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Emergency Power Emergency Food Emergency Water Emergency Clothing Emergency Tools Special Items First Aid Safe Rooms Tornadoes Thunderstorms Wildfires Floods Hurricanes Hazardous Materials Nuclear Hazards Earthquakes Winter Storms Emergency Communications Tips Amateur Radio Services Family Radio Service Scanners It's Time To Declare Your Information and Communications Independence! If you're like most people, your knowledge of what's going on in your city on a daily basis is totally dependent on what the media and government agencies want you to know. Your local police department, fire department, EMS and other agencies have specific jobs to perform during disasters, large and small. Keeping you, the private citizen, informed, up-to-the-minute, is not their primary function. When they do release information, it has usually been scrutinized, edited, and is basically what they think you need to know. You must, however, still keep yourself informed. Do you monitor your local law enforcement frequencies? If you do, that's good. More and more agencies are making it harder, and even impossible, to monitor due to "trunking" and encryption. If you live in one of those areas, you really are at the mercy of those agencies for whatever information they choose to spoon-feed you. There is an easy answer to your communications information problem. It's called Amateur Radio. Right now, the Simplex Preservation Society is growing a nation-wide network of Amateur Radio operators who work to acquire and exchange information with each other at the local level. These operators then share that information with friends, family and neighbors who will spread the information to their circle of friends. This unofficial network is the most efficient way to keep the citizens of any town informed in times of minor and major incidents. Weather Spotters perform a valuable service in many communities around the country. However, unless you are listening to them directly, on their frequency, you will not get the "blow-by-blow" reports. What you will get is the condensed version, or the actual "warning", from your local radio and/or TV stations, or the National Weather Service. These folks, by the way, ARE monitoring the Weather Spotters. What happens if and when your power is interrupted and your radio and TV is silent? They operate on batteries, you say? That's a great capability to have, but what if the radio and TV stations lost power and/or their antennas in a major storm? If there's a problem with your TV cable, can you receive your local TV stations direct? You do have some "rabbit ears" stashed away, don't you? But what if the radio and TV stations are still up and running? What quality of information do they have for you? Unless they have their own people out roving the city, they must get their information from some other source. Again, if that source is a government agency, are you really hearing everything you need to know? Oh, yes, you have a cell phone! Cell phone towers and powers systems are super-vulnerable to tornadoes and hurricanes. Those portions of the cell phone system that do survive a disaster, assuming they still have power, are soon overloaded by people trying to call in and out of the affected area. This scenario is repeated time and again in "tornado alley" and on the eastern and gulf coasts. Who were you going to call on that cell phone anyway? Are they tuned into the "right" frequencies? Do they have any useful information for you? Maybe. Maybe not. Remember, your ability to send voice or "instant messages" via the Internet and "text messages" by cell phone are at the mercy of the next thunderstorm that brings down a tree limb across a fiber optic cable or power line, or an errant back hoe digging in the wrong place. It happens across the nation on a daily basis. Back-up power for your computer won't help you if depend on cable or phone lines and those systems are disrupted. Also, communications requires at least two people. You may be up and running 100% in a disaster, but if the folks you want to give information to, or receive information from, are not operational, then your system may as well be a large paperweight or doorstop. If you want to be "in the know" you need to be able to listen to those Amateur Radio Operator citizens who are exchanging information with each other on a daily basis, not just during times of disaster. During "peacetime", Amateur Radio operators keep these lines of communication open by regularly engaging in informal chatter, often about radio equipment, the weather, politics and just about anything else. They also maintain their independence from the "power grid", communicating using long-life storage batteries, solar power, and/or generators. When you tune in to local Amateur Radio operators, you will most definitely have those "two or more" people needed to enable the intelligent transfer of information about flooding, road conditions, hazardous waste, damage, and other important items. Do you know what frequencies to monitor? 146.520 Mhz is a good place to start as it's the national simplex "calling" frequency. (Simplex means communicating "direct", antenna to antenna, without the help of repeaters or Internet linking. Check 73sps.com for the updated list.) Amateur radio operators passing through unfamiliar cities often call out on this frequency looking for someone to chat with or ask for local directions. Most people who are associated with law enforcement, fire protection, EMS and the media know where to listen during the BIG events, but even they are probably not aware on the discreet "simplex" frequencies where a lot of the day-to-day communications takes place. Amateur Radio Operators, sometimes referred to as "hams", communicate using many different modes and frequencies. We still use Morse code, which is a very popular mode. There are also hams who use various digital modes, using the computer to encode and decode radio transmissions. Some like fast or slow-scan television. Most larger cities have multiple "repeaters" which are used to extend the range of local VHF-UHF communications. Communicating through satellites is popular as well as Internet-assisted modes such as Echolink and IRLP, the Internet Radio Linking Project. A ham radio operator might even use a small handheld radio to communicate through a repeater which is connected to the Internet. Using Echolink & IRLP, a ham can relax in his or her easy chair and talk anywhere in the world. Hams operate individually, and many also belong to clubs and participate in group activities. Of course, while our group encourages hams to enjoy all modes of operation, we stress the ability to communicate independent of the Internet and repeaters so as to be able to transfer information without assistance. Is there an Amateur Radio club in your area? There probably is, but you probably don't know about it. Amateur Radio clubs tend to focus on specific national events such as Field Day, and providing communications for local events such as bike rides and races, marathons, and parades. They also provide emergency communications, if and when needed, for agencies such as the American Red Cross and local emergency managers during floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other calamities. Storm Spotting during threatening weather is another popular activity. Some clubs, for all the good they do, are a little weak when it comes to getting the word out to the general public about their activities. I guess they're a very modest bunch! The only problem with the above is that if you're not directly involved or affected by the activity being supported by Amateur Radio, you aren't aware of the their presence. Luckily, most of us are never involved in a true disaster and only read or hear about them in the media. When the disaster is closer to home, we still tend to learn only what the local media and government agencies tell us. Members of the Simplex Preservation Society are able to work independently of the Internet, and even their own repeater systems, to send and receive information directly to each other. They maintain their equipment in operating order to include back-up power and antenna systems. They'll be there when cell phones and the Internet let you down. |