Rockwell Collins nationwide disaster HF radio

[brscomm]

I come from a public safety background and the thought of adopting the typical net control procedures scares me. Public safety does not work that way and in an emergency, hams don't need to either. We don't ask the dispatcher if we can talk, If the channel is clear then we transmit,

In my opinion, hams need to burn down their net control systems and adopt the procedures the local agencies use. Yes, you CAN use tactical callsigns. Especially in an emergency situation. No, you don't need a net controller.

 

[mmckenna]

I come from a public safety background and the thought of adopting the typical net control procedures scares me. Public safety does not work that way and in an emergency, hams don't need to either. We don't ask the dispatcher if we can talk, If the channel is clear then we transmit,

In my opinion, hams need to burn down their net control systems and adopt the procedures the local agencies use. Yes, you CAN use tactical callsigns. Especially in an emergency situation. No, you don't need a net controller.

Damn. Right.

 

[majoco]

Now I have had a ham licence since way back in the early 80's and before that I was a professional operator (they paid me for it) in the Merchant Navy and the Royal Navy so I have some experience.

The last thing that Emergency Operators want is a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs running around telling everyone that they have the situation under control and you should do everything I say. If you really want to help then go along to your Police, Fire, Ambulance station or whatever and say you would like to be trained as an operator.

This may mean that you may be called out to work at midnight to 0800 and you can't say "I can't go, the baby needs feeding" - you have to GO. Get real, deal with the professionals, stop pretending that you're helping, you're really a hindrance.

 

[N5XTC]

so be it

Well this take the ham operator out of the loop in helping public safety.......

well, so be it. give squares their family radio systems from walmart and see how far they transmit. HI

 

[signal500]

Where amateur radio can really help is supporting the general public. Getting messages out of the area when phones/internet is down. Health and welfare type messages, etc. Neighbor hood watch, CERT, etc. Organized groups to provide assistance.

100% agree, this is where amateur radio needs to play a key role for emergency communications in the overall ICS plan.

I have been a member of an ARES/RACES team for 25 years and our real advantage lies in the absence of infrastructure. An operator, a radio, a power supply, and antenna can be placed anywhere when needed. This is truly what makes amateur radio useful in disaster situations.

 

[R8000]

I saw this :

“We’re going to run this as a service, similar to having a cell phone,” Chapman said. “We will supply them with a radio that will work on the UrgentLink network, then Rockwell Collins will go out and do the install and manage it.”

“[Customers will] pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee that gives you access to the network and the services that come with it.”

I lost interest. No way I would recommend my Emergency Management customers to have to budget for this. Let me guess...each radio is $15,000, has to be installed by a strange vendor, and is a monthly fee ? Nope.

My county contract customers only want one vendor working in their comm centers and tower sites. If their vendor isn't allowed to install/maintain it...they are not interested.

 

[Jimru]

The two ARES groups I belonged to served both the Red Cross and Salvation Army, not PD/FD or any emergency responders.

 

[mmckenna]

I saw this :

“We’re going to run this as a service, similar to having a cell phone,” Chapman said. “We will supply them with a radio that will work on the UrgentLink network, then Rockwell Collins will go out and do the install and manage it.”

“[Customers will] pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee that gives you access to the network and the services that come with it.”

I lost interest. No way I would recommend my Emergency Management customers to have to budget for this. Let me guess...each radio is $15,000, has to be installed by a strange vendor, and is a monthly fee ? Nope.

My county contract customers only want one vendor working in their comm centers and tower sites. If their vendor isn't allowed to install/maintain it...they are not interested.

That is an excellent point. We do our own installs or use a single contractor. These dispatch systems are way to complex to have an outsider coming in and mucking around. Same reason we would never allow amateur radio volunteers access to any of our equipment or sites.

However, this specific service isn't the only option. HF for public safety has been around as long as radios have. No reason why having a commercial provider in the middle of it is necessary. Many states run their own HF disaster networks. $5000 - $10000 on a commercial HF radio sounds like a lot, but not when you compare it to $5000 + Motorola APX radios.

On the other hand, many agencies are switching to similar models. Nextel tried marketing their services to public safety. Regional "interoperable" radio systems sell services. FirstNet will sell services.
With the demise of the "radio tech" and the gradual progression to more IP based services, it's getting difficult. More and more the radio shop is becoming part of the IT department. It's a good idea, however the guys who manage the IT departments are basically server jockeys that inherit the radio shop. Same thing happened here where I work. Used to be my telephone/radio group was a separate unit. Now we've been "integrated" into the networking team. Works great with all the IP based equipment, but the IT directors here barely know which end of the radio to talk into and still occasionally refer to the radio systems as "those CB's".

 

[iamhere300]

I saw this :

My county contract customers only want one vendor working in their comm centers and tower sites. If their vendor isn't allowed to install/maintain it...they are not interested.

You have a good point, but lets consider a couple of things.

1. Rockwell Collins may contract with local shops for install and maintenance. They may very well willing to work with a vendor that an agency uses.

2. I don't suspect that this will be an option for smaller agencies as much as larger agencies that are either self maintained, or major vendor maintained.

3. If this takes off, and falls into wide acceptance, you still would not recommend it for the reasons you mentioned? Sounds like it is more a concern for business and not the end user.

4. There are other options, Rockwell Collins is simply offering a gateway, equipment, and coordination. Others can do the same thing, on local, regional, US, or larger areas.

 

[iamhere300]

There are thousands of Amateur Radio Operators who regularly step up to help in an emergency to help out in Harris County, TX.

I used Harris County as merely a geographical example. It could be anywhere. At no point did I attempt to discount the work that Amateur Radio operators do in Harris County.

 

[iamhere300]

Well this take the ham operator out of the loop in helping public safety.......

How do you figure? The Amateur Radio operations on the higher bands will not be affected in the least. HF for many operations will remain in Amateur Radio.

 

[SARCommCoord]

I have been an amateur radio operator since 2008, and have been public safety for just as long. I have worked my way up to my current position. The days of amateur radio operators being the "first in" as some of these groups feel are long gone. FEMA, DHS, EMA etc have moved away from amateur operators as being the saviors and have moved towards AUXCOM, where each radio operator and his equipment is now a separate deployable resource. If a radio operator is needed, it will be requested. If not, then it doesn't go. Local and State agencies have enough redundancies in place to support communications in the event they fail. Amateur Radio, in my opinion, serves a better role for EMA as being a link to observers in the field to report status of shelters, storm damage etc (health & welfare). We have trained 911 dispatchers who are part of state or local teams that can set up and tear down comms equipment to support themselves. Even with my own license, I use it to support my Search and Rescue team as another communication method. I am all for agencies getting more redundant communication methods.

 

[902]

This is nothing new in terms of concept of operation. In 2012, Intrado did the same thing with ShipCom (WLO) Part 80 spectrum with less than earth shattering results. I don't expect this will be much different.

Intrado Secures Exclusive Agreement To Supply New High Frequency (HF) Emergency Network For Critical Infrastructure | Intrado

 

[902]

Simple answer:

In tactical real-time operations, we cannot have people needing to ID every 2 seconds, place things in certain ham formats to try to comply with FCC ham rules.

In short, I don't need - and sometimes in fast changing situations a 30 second transmission taking an hour.
(snip)
/rant
+reality

Once upon a time, in my system manager days, there was a department head within a unit of government using the radio system who was a ham. I programmed his radio (all radios, actually) for a 60 second time-out timer. I initially thought that was too much, but when someone's got to read a driver license number or do a patient report to a hospital, why not give them a little room? My philosophy was that if you can't say it in 60 seconds or less, it should not be put over the radio.

Wouldn't you know, he was the first one to ask me to extend the TOT. I did not. Instead, I educated him: 1) Think about what you're going to say; 2) Condense it down to one sentence. Two only if you have to; 3) Press the button and say it; 4) Let the button go; 5) Wait for a response. It's not rocket surgery. There's no room for "fine business" or fake laughing in between sentences. It didn't work. He just learned how to re-key the PTT.

Disclaimer: I'm a ham, too.

On the picture of the ARES guy, well... sometimes people are hard to identify... a vest is probably a better option than a "uniform." And, what's a uniform without shoulder boards, like Cap'n Crunch? Nobody wants to go around looking like a TSA gate agent. I don't know him, so I can't speak to anything else. On his car... I thought it was a picture of our old agency vehicles, except ours had red/blue lights and county insignia. The striping was similar, but had no red in it. It would be a trip if he bought one of our old fleet Jeeps. Those things took a beating.

 

[DisasterGuy]

This appears to be a managed option for those not otherwise able to enter the HF spectrum on their own. You are not going to see this replace sound state OperationSECURE or federal FNARS/SHARES. The former operates on state licensed frequencies and the latter on federal spectrum. FNARS already is fully built on ALE, data, etc using either (old generation) 1KW Harris units or (new generation) 1KW Rockwell Collins units. Anyone that has worked on high end professional HF stations such as the Harris or Rockwell gear will tell you that it in no way compares to what amateur radio can bring to the table. I will say though that using both models has given many hours of fun going through DX pile ups on 20 meters.

While I have been a ham for over 20 years, I also do public safety communications for a living. The role of amateur radio in public safety has very limited utility these days. I have long said that there is NOTHING that can be done in Part 97 spectrum that I can't do equally well or (in most cases) much better in appropriate public safety spectrum.

 

[K5MPH]

Okay, I can see why NVIS HF might be useful. The hard part is figuring out how to organize a net following a disaster, and how to configure a station antenna for NVIS work.

Take a hurricane, for example. How many non-hams know about how to set up, an inverted V antenna? How many non-hams know how to repair equipment that has been struck by lighting? How many would recognize the deficiency prior to a disaster?

These systems need maintenance and practice. Most states put this stuff up thinking that this should be easy and that it will be there following a disaster. That takes a lot of work, constant practice and testing, and a fair amount of knowledge. You won't typically find those people in a 911 call center.

The problem here isn't the frequency allocations, nor is it the cost. It's the training and the constant maintenance. Very few people, outside of ham radio enthusiasts, know how this stuff should perform and should work.

This ought to make lots of money for Rockwell-Collins...

Well i know some hams that don't know a piece of wire from a swr meter and they are Generals and Extra's when you just go memorize A B C or D to pass a test you don't learn very much about Ham Radio.........

 

[Project4]

Nothing but good can come from this.
Imagine a well engineered, well built, "smart" radio transceiver that monitors its environment, determines in advance which channels will most likely carry traffic to intended destinations, fully honors the requests of calling stations no matter how rare the contact and properly and completely identifies itself. That radio, once purchased, comes with installation; safely performed by a crew equipped with cranes, bucket trucks, personal protective equipment and time compensated by more than pizza and beer. The installed system is checked for complete functionality both initially and periodically throughout the owners "subscription". Finally, one or many operators are trained to successfully function the system.

DXCC and other worthy ham goals are difficult to achieve. Sophisticated web based real-time databases and computer controlled transceivers, rotors and antennas promote successful contacts. (Like Rockwell?). However, Amateur radio operators all (should) know that medium range HF radio communications is EASY. Recreational boaters with limited training have successfully communicated with properly installed commercial HF equipment for ages. CB radio operators don't need ham licenses to (improperly) practice "skip" propagation. Modern military and commercial ALE equipped transceivers assist operators with successful communications in harsh environments and stressful conditions.

Don't fear Rockwell Collins. Encourage Harris, Motorola, Codan and Icom/Kenwood/Yaesu to market more rigs with the firmware and hardware that ensure the "appliance operators" success on the HF bands.

And when the vendors push the next generation rigs onto the market, don't snipe me on eBay when I bid on the (now) current gear.

 

[prc117f]

wow cool newfangled hf radios that uses this new ALE cutting edge tech LOL

 

[ten13]

Actually, the government's involvement in all this can be best defined as, "A solution looking for a problem..."

Rather than spending all that money (which was probably the underlying reason why they came up with it), they could have....and should have...evaluated the Amateurs' input into the "problem," how many times it was necessary to put it into use for its full effect, and evaluated the need for a government-controlled operation from there.

But, had they done that, there would have been no justification for lining other peoples' pockets with government money.

And this is why, come April 15th of every year, after having taxes deducted from you salary, you still have to pay MORE to the governments.

 

[wa8pyr]

My two cents. . .

My take on this as a communications professional / county system administrator / COM-L (and ham for 35 years)...

This could perhaps be a valuable service at the state EOC level rather than the county or local level, assuming that the state EOC doesn't already have access to SHARES or other Federal level ALE-type services (some do, some don't depending on how forward-looking they are). The monthly or yearly cost alone for the Rockwell service that may never be needed makes it such that I couldn't recommend that local or county users budget for it, since there are other options available at little or no monthly cost that would be easier for an untrained (or lightly trained) operator to use.

As far as ham radio goes, normal Part 97 rules regarding identifying can be waived during a major emergency if necessary. It's been done before and isn't that hard to make happen; in an emergency the FCC can act with uncharacteristic rapidity.

And while normal net control procedures might seem silly and inflexible to some, they're actually what's practiced for and expected during a major operation; a net can be as formal or informal as needed in a given situation, but there's still a net control and designated operators with callsigns, whether it's last names, numbers or tactical call signs. Even tactical fireground communications are really just a loosely organized net.

Ham radio serves a very valuable purpose, especially from the standpoint of a pool of trained operators, and they don't have to use ham radio frequencies, either. Around here at least the hams train regularly and are well aware of proper operating procedure; I could hand the hams around here some of our 800 MHz radios, tell them what talkgroup(s) to operate on and callsigns to use, and they could do it. They could do the same thing with HF ALE go-kits on federal frequencies if I need to set up HF stations at different locations.

I'd much rather use hams as HF operators in any case as they're most likely going to have a better grasp of operating under a variety of HF peculiarities, using a commercially-based service or not. No matter what, HF just isn't generally a "flip the switch and go" type of service like VHF, UHF or 800 MHz.