IP: more on :amateur radio operators A "Better Network" for Emergency Communications

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 23:58:05 -0800
> To: farber () cis upenn edu, ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com
> From: "Joseph C. Pistritto" <jcp () dmwhe com>
>
>
> While not a complete solution, to a certain extent, this is where amateur 
> radio operators come in.   This is an emergency communication system that 
> works across agencies, and does so *now*.
>
> Almost all amateurs that participate in emergency communication service 
> can talk to each other, and a wide variety of base stations, who all have 
> similar (Frequency, mode, capability) equipment.  This seems to be 
> *rarely* true of the emergency agencies that they team up with during 
> disaster operations.
>
> Here in San Mateo county for instance, the local ARES/RACES chapter 
> finally got all the fire trucks and many police vehicles fitted with power 
> plugs for amateur transmitters.   (They picked a standard - a particular 
> Radio Shack part #), so all amateurs could make pigtails for their 
> equipment that fit.   I standardized my own radios in the house here on 
> the same plug, because it seemed like a good idea.  So during call-ups, 
> amateurs can 'ride-with" the emergency services and provide a control net 
> that crosses service and communication technology boundaries.  (Here in 
> the Bay Area, people put more effort into emergency preparedness because 
> we sort of know there will be emergencies that will be widespread and will 
> happen without notice.).  However here, my "scanner guide" lists hundreds 
> of different police and fire frequencies, on different *bands* as 
> well.  (3 of them + cellular/trunked 800 frequencies).  The antennas for 
> these radios arent even interchangable.
>
> To a certain extent, this problem gets solved by individual departments by 
> putting multiple radios in a vehicle, but thats hard when out of the 
> vehicle (say at a fire scene).   CLEMARS (a digital computer system) is in 
> use by most police departments in the area, in fact, it is about the only 
> in-vehicle system thats common across PDs in the Bay Area, but not 
> everyone is on it yet).
>
> In short, this is a mess.   It'll take a lot of money to replace all those 
> radios with ones that can talk to each other.   There's a huge frequency 
> allocation problem too.  (My town has 5 frequencies assigned to it's 
> use.  They're of course different than other towns, and theres no way you 
> could get enough to say, operate a trunked radio system down here like 
> they use in San Francisco or Oakland. (different, incompatible trunked 
> systems I might add, i have scanners for each.)  Its quite a big deal when 
> a smaller city has to upgrade all its radios to a new system.  (it took 
> Oakland about 10 years to switch everyone to the trunked system they use 
> there for instance).  There's a *lot* of radios out there, and every 
> vehicle installation is probably a couple of thousand $$.
>
> Amateurs solve this problem the distributed systems way.  Everyone buys 
> equipment that can talk to other randomly selected people.  We 
> interoperate by design.  Further, we each buy our own equipment, there 
> isnt some big purchasing bureaucracy that does it for us.  However i'd bet 
> almost every amateur in California owns a 2meter FM radio that works and 
> can be used on an emergency net.  A good number (maybe 20-30%) have 70cm 
> radios that are also used for that purpose.   Between those two radios, 
> virtually every emergency communication used in California can be made, 
> especially if you add in people like me who have shortwave stations as 
> well as the VHF/UHF capability and batteries to run it all.  Whats more, 
> we practice doing this regularly.
>
> In short, lets say I'm pretty skeptical that someone is going to overlay a 
> brand new (especially cellular based) technology as a "quick fix" and 
> suddenly all police, firefighters and other rescue workers will magically 
> use it.  And it wont get blocked inside buildings, or have "dead spots" 
> that render a cop out of communication during an incident, etc.  The 
> communications systems these agencies have are designed around these 
> problems.  It takes a significant amount of time to build confidence in a 
> new technology and to make sure it really works robustly in the field, at 
> a price departments can afford.
>
> In the meantime, the model amateurs use, might be instructive:
>   - a relatively small set of assigned frequencies and modes, but enough 
> so that people/agencies can spread out across a band, a few different 
> bands for different propagation needs.
>   - almost everyone uses synthesized equipment, which can be quickly 
> reprogrammed for different frequencies by design
>   - regular, routine cross-location and region "interoperability events". 
> (we call them contests in Amateur Radio, but that's what they really are).
>   - standardization within at least regions on the supporting hardware 
> (like having the radios all take the same power plug, so any one person 
> and radio can be in any vehicle).
>
> This isnt magic.  We dont need magic new radios to do this.   Voice 
> communication does what we need for emergency use. (yes, pictures would be 
> nice and CLEMARS and some of the other law enforcement systems do pictures 
> now).
>
> I think if the FCC or someone else took the lead and said "We need to 
> define an interoperability standard for emergency services communication" 
> and kept it simple and straightforward, this problem could be solved by 
> manufacturers and users within the rollout time of the next generation of 
> radios.
>
> Thanks,
>   -jcp-
>
>
>
>
>
> At 04:20 PM 12/25/2001 -0500, David Farber wrote:
> > Charles Brownstein <cbrownst () cnri reston va us>

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