Advice With Amateur Radio Installation in Hospital

[charlieprimero]

The operators would be via RACES

This would be the proper way to go in my opinion.

HospitalRadioGuy did not say whether he is a Licensed Amateur Radio Operator.

If not, the first order of business would be to find out who is the District RACES Coordinator for his area. That person can hook him up with the background checks to become a RACES Volunteer.

I'm not sure, but if the Boss just wants him to start operating under Part 97 for a commercial entity like a Hospital Corporation, that might cause trouble.

 

[n5ims]

One issue that I don't see addressed is what issue is being addressed with the ham radios? I suspect that it's simply to have a backup system to communicate with other hospital(s), clinic(s), and the local officials when things go really bad (phones, cell phones, and existing radio systems are down). If that's the case, it really may not be important to be able have the system setup for maximum distance (that may actually be a problem, not an advantage). Having the antennas on the 2nd floor roof may provide you with sufficient range to solve the issue at hand and is probably less likely to have issues with heavy winds and lightning than up on the 6th floor roof. Most likely it'll be easier to repair quickly if blown over in heavy winds as well.

I would first collect data on exactly what problem you're trying to solve and what area(s) are must cover, what are nice-to-cover, and what coverage will be nice, but probably won't happen with your budget and restrictions. You should also contact some local ham clubs, ARES and/or RACES groups, or other related groups that may provide assistance (for example they may have some rock-solid repeater systems in the area that will help you with your coverage). You might also provide some assistance to them in return by providing them access to and space on your 6th floor roof for them to put one or more repeaters that you can leverage to extend your coverage when the equipment is really required for your hospital (also provide trained radio operators to do the communication work while your employees concentrate on their normal jobs during that emergency).

Remember that your employees will need to pay special attention to the rules regarding "Pecuniary Interest" with regards to their ham license and communications that benefit the hospital. There are very strict rules that limit ham radio use by an employee that benefits their employer. This would be another benefit of having a local ham organization help provide those communications for you during drills and actual emergencies.

Typical ham coax doesn't have the necessary materials to be used in many commercial locations unless ran through metal conduit. Your electricians, telecom, or IT group probably can point you to the rules on what types of cable can be used without conduit. My memory may not match the current rules, but to run a cable under a raised floor or above a false ceiling, the cable often had to be Teflon coated (or had equivalent protection) so in a fire it wouldn't introduce toxic smoke into the air supply.

 

[mmckenna]

I'm not sure, but if the Boss just wants him to start operating under Part 97 for a commercial entity like a Hospital Corporation, that might cause trouble.

This was covered in the very first post:

I explained that anyone who uses the amateur bands will still need an amateur license. He agreed and said he'd even pay for some books and we could even have some classes/testing at the hospital if we wanted.
….
And again, I will absolutely insist that anyone who actually uses the equipment be properly licensed.

 

[Hit_Factor]

WIW, in southeast Michigan there is equipment deployed to all the region's hospitals, for hams to operate, in case of major disasters. The equipment is managed via the county EOCs, on behalf of the state EOC. The operators would be via RACES, not just walk-in volunteers.

Same in SW Michigan at several Hospitals/EOCs. We have DStar repeaters.

 

[prcguy]

A lot of good information has been discussed here and a lot of potential problems have come up. If the OP gets through all the hurdles of installing equipment to code and there are no RFI issues to hospital equipment, there are still problems to consider. If you get some employees licensed, will there always be enough of them to man the equipment during a disaster when amateur radio might come into play? Then you have the problem of employees on the payroll being paid to work the amateur radios. That is a very grey area which you should avoid.

In So Cal where I live, ARES has offered their amateur radio services to local hospitals in the Los Angeles and Orange county areas for purposes similar to what you describe. When a disaster strikes that cripples hospital to hospital communications, So Cal ARES has volunteers who are specifically trained to supplement hospital communications. They are not employees, they bring their own equipment and there are lots of them available at any given time. You might contact them or similar organizations to meet with your hospital to see what can be worked out.

 

[nd5y]

One issue that I don't see addressed is what issue is being addressed with the ham radios?

It's probably for Joint Commission accreditation.
The FCC changed the rules back in 2010 to allow hospital emlpoyees who are licensed hams to operate the stations as part of their jobs and be paid for it.
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-10-124A1.pdf

 

[ke6ats]

Since others have already posted the plethora of technical issues with your project (which are beyond my level of expertise), I just cannot help but add this. As another poster said, outsource this deal to a qualified, reputable shop. Then run, run like the wind away from it. I’ve been in your situation more than once and have gotten burned every time. No offense to your boss or you, but, the “boss” in this type of situation usually has absolutely no knowledge of what’s involved to realize what he envisions. As an employee of a hospital myself, who’s also called “the radio guy”, you’re going to have to deal with a myriad of administrative types and agencies to get the job done right. Wash your hands of this mess while you can. Just my 2 cents.

 

[W5lz]

not the same situation, but close. The local EOC has furnished ham radios to the local Health department. Part of the deal was that employees of the Health department had to become licensed hams and learn how to operate the radios. We got the equipment installed but no employees ever got licensed. So members of the local club (associated with the EOC) are supposed to go to that Health department to operate that station. I think there's been on simulated test. A local ham did go to the Health department and did the radio thing. After that test I don't think that radio has been touched since, and that was three years ago. No idea what's happened since but I can make a very good guess. I figure it is/was a typical "get by" thing and don't count on anything ever coming out of it. Good luck with the hospital installation.
(Don't ask about the local hospital and radio stuff, you don't want to know and I wish I didn't!)

 

[HospitalRadioGuy]

Little bit of an update.

I met with my boss and the head electrician and biomed. I explained all the concerns you guys have mentioned.
Biomed is fine with the antennas as long as they are on the upper roof. I gave them all the information on frequencies, output, antenna type, etc.
The electrician accepted responsibility for dealing with the actual antenna mounting and lightning protection.
The electrician has a contractor they will get to do the cable pull. I still can't figure out if the cable is riser rated. It doesn't say so on the label, so I'm assuming it's not. Boss agreed to buy the proper cable if necessary.
Boss vetoed the idea of putting the actual radios on the top floor.
So, the cable and antenna are the responsibility of other people now.

My big problem now is that the cable run will actually be around 300 feet. That's a pretty big loss, especially for the UHF. Is there any type of signal booster we could install?

And the radios and other stuff were provided by the state health department. All the surrounding hospitals have them too. But most of them are 2-3 floors.

Thank you all again for all the advice. I've been handed a pain-in-the-butt project, but I want to make sure it's done right. And this is also very educational for me.

 

[mmckenna]

Little bit of an update.

I met with my boss and the head electrician and biomed. I explained all the concerns you guys have mentioned.
Biomed is fine with the antennas as long as they are on the upper roof. I gave them all the information on frequencies, output, antenna type, etc.
The electrician accepted responsibility for dealing with the actual antenna mounting and lightning protection.
The electrician has a contractor they will get to do the cable pull.

Be careful with electricians. They can likely handle the antenna mounting and grounding. But pulling the cable is totally different than pulling electrical wire. Coax cannot be kinked. You may need to watch them pull the cable.
I've had electrical contractors install coax for me, but I supervise.

Installing coaxial connectors is well outside the experience level of your average electrician, especially the types of connectors you'll need on the size cable for that length of run. You can have them install the cable, but consider having a respected local radio shop come in and do the final connector install and testing (you really want the cable swept after termination). A good radio shop can do a lot for you.

I still can't figure out if the cable is riser rated. It doesn't say so on the label, so I'm assuming it's not. Boss agreed to buy the proper cable if necessary.

Unless you know for sure by running the manufactures part number, it isn't. RG-8 is no where near suitable for a run that long.

Boss vetoed the idea of putting the actual radios on the top floor.

That was to be expected. Finding an empty room in a hospital is nearly impossible. We've had to build out new telecom closets in medical facilities at work and it's always a huge challenge.

So, the cable and antenna are the responsibility of other people now.

My big problem now is that the cable run will actually be around 300 feet. That's a pretty big loss, especially for the UHF. Is there any type of signal booster we could install?

Yeah, that's going to be your big challenge.
300 feet of RG-8 is going to have 13dB of loss, which means your 50 watt UHF radio is going to result in about 2.3 watts actually making it to the antenna. That isn't going to work very well. Bigger issue will be that any received signal is going to be reduced by the same amount. That's going to result in a nearly deaf receiver. That makes is a pretty useless system.

7/8" Heliax is going to work much better. 2.4dB of loss, which is something you can actually work with. That means a 50 watt UHF radio is going to give you almost 29 watts out at the antenna end, and on the receive side that's a totally manageable amount of loss.

7/8" Heliax is going to need a 2" conduit.

Big issue is that 7/8" Heliax is going to be several dollars per foot. $5 buck a foot. So, you are looking at a few thousand dollars of cable, connectors and install labor.
The cable also needs to be grounded, so you'll need coax grounding kits, support kits for the vertical runs (to support the weight of the cable), coax connectors, sealing, etc.

On the VHF side, it's going to fare better.

For HF, you can do with lower grade cable. You could probably get by with the RG-8 if it was riser rated, but since it likely isn't you will need to use something else. Might as well get better cable. Most of the real costs is in the installation labor anyway.
For something like LMR-600-FR (riser rated) the loss is manageable, but you are still looking at several dollars per foot.
If it was me, I'd probably run 1/2" Heliax since the costs become similar and the performance is higher. Like I said, labor is the bigger cost.

You could do an amplifier/pre-amplifier set up, but then there's challenges with powering those, accessing them, locating them, etc. I could be made to work, but it's going to be a bigger challenge and not save any money at all. I use a tower top amplifier for one of my 800MHz systems, and it works, but we are looking at a narrow slice of spectrum and were still running large coaxial cable. It's not a good solution for your application.

And the radios and other stuff were provided by the state health department. All the surrounding hospitals have them too. But most of them are 2-3 floors.

There's an issue. Health Department specifying radio equipment in a boiler plate manner for all hospitals. While the core equipment might be fine, the coax and all the stuff they didn't include becomes a bigger issue.

 

[prcguy]

I had a project once to install some 1/2" Heliax throughout a big building with multiple patch points to various rooms and connect to three Discones on the roof. I met with a competent contractor who could easily handle everything and our facilities manager, head electrician and others were in the meeting. When the meeting was over our idiot facilities manager took the detailed proposal from the vendor with parts list, cable lengths, etc, handed it to head electrician and said have your guys do it and save a bundle.

I chimed in and reminded them they weren't qualified to run the Heliax, install the connectors or sweep the cables as the vendor quoted. They did it anyway and damaged the Heliax and walked away when it came time to install the connectors. It cost nearly as much to have a company come in later to install the connectors and sweep the system as it would have cost for the original vendor to do everything properly.

Plan it out, do it right, do it once and don't let anyone mess with your project once you have the details dialed in.

Be careful with electricians. They can likely handle the antenna mounting and grounding. But pulling the cable is totally different than pulling electrical wire. Coax cannot be kinked. You may need to watch them pull the cable.
I've had electrical contractors install coax for me, but I supervise.

Installing coaxial connectors is well outside the experience level of your average electrician, especially the types of connectors you'll need on the size cable for that length of run. You can have them install the cable, but consider having a respected local radio shop come in and do the final connector install and testing (you really want the cable swept after termination). A good radio shop can do a lot for you.

[/QUOTE]

 

[AK9R]

Thank you all again for all the advice. I've been handed a pain-in-the-butt project, but I want to make sure it's done right. And this is also very educational for me.

This has been said before, but I think it bears repeating:

Contact your county's Emergency Management or Department of Homeland Security director. Explain to him/her that you are looking for help developing a radio communications plan involving amateur radio for use by your hospital during emergencies. Your EMA/EMD/DHS may already have a team of volunteers in place who can help you with communications. If not, there are some other resources to consider, but start with EMA/EMD/DHS.

As I mentioned before, it's great that you are putting together this equipment, but you need to figure out who you are going to talk to.

 

[HospitalRadioGuy]

Be careful with electricians. They can likely handle the antenna mounting and grounding. But pulling the cable is totally different than pulling electrical wire. Coax cannot be kinked. You may need to watch them pull the cable.
I've had electrical contractors install coax for me, but I supervise.

Installing coaxial connectors is well outside the experience level of your average electrician, especially the types of connectors you'll need on the size cable for that length of run. You can have them install the cable, but consider having a respected local radio shop come in and do the final connector install and testing (you really want the cable swept after termination). A good radio shop can do a lot for you.



Unless you know for sure by running the manufactures part number, it isn't. RG-8 is no where near suitable for a run that long.



That was to be expected. Finding an empty room in a hospital is nearly impossible. We've had to build out new telecom closets in medical facilities at work and it's always a huge challenge.



Yeah, that's going to be your big challenge.
300 feet of RG-8 is going to have 13dB of loss, which means your 50 watt UHF radio is going to result in about 2.3 watts actually making it to the antenna. That isn't going to work very well. Bigger issue will be that any received signal is going to be reduced by the same amount. That's going to result in a nearly deaf receiver. That makes is a pretty useless system.

7/8" Heliax is going to work much better. 2.4dB of loss, which is something you can actually work with. That means a 50 watt UHF radio is going to give you almost 29 watts out at the antenna end, and on the receive side that's a totally manageable amount of loss.

7/8" Heliax is going to need a 2" conduit.

Big issue is that 7/8" Heliax is going to be several dollars per foot. $5 buck a foot. So, you are looking at a few thousand dollars of cable, connectors and install labor.
The cable also needs to be grounded, so you'll need coax grounding kits, support kits for the vertical runs (to support the weight of the cable), coax connectors, sealing, etc.

On the VHF side, it's going to fare better.

For HF, you can do with lower grade cable. You could probably get by with the RG-8 if it was riser rated, but since it likely isn't you will need to use something else. Might as well get better cable. Most of the real costs is in the installation labor anyway.
For something like LMR-600-FR (riser rated) the loss is manageable, but you are still looking at several dollars per foot.
If it was me, I'd probably run 1/2" Heliax since the costs become similar and the performance is higher. Like I said, labor is the bigger cost.

You could do an amplifier/pre-amplifier set up, but then there's challenges with powering those, accessing them, locating them, etc. I could be made to work, but it's going to be a bigger challenge and not save any money at all. I use a tower top amplifier for one of my 800MHz systems, and it works, but we are looking at a narrow slice of spectrum and were still running large coaxial cable. It's not a good solution for your application.

There's an issue. Health Department specifying radio equipment in a boiler plate manner for all hospitals. While the core equipment might be fine, the coax and all the stuff they didn't include becomes a bigger issue.

This is VERY helpful. Money talks.

If I could just convince him to install the radios upstairs it would solve so much.
Do you happen to know if there are HF/VHF/UHF radios with a remote head we could somehow make work? I know many radios can be software controlled, but that opens the risk of network failure, computer failure, etc.

 

[HospitalRadioGuy]

This has been said before, but I think it bears repeating:

Contact your county's Emergency Management or Department of Homeland Security director. Explain to him/her that you are looking for help developing a radio communications plan involving amateur radio for use by your hospital during emergencies. Your EMA/EMD/DHS may already have a team of volunteers in place who can help you with communications. If not, there are some other resources to consider, but start with EMA/EMD/DHS.

As I mentioned before, it's great that you are putting together this equipment, but you need to figure out who you are going to talk to.

I will definitely get in contact with them, and the local clubs. Where I used to live, I knew everyone. The EMA director, 911 director, local hams, public safety, pretty much everyone. Now I'm at a new job in a new state and starting all over. I just don't want my first project to be a failure.

 

[6079smithw]

There's one other aspect I didn't see mentioned here: liability...
Sadly, that's a major deal these days. Lord forbid anything goes wrong, be it lightning, fire, you name it, someone's going to be on the hook for damages/injury of any sort, there's a squad of attorneys ready to pounce at a moment's notice.
There's a lot at stake. One improperly installed component, something not up to code and it's game over with these people.
As others have mentioned, this may be a task for licensed professionals.
Run the project past your Admin Dept. We called it C.Y.A. in the military.

Just my $0.02, good luck!

 

[mmckenna]

This is VERY helpful. Money talks.

If I could just convince him to install the radios upstairs it would solve so much.
Do you happen to know if there are HF/VHF/UHF radios with a remote head we could somehow make work? I know many radios can be software controlled, but that opens the risk of network failure, computer failure, etc.

Yes, there are remotely controlled radios that will fit that requirement.

However, having both HF and VHF/UHF in one radio with one controller may be limiting what the system will do.

VHF/UHF is for local communications, in most cases.
HF is for long haul stuff, statewide, likely for this application.
The traffic on the two systems may be different, so being able to hear it all at once as well as have different people talking on different systems may be an issue.
This is where knowing what the original intent was for this system.

The remote system for amateur radio gear will require a functional data network, which may not be an issue. However, as you are saying, you should make sure that in a disaster the internal data network would be functional.

Full on remote control is easier with commercial gear.
The issue with the amateur gear is the remote head radios won't work over 300+ feet.


I think the state office screwed up. Cookie cutter installations don't exist, so buying a standardized load of equipment and expecting it to work in every situation rarely works out. Doesn't sound like they've communicated what their expectations are, either. Sounds a lot like someone had some budget left over and wanted to spend it.

A better approach MAY BE to do a portable setup of all this stuff. It would be cheaper than all the coax and labor you'll need for the current plan.

Find a location with back up power/generator. Mount the antennas on the roof/pole/tower. Run the coax down to a box. Mount the radio equipment in something like a Pelican shipping case with power supply, etc. When needed, pull the box out, connect to the antennas and away you go. It provides a lot of flexibility and will save a bunch of money.

We have our EOC set up this way, everything is portable and we just have antennas mounted on the buildings we may use, as well as mobile setups.

 

[Golay]

FWIW, in southeast Michigan there is equipment deployed to all the region's hospitals, for hams to operate, in case of major disasters. The equipment is managed via the county EOCs, on behalf of the state EOC. The operators would be via RACES, not just walk-in volunteers.

I know other areas have similar programs, so I am hoping the OP's hospital is in one of them. (I will guess that the boss has pushed this project off, for a time, and has realized that there is a looming deadline.)

As I scrolled thru the thread, the reply I was going to give is basically a xerox copy of what krokus said.
I also live in SE Michigan, Wayne County to be specific, which includes Detroit.

If I remember correctly, and this goes back at least 15 years, the installs for the hospitals in Wayne County were done by the county ARES/RACES hams. I believe there is no radio equipment at the hospitals. What they have is feedline and an outside antenna, and an RF jack mounted on the wall in the emergency room. In case of dire circumstances or a mock drill, a member of ARES/RACES hooks a handheld and a jumper up to the RF jack.

Perhaps a good start for HospitalRadioGuy is to reach out to his county's EOC/ARES/RACES hams.
They would be familiar with the proper way to do this.
If you don't know where to start, post your county and state, and we will figure out the proper people to talk to for you.

 

[iMONITOR]

There's one other aspect I didn't see mentioned here: liability...
Sadly, that's a major deal these days. Lord forbid anything goes wrong, be it lightning, fire, you name it, someone's going to be on the hook for damages/injury of any sort, there's a squad of attorneys ready to pounce at a moment's notice.
There's a lot at stake. One improperly installed component, something not up to code and it's game over with these people.
As others have mentioned, this may be a task for licensed professionals.
Run the project past your Admin Dept. We called it C.Y.A. in the military.

Just my $0.02, good luck!

Liability was brought up in Post #15

On another note I imagine a permit would be required, followed up by an inspection and approval.

 

[DaveNF2G]

There's never time (or money) to do it right, but always time (and money) to do it over.

 

[HospitalRadioGuy]

I think the plan is that the HF will be used if we have to communicate with another hospital many miles away. And the VHF/UHF will be used for local stuff like Skywarn/ARES.

Has anyone had any experience with this?
http://www.remoterig.com/wp/?page_id=1188

Or something similar?

Again, I truly appreciate everyone's help. I'm passing along the information to my boss and doing my best to "find a solution" without flat out telling him it can't be done.