing CART team (Community Animal Rescue Team), which is like CERT, but for animals. Many times during a natural disaster, such as Hurricane Sandy, residents are forced to leave their homes for temporary shelters. Unfortunately, only service animals are allowed in the shelters.  Middlesex County has a team that will temporarily shelter house pets for the duration of an event like this. The one that was activated during Sandy was in operation for three weeks.

In addition to hearing about what already exists, we were made aware of some plans for the future. One part of the plan is increased training and drills, which will commence in 2016. And on the Amateur Radio side (which of course, is of great interest to me), John Garmendi N2DV, the RACES/ARES Bureau Chief for the County, gave a talk about how Amateur Radio fits into the scheme of things as far as CERT, the County and the State are concerned.

A show of hands indicated that many of our municipal CERT Team members are already licensed Hams. Another show of hands indicated that quite a few of the unlicensed CERT members are very interested in earning their tickets.  I raised my hand and volunteered the fact that Marv K2VHW and I, under the auspices of SPARC, will most likely be holding another licensing class in the Spring. It's our hope, that if we can secure a centrally located facility, that maybe we can fit the bill for these people. A class of about 30 or so CERT members becoming licensed Hams would be truly awesome, indeed.

It is certainly an exciting and interesting time to be a CERT member in South Plainfield and Middlesex County. I am eagerly looking forward to the days ahead, and am dedicated to assisting the effort in any way that I can.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

COMEX-MARS exercise this weekend.

This coming weekend, the South  Plainfield CERT/RACES/ARES team, the Middlesex County RACES/ARES team and the State of New Jersey RACES/ARES team will be testing emergency communications resiliency in the event of a major CME (coronal mass ejection) such as The Carrington Event that ocurred in 1859.  During our weekly ARES net this Friday evening, it will be announced that a major CME has been detected and that communications and the electrical power grid are expected to be severely disrupted within the coming hours. We will be advised to store our communications gear in a safe manner - basically in a Faraday Shield.

Communications will go dark until Sunday morning, after the effects of the CME have passed. We will assume, for the purposes of this drill, that the VHF/UHF repeater system (as well as the cell phone system and the power grid) will have been "severely compromised or damaged".  We will then see how well we can communicate on a town/county/statewide basis relying on VHF/UHF simplex and HF communications on battery or generator power.  Of course it will be assumed that the gear being used had been adequately shielded and protected in advance of the CME event.

It used to be that you just worried about natural disasters from terrestrial weather. Now we're becoming more and more realistic about the havoc that solar weather can play. And we're planning for it and planning for reacting to it. All in all a good thing.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

AUXCOMM

I have taken the day off from work, I have just completed, along with several of my South Plainfield RACES/ARES compadres, a two day AUXCOMM class as taught by the Department of Homeland Security OEC/ICTAP, and offered by the NJ State Races Coordinator John Miller, and the Middlesex County NJ RACES Coordinator John Garmendi N2DV.

All I can say is, "Wow!".  This course was fantastic and re-awakened a lot of the training that I received when I was a Communications Officer with Middlesex County OEM back in the 80s and 90s. And a lot of things have changed since then, of course, and hopefully, I absorbed them like a sponge.

Hank Kobeler N3ORX listening to me explain our team's solution to one of the training exercises. 

(Photo by Drew Moore W2OU)

For those of you who are wondering what AUXCOMM is, that is the official name given by Homeland Security to Amateur Radio operators (RACES/ARES/CERT), REACT members and others, who augment the paid/trained first responders during declared emergencies.

The course, which spanned some 20 hours, was expertly taught by Hank Koebler N3ORX and Jim Millsap WB4NWS.  If I were to go into the experience which make these two fine gentlemen qualified to teach this course, it would probably occupy the next 5-10 blog posts. Suffice it to say that we were very fortunate enough to be taught by two experts with regard to Amateur Radio and EMCOMM.

The class went by quickly, and was never boring. Jim and Hank kept it interesting and, if I may dare say, fun. The pace was quick, but with enough time given to take in all the key and necessary aspects of what was being taught. There were ten units (I hate to call them "lectures") that were broken up by plenty of exercises where we had to identify resources, come up with communications plans, and then submit them for approval. This was followed by one last "Final Exam" or final planning session which brought together everything that we had learned up to that point, In addition, throughout the class, we learned the correct procedures for filling out the necessary ICS paperwork that accompanies all these kind of events.

I must admit that after the first day, my head felt like it does after the first day of Dayton Hamvention, busting to the seams with sensory overload. But it was all good, and by the second day, I think everyone returned in the morning feeling a bit better and just a tad more comfortable with their EMCOMM skills.

During our exercises, we fortunate to be joined by Mark Harla N2MHO (third from the right) from Cumberland County RACES. His experience and knowledge was invaluable to our little team.

The course built upon the education we received from those online FEMA courses that we all took on the Incident Command System, the National Incident Management System and the National Response Framework. It expanded upon that and throughout the class, decorum, attitude and etiquette were accented.

It does not do any good for the name and face of Amateur Radio, for uninvited, untrained, undisciplined "know-it-all cowboys" to show up to an emergency with an attitude that Amateur Radio is there "to save the day". That attitude, along with "Hey, lookie here at all my latest and greatest gear" is most assuredly going to get you escorted off the scene with a firm admonition to never return.

The keys to a successful blend of Amateur Radio and Disaster Response are training, decorum, the willingness to help with ANY situation (not just communications), and above all, professionalism. The willingness to blend in, get the job done with a minimal mount of attention or hoopla to yourself or the Amateur Radio Service, are what is needed. In fact, if you follow those guidelines, the Amateur Radio Service and Amateur Radio operators WILL come out smelling like a rose, and will be asked to come back on a continual basis.

To all Amateur Radio ops who read this blog that are interested in Public Service and Amateur Radio EMCOMM - I heartily urge you to go to your Town/City, County and State RACES/ARES leadership team to request them to have this AUXCOMM class brought to your state. Regardless of your level of experience, you are going to enjoy this class and will learn things that you never knew before.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!