With weather comes weather activity and not of a good kind.

 Last night and today have been fat man hell for me. I am fat, I am old and I have had heart surgery so the hot and humid weather of the last 2 days has knocked me on my butt. In the office we call this FAT MAN HELL. With Fat Man hell comes weather in the form of storms, weather of a rather violent nature and a bunch of ham radio operators that have taken a beginners storm spotting class. These hams no feel that they are meteorologists and want to predict where the storm is going to and where it is going to end up. They jibber/ jabber on the radio giving reports that are make no sense, and for some of us are made up just to hear themselves on the radio. I will layout some sensible guidelines that may help people since we are getting more of the same type of weather tonight.

1. Research what is going on BEFORE you go out. 
    A. Where is the forecasted storm path and what are your routes of escape?  

2. Research what is going on if your the NET Control Examine the following.
    A.  Do you have APRS even APRS.FI is it on and do you know how to use it.
    B. Who are you communicating with and do they have APRS on either RF or Internet reporting.
    C. Who are you reporting spotting information to?
            a. NWS Directly
            b. Liaison repeater
            c. Is the Liaison repeater working and being monitored?
            d. Do you have the phone number to call the NWS directly?
            e. If you have NWS chat is it working? Do you have current sign credentials that work?
    D. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A STANDBY NET!!!! you either have a net or you don't             have a net. If you decided to activate a net have you covered points A,B and C?

3. You as the Net Control operator control the net! Keep traffic short. Those that are spewing for the sake of hearing themselves talk need to be squashed like a bug. I don't give a rats ass what they have to tell you other than I am at this location and see a tornado moving in this direction. That is the total amount of information that needs to be passed in a clear and concise manor. 

4.  The world does not care who you know or who you think you know. Take the information and PASS it. Don't bring up call signs of people on another net that has nothing to do with what is going on currently. 

5. Spotters and Net Control People need to have keen situational awareness of what is going on. If you can't listen to 3 radios, talk on the phone and type at the same time its not worth wasting your time. 

6. As a Spotter or Net Control operator you can only answer to one master. If you are part of multiple service groups pick that group to serve at that time and don't wear multiple hats. It is dangerous and does not give your full attention to the job at hand. You are doing a total disservice if you try to leave one operation early to service another agency on the same incident. Know where your allegiances lie and stay with them.

In listening to last nights radio traffic NONE of this was followed on any of the nets I was listening to. Notice I said listening too. There was no sense in adding any traffic to any nets that were going on as it would even more confuse the situation. I got more information just listening to last nights cluster. 

Finally if you want to be taken seriously and professionally. ACT PROFESSIONALLY. 

Again people don't get it.

I sat in my local ARES meeting last night a few short presentations on various topics. It is amazing how many " Ham Radio Communicators" are absolutely clueless when it comes to planning and pre-planning. No concept if things work or how things work. No concept if you repeat it till you can't get it wrong. 

For a county that is 336 square miles and basically a square you would think you should be able to communicate within the county on a simplex frequency or on a digital data frequency. Currently this group can do that but yet they want to be emergency communicators.  If you can't talk across the county 100% reliably what make you think you can talk across the state? 

I am going to keep banging my head against the wall and keep getting in peoples faces about this issue till it gets fixed. Leadership is from the top down and the bottom up and currently there is none in either direction.  

When the day goes to hell because of Chickens.

 This is a clip from Fox 32 news of our incident yesterday dealing with over heated Chickens. 

Never say my job is boring. 

Click the link>>>>>>>             Addison Chickens

We have a problem in Ham Radio in Illinois

 As most of you may or may not know I am an Amateur Radio operator. The FCC has issued my call as N9VDQ. I am proud to hold a general class license and more proud that my son Chris is also a ham N9IJ. Yes he holds an extra class license, he is better at math than I am.

One of the reasons I got into ham radio was for the "Emergency Radio Communications" aspect of the hobby. In the 20-plus years I have been licensed I and even before I was licensed I participated in some significant disasters and public service events as a volunteer. From incidents like Flight 191, Plainfield Tornado, both papal visits, the open air mass by Cardinal Bernadine to name a few. Every time the participation was rewarding and I learned something from each event.

Recently I have been participating with 2 county ARES organization in the metro Chicago area along with a general ham radio club in metro Chicago. I am finding membership to these organizations unrewarding.
The sense of unity, working toward the same goal is lost in the organizations politics and leadership that have no skin in the game. 
People talk about the good old day's, while the good old days are part of history and a leaning tool it is NOT the entire basis for ham radio. 

Recently there has been an initiative in improving statewide voice and digital communication at 1200 baud speed makes taking a message wrapped around a baseball and throwing it to the next station faster than trying to communicate via radio waves especially in the digital modes.  

Today's Emergency managers are looking for data on a fast, accurate basis that is forever changing. Photos, spreadsheets, database data, even live video is what needs to be considered in Emergency Communications. The motto of "Amateur radio when all else fails" is a fallacy. This motto was prominent in the 1980's when you were the king if you had a modem that did 28.8 mbs. Now a days data is needed in megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes. Today's armature has to start thinking Windows 10, Mac High Sierra, Lynix (what ever the latest is) , IOS, and Android. Todays ham radio digital communication is at Windows 3.1 technology at 1200 baud. 

Armature Radio radio is NOT advancing in any sort of emergency communication we are still in the late 70's early 80's as far as digital communications. The bands are silent except for retired people with time on their hands, the majority of young hams have other public service responsibilities, life responsibility, work responsibility and the retired folks that don't work most with the time DO NOT have the health or stamina to deal with today's current Emergency Communication requirements. 
I will say with the advent of the internet some higher speed digital voice technology has evolved that is fast and is used with the benefit of the internet, but for true off grid communications Ham radio is still at 1200 baud

The exercise this weekend had 2 separate groups using HF and VHF/UHF and text messaging for control and injects. The 3rd station had 2 satellite dishes up and operating. Finally most of the exercise control was taking place on a state wide p25 talk group that unless you were issued a radio and not afraid to use it, it was pointless. 

Currently everyone is gathering. collating and reviewing data. My question is How effective were we? 

I have a series of questions that I would love to see truthful answers too.

1. In a real incident could an effective digital communications be preformed at the current data rates 1200 baud?

2. What is the resilience of Starcomm in the event of a large scale internet outage and what is the back up if Starcomm was to totally crash and be inoperative?

3. What fluid data is required by an Emergency Manager and can that data be transferred at 1200 baud in a total grid down event.

4. If the grid is down can and would IP over satellite communications be possible and could it handle the data that is needed. 

5. What is the data need?  Are emergency managers looking for more data than it would ever be possible to transmit over 1200 baud digital or voice communication on any band? 

6.What are the communication needs in a grid down situation, a disaster situation weather man made or natural. There is not a consistent answer from anyone weather professional managers or Amateur radio operators.   

Basically in Illinois the ham radio community is so far behind the curve they can't see the paper that the curve is written on. This falls totally on the shoulders of the current ham radio leadership in Illinois. 

So most of you are going to ask how do we fix it?

1. Stop having a title and NOT doing anything. If you can't do the job you have a title for be an adult step down and let someone who wants and can do the job do it. 

2. Do something!!! Anything is better than being stagnant and talking things to death and doing nothing. 

3. COMMUNICATE!!! For a hobby that is geared on communication we suck at it. There is no central spot to dissimilate information within Illinois, We have no daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly status report on going's on regarding ham radio or emergency communications within the State of Illinois.    

4. Remember if you have a title and do nothing or the minimal you are worse than not having anyone in a position. 

Can I do it? I don't know seems I speak my mind and tick off a lot of people. What I can tell you is there is no way in heck that Hams in Illinois are ready for any sort of emergency communications in the evnet of a disaster weather man made or natural. 

MTK