Survival Radio Net #1

Hello Everybody, Frank here.

If you recall back a few weeks, our little community started and completed a Survival Radio Class. This class included preparation for those seeking their ham radio license, which ended up being about nine Technicians and three Generals. Pretty good turn out. Also, for the record, all of the students that took the test, passed. In most circles that is considered to be 100%.

But, back to the main gist. Besides the folks pursuing their ham radio ticket, the class was geared for those that wanted to learn to communicate by other means. Those means being scanner for listening, and folks listening is CRITICAL, also CB, GMRS/FRS,

MURS, shortwave and smoke signals. Just wanted to see if you're paying attention. We had a handful of people in the class that this was their goal. Well, you say, this is all redundant information, and it is, but when I was a child and I went to cross the street, my daddy told me to look both ways every time I crossed that street. Just because somebody hears something once, doesn't mean it's going to penetrate or settle. Some folks, myself included, need to hear things more than once.

I know lots of you had CBs when you were kids. It was real popular. It was a form of freedom, able to get out. Pitch in four wheel mobility and life is good, till you have to start paying your own bills. 

GMRS came along later, new technology, FM not AM, higher frequency. For those not familiar with the term GMRS, these are the little handheld radios you can buy at any sporting goods store, and they work real well. Hunters use them, kids playing hide and seek, it's a handy tool, and some businesses use them. Fern and I have used them for years.

MURS is also a free group of frequencies that is for citizens use. It is rarely, rarely used, a great way to communicate, FM, higher frequency than CB, lower than GMRS. It's in about the same frequency range as most small and medium size towns' police and fire departments. 

Let's not forget the scanner. Most, if not all, scanners can receive the VHF/UHF ham bands, GMRS and MURS. Some scanners, but not all, can receive the CB frequencies. Remember, listening or being able to hear is CRITICAL. 

But again, you say, this is all redundant information. Go back and read the explanation of redundant above. Some of us need to hear something more than once before it soaks in. Does that need repeating again?

Let's not forget shortwave. Everything we talked about above is pretty much short distance, line of sight, sometimes one mile, sometimes 40 miles depending on the terrain. Shortwave is the ability to listen to long distance signals. It lost popularity with the introduction of the internet, but there is still traffic out there to be heard. That means that there are things out there to be heard around the globe. Many shortwave radios will also receive the lower ham radio frequencies, because that is where shortwave is located. So if you have a scanner and a decent shortwave radio and the appropriate antenna, you can hear local and long distance. Remember, being able to hear and receive is CRITICAL.

So, one more time, where is this going? It's going right here. Last Tuesday night we attempted our first ever Survival Radio Net. Now you're going to have to follow me here because we did a lot of things in a short period of time. Most of the participants of this net were from the radio class with a few additions. I sent out an email to the folks that were in the class letting them know about what we were going to try to do. This email had time, date, place and purpose.

• Time was 20:00 (8:00pm)
• Date was Tuesday night.
• Beginning place was our local ham radio repeater.

You say there's a problem here. The CB, GMRS and MURS crowd can't communicate with the repeater. Well, that is only half right. If they have a scanner, or a handheld that will receive the repeater, then they can listen to and follow instructions. 



A side note here. I got permission from our local emergency management director to use this repeater at that time for this purpose. He was more than happy to accommodate. 

The email included some instructions about what we were going to try to do, which are as follows.

1. We would start at 8:00pm.
2. I was the net control operator.
3. We started off with basic introductions, took care of the legal things, and then started taking ham radio check ins.
4. After the check ins, those of us that had CB capabilities, did the same activity, except on a local basis. Not everybody could hear everybody, but some could hear and others would relay.
5. During this time, which took about 10 minutes, we asked those that could hear, who they could receive, and then we continued this process. Who hears who, their location, their name or call sign or handle. Now, get this, we had folks that could hear CB reception from 40 miles away. Okay, one guy lives on the side of a tall hill, and another man could hear him 40 miles away.   You see, this contact is what this net is all about. Hearing, listening, receiving. It is CRITICAL. 
6. Next, we went back to the repeater, which was our base and we had a discussion, those that could talk on the repeater, about some of the contacts we had just made.
7.  Then we proceeded with GMRS and MURS with the same activities.

Due to the characteristics of the different frequencies, CB, GMRS and MURS, different people at different locations could receive different transmissions. Like I said above, follow me here. Example. Two guys, 20 miles apart might be able to hear each other on MURS, but not CB. One of them may be able to transmit on CB to somebody else that can't hear MURS.

A side note here. The big ham radio group in this country that has been around for a long, long time, is called the ARRL. Amateur Radio RELAY League. That second 'R' is what radio used to be, Relay. That's what it's going to be again in the future. RELAY.

This was a first time experiment and most of the participants would agree that it sharply exceeded their expectations. We're going to do it again very soon, and we're going to try to do it the first and third Tuesdays of each month. I was surprised at the number of people that eagerly participated in our net. But then it dawned on me that they also see an urgent need for communications. 

The reason I am telling YOU this, is that this same activity can be duplicated in your area. We need a time to communicate. Let's pick 8:00 at night. Well, we need a frequency to communicate on. How about CB channel 22, which is 27.225 MHz? That's a good start. How about GMRS channel 22, which is 462.725 MHz? How about MURS #2, which is 151.880 MHz? This is something that you can do. Anything that I can do, you can do better. Talk to your local emergency management director, these guys like public attention, remember that. Always say please and thank you. You could even talk to your local ARRL branch. Some of them will be helpful, some won't. This is doable. Now do it.

Another side note. We developed a simple form, 20 lines, about 5 columns. First column was call sign or handle, next name, then location, then mode of communication (e.g. CB, GMRS, etc), lastly we left a column for comments, which could include people contacted or relays made.

Ladies and Gentlemen, most of you know we have perilous times right around the corner. But even if we don't, how about a natural disaster, or a man made disaster? We need to be able to communicate. I'm going to leave these thoughts with you. Knowing what is happening in your area is of CRITICAL importance. You never know what a man made or natural disaster could look like, and you might want to know what is coming down the road. Ladies and Gentlemen, don't get on the bus. 

We'll talk more later, Frank

Life's Little Trials

There are times recently that we feel like we've been given the chance to practice the future. The future that doesn't contain all of the wonderful modern conveniences we have grown so fond of and in some cases, dependent upon. There are skills we can practice now, some by choice and some by circumstance, that may increase our success and comfort when the chips are down for good. Here are just a few things we have had the opportunity to experience in the last few weeks and days.

• How to garden with too much water

 

 

 

• Preparing to have the water shut off due to flooding or contamination of the public water supply (this ended up being rumor, but was good mental practice) 

 

• Power outage involving a fire at a regional substation (found out a transformer blew; odd it didn't happen during one of the major tornadic thunderstorms we had on Monday, it happened in calm weather; we found this strange)

• The main ham radio repeater in our area was down due to a power outage. A generator that was donated to the radio club has not been installed, and there is limited battery backup to keep the repeater operational. This repeater is the main source of communication for our regional storm spotter and emergency communications hub.

So, what does all of this teach us? Many, many things, which is good. Let's start with the garden. We have had historic, record breaking rainfall amounts in this area for the month of May, with this came muddy soil conditions for planting which is far from ideal. A few years back we were in serious drought conditions and when we tilled the garden it was in a cloud of dust, literally. This year, it was really too muddy one time, but we knew our window of opportunity was very narrow, so we took it, and now, I'm glad we did. There are still folks waiting to plant or replant their gardens, and what they did get planted may or may not make it.

Yesterday, in the beautiful, rare sunshine, we noticed a few of the squash plants were wilting, which immediately made us think of squash vine borers. We have applied two batches of green lacewing eggs and nematodes in hopes of combating the vine borers, among other insects, so we were very disappointed. But upon inspection, we could find no damage from vine borers, so we pulled one small squash plant. The only conclusion we could come to was that it rotted in the ground from all of the rain.

Slugs. The slugs are proliferating at a phenomenal rate in all this moisture, and eating everything. We are in search of some iron phosphate which is supposed to be deadly for slugs. We are now finding tiny little new slugs everywhere. We have been putting out eggshells and coffee grounds, caffeine is supposed to be fatal to slugs as well, when we have them. We could also apply diatomaceous earth, but with daily rain, it would just wash away again and again. If we get a few days without rain, we will apply it everywhere. The cabbage worms have also showed up in mass, even with the lacewing applications. It has been a tough year for gardening.

Along with our record rainfall this month there have been a number of days that we spent in very, very stormy weather with too many tornado warnings for comfort. We've had neighbors that have been flooded in for days, remember we live in hill country. There are some houses that when you have a heavy rain, you just can't get out. As of May 20th, we had record rain for the month of May and it has been forecast everyday until the end of the month. Most of the folks we know that have been rained in, or conversely rained out, are doing fine, but not everybody has been so fortunate. We have lost a few rescue workers, and that's really tough on a community. We've had people's houses washed down rivers, thousands of acres of pasture land and cattle ranches are under water. There are still a handful of people that are unaccounted for. These are just some of the tragic stories. 

As mentioned earlier, our local ham radio repeater, and every antenna tower on top of a mountain was without power for about two days. Most of the commercial towers had reliable backup power. Somebody made an intelligent decision to shut the repeater down. The reason being, it is the primary radio communications system involving severe weather, and since we have severe weather forecast almost daily, it can be turned back on if needed for severe weather use.

Other types of communication needs. We were told by a reliable source that our local water treatment plant had been compromised with flood water. Then we started hearing the same thing, via the rumor mill, from multiple sources. The fact is, it never happened. We contacted our local water distributor the next day and they told us to listen to the local country stations for any announcements. Well, we don't get AM radio where we live, and our main local little town, which is 25 miles away, had a 12 hour power failure. So, how are we supposed to know? 

Next, we had a power failure in our area. As a general rule, during the worst weather, we seldom lose power, but it does happen. We called a couple of nearby neighbors. No power. We called some neighbors five miles down the road. No power. We called some friends 10 miles away. Get the picture here? This was not just a little power outage, the entire area was black. So, here come the rumors. The good news is, we could get rumors. The bad news is, they were also false. There was a fire at a local transfer station, not sure how it happened, it was not a hot day, there was no bad weather in the area. But we didn't have a way to communicate, not effectively anyway.

Before it got dark, we went around and gathered up lanterns. Fortunately, the day before I had charged up the rechargeable batteries and lanterns. By the way, all of our lanterns are battery operated. But the reason they were all charged is because the day before, on Memorial Day, we had four separate tornado warnings one right behind the other in our little neighborhood. Thank the Lord this happened during the daylight hours. But, all of our batteries were charged. 

We have some interesting pictures for you, of some of our local flooding. This is the highest I have ever seen the water in this area. If it's a low lying spot, it's got water sitting in it.

So, that's what we've been dealing with for the last week. But the whole month has been a down pour almost everyday. We've learned a lot. Sometimes people can get a little edgy when they don't get enough sunlight. In the northern climates they have a condition called SAD, seasonal affective disorder. When we lived in Barrow, Alaska they used a special type of fluorescent tube in the classrooms that provided kids and adults with a broader spectrum of light. We also had a special light in our home, for some people it worked and for some it didn't. But there's been a lot of folks in this area that have been a tad bit edgy lately. I guess that lack of natural vitamin D will do that to some folks. 

We have some eggs in an incubator right now and they're about four days away from hatching. We've had some incubator issues lately, which I'll discuss more in a chicken post in a couple of days. But when you have eggs in an incubator, and your power goes off, you better act quickly. In this case we grabbed a bunch of blankets, wrapped up the incubator, and hoped for the best. Our power was only off for three or four hours, but if it had been like the little town close to us and it was off for about 12 hours, then that would have been a different story. More on that later.

And to add to it, we went up to take a peek at how the livestock were doing, and discovered that the pigs were out. At first it was a serious concern, but like most animals that you feed, with a small can of feed, you can easily coax them where you want them to go. That was a great learning experience.

Part of what we're talking about here is how you deal with things. When life is great, and everything is going along well, then it's easy to deal with life. But we all know it's not like that everyday. We didn't lose any animals to flooding. Nobody got hurt. Our chicken pen is in sad shape, but someday it will dry. Overall, we are doing pretty good. It's easy to deal with things. But the last few days have been excellent practice. Today the power is back on, we don't have any real issues with our drinking water, the stores are still open, my retirement checks are still coming to the bank, and the shelves are still full of items that people need and don't need. But tomorrow that could all change. One of us could slip and break a leg. We still have severe weather just a hundred miles west of us and it's got to go somewhere. So, take advantage of the good days, because someday, maybe someday soon, the days are not going to be good. Practice today while you can. Learn your weaknesses and your limitations. And if you're of this persuasion, then thank God for what you have.

We'll talk more later, Frank

Radio - Become a Ham, Part 10

Hello, Frank here.

Ladies and Gentlemen, or should I say YL's and OM's, things are quickly coming to a close. I expect this to be the next to the last post for the

Technician's exam. This part coming up will deal with operating procedures. Before we get to operating procedures, let's say you have read the manual, taken practices tests, talked to the ARRL folks, got yourself an Elmer, maybe taken the test, maybe even passed it. As eager as you are, you still cannot transmit on the radio. Now you can listen, listen anytime, anywhere, to anything going across the airwaves. But you ask, "I passed my test?" Congratulations! But until you receive notification from

the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), you cannot transmit. But they will notify you 1) via U.S. mail, 2) via FCC website. You will need to have your exact name as it was turned in on your application. When it is posted on the FCC website, then you are licensed to rag-chew with anyone that will listen within your band of authority.


Okay, so what are these band authorities? 10 meter, 28.3 through 28.5 MHz, 6 meter and up. One other thing you need to know. When you put

your call sign on an email anybody can go to numerous websites, QRZ.com for example, and get your name, address, city, zip code and a friendly map to your house. So be cautious who you give this information to. If you choose, when you take your test, you can use for

your address a post office box. You say, "My Elmer told me I have to use a physical address." In the past you did, in the present you don't. A post office box is perfectly acceptable with the FCC. As most of you know, Frank and Fern are pseudonyms. This is why I have never given you my call sign. So don't feel slighted if I don't share with you my personal data. Fern and I are very

particular about operational security. You should be too.


Okay. FM operation. You've got your VHF/UHF radio and you want to program it. I would highly recommend some type of computer program.

Most manufacturers provide either a disc or a download so you can program your radio. If you have an extra $40 to $45 I would highly recommend the RT programming systems. This makes life a whole lot easier. Okay. To program your radio, let's start with simplex. This means you're talking directly to another person, line of site.

Your transmit (TX) and receive (RX) frequency will be the same frequency, example: 146.52 MHz, which is a frequency that you might want to put in your radio. It is the national simplex frequency. That's not on any test anywhere, I just thought you might want to know it.



On rare, rare occasions, simplex will have a CTCSS subtone - rare, rare, rare. You ask, "What is CTCSS?" Hold on, and I'll let you know. If you want to use a repeater, which you probably will, it gets just a little bit more complicated. It is commonly called duplex operation. The reason being, 

when you transmit to a repeater on one frequency and it rebroadcasts your transmission out on a different frequency. For VHF this is plus or minus 600 kilohertz. If you have a scanner, then the frequency in your scanner is your receive frequency. So when you are programming your radio, if you put in the receive frequency, most newer radio programs will automatically set the offset. This is not difficult. Remember 600 KHz is 0.6 MHz. So either add or subtract 0.6 in the ham bands 144-148. Look at the little ICOM chart. You will see frequencies set up for repeaters above 146 and below 146. Play with it, figure it out. And it's the same thing for UHF, except the plus or minus is 5 MHz. 

Well, if you say that that was easy enough, what's this CTCSS? Most repeaters, but not all, require a PL tone or CTCSS to activate the repeater. This is normally used for transmission to the repeater. Otherwise you will

not be able to access the repeater and it retransmit your signal. So, you will need to put whatever the PL tone is for that repeater in your radio via your program. In rare, rare cases a PL tone is also used on the transmit side of the repeater, but this is very rare. These are normally used by police departments.

How to make a transmission: You've got your radio programmed, you put in the transmit frequency, you've put in the PL tone to open the repeater and you've put in the receive frequency. Here's how you do it, this applies to duplex and simplex. You don't go, "Break one nine, good buddy." Do not use CB lingo. No ten-four. I do CB, I like CB, but I do not use CB talk on

ham radio. So, you want to call somebody. Let's say their call sign is KF7MOM. You start off by calling them first, "KF7MOM" and then you give your call sign. Let's say, "W7NEW". You wait about ten seconds and you say it again, "KF7MOM, W7NEW", you wait about ten more seconds, if you do not get a response, then give your call sign and you are finished. That's it. Okay, why do you wait ten seconds if radio waves travel at the speed of light? Good question. Because KF7MOM might not have a VHF radio on and is receiving your radio's transmission on the scanner. This will give KF7MOM the time to turn on the VHF radio and respond. Be patient. Okay, let's say that you want to talk to anyone out there. Listen for a minute, make sure no one is on frequency

and put your call sign out. Some people will put out their call sign and say monitoring. How do you end a conversation? Just talk on the radio like you normally would, then say, "See you later." and give your call sign. These rules are not set in concrete. There are local variations everywhere and no one is going to laugh at you, not that you will hear anyway. So just key up the mic, hold it about six to eight inches from your mouth and talk in a normal voice. Make sure that your finger is not covering the little bitty hole where the microphone is. 

Okay. Let's switch over to HF for just a second. If you know who you are calling, the same protocol applies. If you just want somebody to talk to,

which remember is between 28.3-28.5 MHz, which is 10 meter upper side band. Turn your radio on, that is probably the most important step - the ON/OFF switch. Wait for a minute, make sure no one is on frequency and say, "CQ, CQ, CQ" (calling any station) and then give your call sign. Proper phonetics is used more often on HF, so use proper phonetics. Whiskey Seven Nora Echo Whiskey (W7NEW). For those of you that are long winded, you are required to give your call sign every ten minutes VHF, UHF or HF. Don't forget, 10 meter is upper side band. 

Once you get to playing on your radio, you will find that most people are very, very polite, courteous and helpful. So please do not be the new, rude jerk. If you have an emergency and need to break into a conversation,

the standard procedure is to wait for a break in the conversation and say "Priority" or "Emergency" followed by your call sign. If you are rag chewing with your buddy, be it simplex or duplex, and anybody breaks in with an emergency, be prepared to take notes, but first clear the channel immediately. Let me repeat that. You clear the channel immediately and be prepared to help.

It's recommended that you use the least amount of power required to operate your radio. The VHF repeater that I primarily use is about 25 miles away. I can activate the repeater comfortably with five watts. But, if there is a torrential downpour, I might need to use more power. Use the appropriate power level. This is one of those cases to where you really don't impress anybody by using the most power that you can.

Okay, there's some other stuff here that we didn't talk about. I finished up through page 42. Next time we will pick up with rules and regulations and it should be the last post for the Technician exam. One last thing. After you get your Technician ticket and you decide to take your General test and pass it, then you will have General operating privileges at that time. Just thought I would throw that in.

Get in touch with ARRL. Schedule a test and take it. Take the practice tests, either free or paid for, it's your choice. If you don't feel comfortable, or that you're not ready, go back and reread the posts again.

Read the other posts about CB, 10 meter radios and scanners. There is lots of good information in there. Get you an Elmer from ARRL. They give them away free. And one extra last thing. Don't try to be a hotshot and fry your little girl's brain. Being stupid is not pretty or funny. It's kind of like being drunk, it ain't cute. Safety first.

We'll talk more later. 73, Frank