California declares Ham Radio no longer a benefit......

[KK6ZTE]

I think people need to remember that a lot of state owned radio vaults are overfilled with equipment and undersized to begin with. Additionally, with the ham desire to keep old (free) stuff running as long as possible, you have oversized equipment (MastrII, MSR and MSF) taking up very valuable rack space. It comes to a point that with growing technology demands (CDF's VHF based AVL system) that non-paying tenants might have to move. There's no grand conspiracy.

As far as Santa Barbara County goes, since we are on a communications site talking about radios, they're just a mess.

 

[vagrant]

Unfortuneately, this sitiuation is playing out all over the country. Just move the repeater. When the SHTF and they come back begging for help, remind them of the move.

Remind them of the move? Do you mean if their system is offline and or they need an amateur system to pass traffic that they should be reminded that because of the forced move there is now redundancy which helps everyone?

When I offer my help, I avoid making it conditional.

 

[Paysonscanner]

I grew up in Arizona and moved back here last November about a year after my husband died. In between, from the mid 70's to 2018 hubby and I lived in a small Sierra foothill county. I get so tired of the California bashing as I loved where we lived, the Sierra Nevada is a very special place. As soon as I moved to my parents house in Payson, people noticed my CA license plates and started in on me. It's as ignorant as people thinking that AZ is all desert and cactus. All of my professional career (R.N.) took place in CA and I enjoyed that immensely. My dear late husband was a civil engineer for the county we lived in and he enjoyed his career as much as I did mine. I wouldn't live in the urban areas in CA, but that's my feeling no matter what state is involved. CA does some things differently than other states, mostly because it grapples with having 40 million people.

AZ should not throw rocks as it lives in a glass house. Two of its governors left office early, one impeached (Evan Mecham in 1988 - 6 felony convictions) and one resigned to avoid impeachment after being convicted of felonies (Fife Symington in 1997). Do we have to be reminded of that long time Maricopa County Sheriff?

The letter is unnecessarily long and does not cast a good light on ham radio. The video is not much better, he said "hundreds" of people died in the Camp Fire, dozens would be accurate, but not over 100. Ham radio came up short of providing help during the Ridgecrest earthquake events due to a lack of both preparation and knowledge of how to program radios without a computer. Some emergency services personnel are ignorant as far as what ham radio can do and how all that newer technology can fail. That's kinda like the general public that doesn't know the difference between CB radio and amateur radio. The small hospital I worked in has a converted storage room that has lots of radios, including an HF rig. Hams came in to do radio checks monthly and they took part in drills the hospital did. Our hospital had a tall antenna tower on it, with plenty of space for multiple antennas. The hospital was part of a government healthcare district. Caltrans district offices have an HF radio in it, with hams coming in for a monthly radio check there too. The one hubby and I visited 15+ years ago had 10m, 6m, 2m and 70cm radios as well located in a room next to their dispatch room.

 

[Paysonscanner]

I've watched this unfold since that one single email got sent, and it's been overblown into one massive sh!#show that completely over-exaggerates what the initial intent of the email/letter was to the CalFire ECC Battalion Chief, and the trustee of the ham repeater in a particular single vault.

Seriously, we have lost our damn minds people. Reading Comprehension 101. We are all on edge, just waiting to be triggered by the right word or phrase and then we start making loud noises, banging pots and pans, and we don't ever stop to ask, "wait, why are we making the loud noises again?" It's a direct correlation to the political partisanship we all are really enjoying over the last decade or more. The self-entitlement is astronomical.

Good god if this is the worse case scenario and a bureaucracy dept somewhere deep in Sac decided to audit their vaults, then let's keep our damn heads low and hopefully survive another year or so with the natural speed of bureaucracy. But no, hams do what they do best, self-destruct at the loudest self-entitled volume, something about emcomm, and now every middle manager in the state is going to poke around and ask "hey do we have one of those hams in our thingy up on the mountain?"

I've followed the other thread about this lawyer's local communication system. Many people commented on how overly complicated the instructions and procedures are. The letter is kinda like the instructions, very lengthy. The video is terrible. Your comments are very accurate, this from a retired R.N. who worked for a government health care district. My husband worked for a county public works department as a civil engineer. We became accustomed to the rumor mill and overreactions after initially being shocked by it when we first started our careers. My husband would go out and put flagging on a tree or a stake in the ground needed to fix a curb near a storm drain then we would overhear someone talking in a restaurant about the flagging being part of a hidden county government agenda of eminent domain to build a road to a FEMA camp, alien landing site or something equally absurd (OK, I embellish, but not that much). My husband had quite a sense of humor about the whole thing, making a negative into a positive. He was so good with the public.

 

[mmckenna]

I think people need to remember that a lot of state owned radio vaults are overfilled with equipment and undersized to begin with. Additionally, with the ham desire to keep old (free) stuff running as long as possible, you have oversized equipment (MastrII, MSR and MSF) taking up very valuable rack space. It comes to a point that with growing technology demands (CDF's VHF based AVL system) that non-paying tenants might have to move. There's no grand conspiracy.

^^^ THIS.

DGS owns/manages a lot of radio sites for the state. They are under no obligation to provide free space to amateur radio operators or any other hobbyist. Working for another branch of the state, I can tell you that giving away space for free can get us into trouble with our contracts/real estate group really fast.

We don't allow amateurs access to any of our sites, free, paying or otherwise. Tower space isn't cheap, neither is backed up power, cooling, rack space, access roads, etc. We've also found that many amateurs/hobbyists have very low work quality, which can lead to issues. Failure/refusal to use intermod suppression systems at crowded sites, low quality antennas, mounts, coax, etc. Lack of understanding about lightning protection, those sorts of things put the entire site at risk. Our real estate office also requires some pretty substantial insurance to allow outsiders to work at our sites, well beyond what hobbyists are willing to pay for. Accessing some of our sites involves security clearances that many cannot pass. Putting requirements for that, as well as industry standard workmanship usually results in the amateurs walking away and telling us were "too difficult to work with".

There is nothing stopping amateurs from building their own repeater sites. There is no requirement that amateur repeaters be installed at the same site as public safety equipment. There is no requirement that the government fund any of these systems or their support. In reality, if amateurs wanted to really prove their worth, they should specifically be installing their systems at alternate sites from public safety systems. The "all your eggs in one basket" doesn't do anything for redundancy.

The whole Shingletown communications plan designed by that guy is way too complicated and some of the suggestions were in violation of FCC rules. I don't put a lot of stock in an amateur that proposes solutions that ignore reality and the FCC. His video sounds like a long winded whine-fest about him not getting something for free. He needs to put his big-boy pants on come up with a solution. The state does not owe him free tower/rack space. The amateur EMCOMM thing has been beat to death. Amateur radio has its place in disasters, but hobbyists need to not confuse their chosen pass time as being the same as public safety. Whackerism comes to mind...

 

[mmckenna]

I've followed the other thread about this lawyer's local communication system. Many people commented on how overly complicated the instructions and procedures are. The letter is kinda like the instructions, very lengthy. The video is terrible. Your comments are very accurate, this from a retired R.N. who worked for a government health care district. My husband worked for a county public works department as a civil engineer. We became accustomed to the rumor mill and overreactions after initially being shocked by it when we first started our careers. My husband would go out and put flagging on a tree or a stake in the ground needed to fix a curb near a storm drain then we would overhear someone talking in a restaurant about the flagging being part of a hidden county government agenda of eminent domain to build a road to a FEMA camp, alien landing site or something equally absurd (OK, I embellish, but not that much). My husband had quite a sense of humor about the whole thing, making a negative into a positive. He was so good with the public.

Well said.

I'd love for some of the "Kalifornia" bashers to please post what state they live in. I'm sure we could find plenty of fodder to use against them if we wanted to sink to that level.

If someone doesn't want to live, work or visit in California, then don't. No one is requiring it, and none of us Californians are sitting here wringing our hands hoping you'll move here.

Most of the rules people complain about were developed because they were needed. They are needed because someone usually did something stupid. Locking hobbyists out of public safety radio sites is just good practice, especially now with the focus on security.

I'm honestly surprised this hasn't happened sooner.

As an amateur myself, I'm kind of tired of hearing amateurs wanting "freebies" because of some imagined public safety role. Amateur radio has its place, but confusing it with a public safety system is a bad thing.

 

[Paysonscanner]

@norcalscan

Thanks again for your very good comment. As an R.N. I dealt some people in the "Anti-Vax" movement. Science and reason had no influence. I've got to quit posting, I don't like getting into political talk.

EDIT My husband, right out of high school worked for a security firm that was screening Delta Airlines flights due to all the hijackings to Cuba that airline experienced. The public was not used to those walk through metal detectors. He told me people would look all over them as they walked through. Some guys would hesitate walking through them. My husband, who I miss so much, after the men had passed through would walk up to them and say "Congratulations, you are now officially sterile" then crack a smile right after. The men would then relax about the experience and laugh right along with him.

 

[Paysonscanner]

@norcalscan

This is her Dad, people keep telling me we live in a "post factual era."

 

[k6cpo]

Your link doesn’t work, so this might be better:

I watched about two-thirds of the video before I tired of his rant. It's obvious he's letting his prejudices against the state of California color his "reporting" and he's got the story completely wrong.

 

[Hit_Factor]

I watched about two-thirds of the video before I tired of his rant.

I couldn't watch that much of it.

He has figured out that he can sell his opinion when masquerading as news or a ham spokesman. No creditability in my book.

 

[vagrant]

YouTuber's who post videos over 10 minutes long probably have a monetary agenda. That is a magic minute number for YouTube and better payout$ for views. I like that others on this forum are critical thinkers and know when to squelch a faulty diatribe.

Enjoy the weekend everyone

 

[zz0468]

Thank you.

I've seen the email. While it contains some disappointing language, what I've seen does not spell the end of the world. It's basically an email to a single system stating that they're going to have to pay for site space in CalFire radio sites. That's IT.

There's nothing in it to indicate that it's some new statewide policy. There's nothing in it to indicate that CalFire, or CalOES or any other agency is abdicating any MOU's they may have with various systems, and there's certainly nothing in it that would affect systems in other governmental or privately owned sites. It's not even stating that systems have to be removed from their radio sites. It's stating that they have to pay for it. And it's not going to be cheap.

I've watched this unfold since that one single email got sent, and it's been overblown into one massive sh!#show that completely over-exaggerates what the initial intent of the email/letter was to the CalFire ECC Battalion Chief, and the trustee of the ham repeater in a particular single vault.

Seriously, we have lost our damn minds people. Reading Comprehension 101. We are all on edge, just waiting to be triggered by the right word or phrase and then we start making loud noises, banging pots and pans, and we don't ever stop to ask, "wait, why are we making the loud noises again?" It's a direct correlation to the political partisanship we all are really enjoying over the last decade or more. The self-entitlement is astronomical.

Good god if this is the worse case scenario and a bureaucracy dept somewhere deep in Sac decided to audit their vaults, then let's keep our damn heads low and hopefully survive another year or so with the natural speed of bureaucracy. But no, hams do what they do best, self-destruct at the loudest self-entitled volume, something about emcomm, and now every middle manager in the state is going to poke around and ask "hey do we have one of those hams in our thingy up on the mountain?"

 

[zz0468]

Is this letter that was sent a statewide thing where ALL repeater owners/trustees have to pay CAL FIRE rent?

No.

But in reading how the letter was written, it certainly does suggest that.

It doesn't come close to saying that.

But, does CAL FIRE/the State own any repeater sites?

Yes, but probably very few have ham repeaters in them.

But if the sites are privately owned by the aforementioned tower companies, then why the letter? Why is CAL FIRE/the State wanting to charge rent if the site is privately owned?

They're not. They have no power to charge rent for stuff located in someone elses building. I'm not sure I understand what was said that would give you that impression, or what would make you think that's legal or permissible.

I recall in the past that tower companies would give repeater space to owners/trustees for little to no charge in exchange for grounds maintenance; such as defensible space around the vaults and towers as well as the the site itself. I don't know that to be true today, but that is how I remember it.

That's NEVER been universal, but those deals still exist in some places. It's all about who you know.

I think repeater owners/trustees who may have received the email need to contact CAL FIRE and get more information. At the same time, those very same owners/trustees need to contact the tower companies and ask questions. Who owns what? Maybe a mutual agreement can be met.

No, what people need to do is settle down. A ham repeater located in a municipal owned site needn't worry about this letter. A ham repeater located in a commercial site needn't worry. A ham repeater in a federally owned site needn't worry. A hame repeater in a CHP owned site needn't worry. And so on. It's just CalFire ONLY, and they're stating that they won't provide financial support, and leave an opening (albeit an expensive one) to maintain a presence in a CalFire site.

 

[zz0468]

In my area there is a very well known and large multi site linked repeater system that is notorious for shoe horning their equipment into places it doesn't belong, or giving false information in order to install their non public service related amateur repeaters in public service sites for free. Repeater groups like that give the community a bad name and piss off our public service hosts.

Shorty screws up everything he touches.

 

[Citywide173]

Remind them of the move? Do you mean if their system is offline and or they need an amateur system to pass traffic that they should be reminded that because of the forced move there is now redundancy which helps everyone?

When I offer my help, I avoid making it conditional.

But is it redundant? Does it have the same coverage that it enjoyed at the previous site? Will they complain when it doesn't? Does the trustee now have prohibitive out of pocket expenses that make the repeater unreliable? Did the repeater even move as opposed to being just taken down? Saying it is redundant is a pretty big claim when it most likely won't be.

 

[zz0468]

I've gotta comment on a couple of things here. Your entire post is spot on, especially the last sentence.

We've also found that many amateurs/hobbyists have very low work quality, which can lead to issues.

The worst I've ever seen was a two meter repeater in a local govt owned site. The transmitter and receiver were enclosed in the two halves of a Coleman lantern fuel can that had been cut in half. Unpainted, with rusty jagged edges.

Failure/refusal to use intermod suppression systems at crowded sites, low quality antennas, mounts, coax, etc. Lack of understanding about lightning protection, those sorts of things put the entire site at risk.

Entirely correct. One mishandled feed-line can wipe out the lightning suppression efforts done to every other piece of equipment in a building. Hams are notoriously cheap.

There is nothing stopping amateurs from building their own repeater sites.

Technically, this is true, but I'm aware of applications for ham built sites on federal land that should be cheap or free to use taking in excess of a decade to even get looked at. The government WILL drag their feet as long as possible, in the hopes that ham applicants will go away.

The whole Shingletown communications plan designed by that guy is way too complicated and some of the suggestions were in violation of FCC rules.

It wouldn't be far fetched to think of that particular plan as being evidence of the uselessness of ham radio.

The amateur EMCOMM thing has been beat to death. Amateur radio has its place in disasters, but hobbyists need to not confuse their chosen pass time as being the same as public safety. Whackerism comes to mind...

A lot of EMCOMM oriented hams tend to think of ham radio as being a replacement for public safety systems in an emergency. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ham radio's advantage is that it's an ad-hoc resource that can be configured on the fly for whatever the circumstance needs, and can offload critical networks of their non-critical disaster related traffic. It's a resource with very limited capability. Any EMCOMM plans should play on those limitations, not pretend it's more than it is.

 

[prcguy]

I didn't mention the specific system sticking things where they don't belong, but you nailed it.

Shorty screws up everything he touches.

 

[Hit_Factor]

I was reading some posts on Facebook regarding this, (I know, I should stop) and one operator justified his emcomm relevance by disclosing he has a concealed weapons permit.

That just made me cringe. It's fine with me if he has a CCW, but linking that to volunteer emcomm shows he's has no idea of the served agency's needs.

 

[Paysonscanner]

I've gotta comment on a couple of things here. Your entire post is spot on, especially the last sentence.



The worst I've ever seen was a two meter repeater in a local govt owned site. The transmitter and receiver were enclosed in the two halves of a Coleman lantern fuel can that had been cut in half. Unpainted, with rusty jagged edges.



Entirely correct. One mishandled feed-line can wipe out the lightning suppression efforts done to every other piece of equipment in a building. Hams are notoriously cheap.



Technically, this is true, but I'm aware of applications for ham built sites on federal land that should be cheap or free to use taking in excess of a decade to even get looked at. The government WILL drag their feet as long as possible, in the hopes that ham applicants will go away.



It wouldn't be far fetched to think of that particular plan as being evidence of the uselessness of ham radio.



A lot of EMCOMM oriented hams tend to think of ham radio as being a replacement for public safety systems in an emergency. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ham radio's advantage is that it's an ad-hoc resource that can be configured on the fly for whatever the circumstance needs, and can offload critical networks of their non-critical disaster related traffic. It's a resource with very limited capability. Any EMCOMM plans should play on those limitations, not pretend it's more than it is.

As a nurse at a smallish hospital in a small town, rural county setting in addition to being a ham, the role of ham radio in disasters was well spelled out. Hams set up a great logistics net when the exercise simulated phone systems being down. In exercises the hospital staff participated in, statewide, region wide and county wide, hams were used for supply orders and health and welfare traffic. Hams were stationed at mock evacuation centers and passed info on to hams in the incident command post so that people looking for people had a list they could look at. The traffic on these, mostly HF based, nets was lengthy and would overwhelm public safety comm systems and take up a great deal of time for public safety personnel. Hams step in as volunteers who will take the time to set up the nets and gather the info. It's a great role for hams, most who take ICS courses to qualify to participate. The hams in our county/region did this with a great deal of professionalism with no cop/firefighter/medic/hospital wannabe/groupie behavior. My late hubby was a county civil engineer involved in the mock road system scenarios in the mock command post and out in the field. At times he headed up a group that made sure emergency generators around town kept working. A large number of county employees had a lot of ICS training, equipment and such. The exercises helped us find and try to address the kinks in the system that we would not have identified if we didn't do these mock exercises.

The hams that came into our hospital were long time residents who also were members of Rotary/Lions Club, chambers of commerce and county employees whose primary jobs were not emergency related. You would see these people at community fundraising pancake breakfasts flipping the jacks, behind the food lines at community barbecues, packmasters of Cub Scout packs, Scoutmasters of Boy Scout troops, AYSO members, yada yada. The salt of the earth folks in small towns who are well liked and respected, who gave of themselves to help. The people involved in this effort in Shingletown, at least the writer of the letter and the person on the video don't seem to fit into this group. I say this because of the inappropriate and ineffective political discussion that took up so much video time. I could be wrong, but this is my initial impression.

 

[K7MFC]

I was reading some posts on Facebook regarding this, (I know, I should stop) and one operator justified his emcomm relevance by disclosing he has a concealed weapons permit.

Probably has one of those call sign shields too lol.