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
