Where's the ARRL's vaunted EMCOMM?

[GlobalNorth]

The State of Haw'aii has undergone a disaster on the island of Maui and with all respect to those who've died, been injured, and or lost their homes and property; where is the ARRL and their much talked about EMCOMM capacity? There is no mention of anything on their website as of 1745 GMT and nothing in their public service section of their website. It is as if nothing has happened,

Yes, I know power is down and there are only about ~3,000 amateurs in the State, but someone there has to have access to an emergency generator/solar panels, a ticket, and a HF radio.

I guess wildfires weren't planned for in their 'scenario gaming'.

 

[dcr_inc]

Ok.. That's nice BUT why are they needed? There are MANY first responders and help agencies on the ground. Communications to and from the island are operational

 

[GlobalNorth]

That's nice BUT why are they needed?

Many of us have been asking that for years.

They've claimed all sorts of capabilities as a NGO, but why is a very good question.

 

[mmckenna]

Yeah, I think "not needed at this time" is probably the answer.

While hams can play a role, the ARRL's "when all else fails" is based off faulty thinking and lack of understanding of the communications capabilities that state/regional level responders have access to.

While the disaster is shocking, there's really not anything that would impact communications in/out/around the islands. Likely extent of issues might be a few damaged/out of service LMR and cell sites.
Fiber to/from the islands would not be impacted by this.

Federal agencies have tons of resources there are in use.


I sat in on an interesting discussion at one of the big trade shows last year. Had to do with one of the big fires in New Mexico. They had challenges reaching residents in some of the very remote canyons in the path of the fire. They tried using hams, but there was a problem:
Out of the thousands of licensed hams in New Mexico, there were only 17 that had gone through the entire process to get background checked and vetted by the state OES. Of those 17, most were unable to respond. Ham radio was deemed ill equipped to respond due to the lack of trained and vetted individuals that were available. The state OES had to turn to some interesting alternate resources.
"When all else failed", hams where not the solution, in that case.

 

[MTS2000des]

ARES is not a skill set needed in a real disaster. Attended a presentation on FirstNet response to Hurricane Ian at APCO this week- real professional teams from Florida with real professional skills showed up, got a 5 channel trunking system online, brought in FirstNet equipment on site to get WAN up and even lit up public WiFi so citizens could use data/wi-fi, and stayed around to get PSAP facilities back online.

None of this required Bowelturd toting, vest wearing badge heavy whackers, CW keys, cheap ham radio gear with cobbled together antennas, ARRL radio grams or anything AMATEUR about it.

Disaster response is best left to those who are trained by vetted sources to do it, not hobbyists. No mention of ARES or the almighty League at APCO either thank God.

 

[prcguy]

I was a member of my local ARES group for awhile and they seem to do a couple of things around here. Practice assisting with inter hospital communications during a disaster and providing comms for some races, one being the huge Baker to Vegas relay race. I trained and participated in several activities and everything seemed to go very well.

I think for any amateur radio group to have been useful during the Maui fires they would have needed very specific and targeted training for such fires and the manpower and equipment to throw at it. Without that it’s just some hams with no direction or purpose.

 

[trooper890]

The ARRL “stands ready” to get dues invoices out and QRZ ads sold to suppliers to keep the lights on in Newington.

Go watch this amateur hour league podcast on ham radio involvement in ICS below and you’ll see why 5b2 czar is spot on in his assessment which he usually is.

Where Do Hams Fit Into the Incident Command System?

ARRL Director of Emergency Management, Josh Johnston, Ke5MHV, talks about the basics of the Incident Command System, how hams fit into it, and why it is important for hams to be trained in it.

blubrry.com

The timing on this is really something; a colleague just told me about another crackpot group in Kansas that did a videocast last night saying they’ll save everyone with echolink and federal cache radios that “FEMA said we can use”, and are “credentialing us”.

Hope to get to see the recording. I hear the rest of the hams hammered them.

Standing by for the news article from the league on ARES saving lives in Maui with NTS radiograms. It’s fake news.

 

[dlwtrunked]

Ok.. That's nice BUT why are they needed? There are MANY first responders and help agencies on the ground. Communications to and from the island are operational

First responder are not enough with cellphones out. I was at the Pentagon after 9/11 for 39.5 hours where ham radio supported the Salvation Army and Red Cross rpoviding support (food, clothing, etc.) to the first responders until the cell phone companies brought in portable cells to support the overload. And no first reponders are going to provide comms to residence trying to contact families. No, ham radio is not going to provide emgergency communications but would provide other needed communications. That is when there is enough of them, they are orgainized, and do not just want to be gawkers. If one has not seen a real disaster, one is clueless and should not really comment.

 

[MTS2000des]

Not to detract from what happened on 9/11/2001, but we are light years away. FirstNet is a 40 billion dollar contract, AT&T is taking it seriously. You can't compare disasters then and now. In 2023, at least AT&T and VZW are serious about disaster response and recovery. Radio systems are mostly IP, have layers of redundancy that simply didn't exist in 2001, and public safety is better trained. ICS is now mandated nationwide. COM-T and COM-Ls and their respective COM-Us respond. Again, this wasn't even on the drawing board in 2001. We've learned quite a bit since then.

One thing that hasn't changed is the Randy Rescue whackerism- if anything- it's in high gear. Sure, hams have a role- and if they are properly vetted and trained like any other VOAD, they can be a great resource.

 

[mmckenna]

I've been through a few localized disasters, major wildland fires, floods, major fiber cut, etc.

Wildland fire:
Most of the ham repeaters in the affected area were taken out by fire. Repeaters are not enough. I never saw any ham involvement, and even though I had to prepare to evacuate our PSAP and tossed up a small one at a remote location for two agencies, there was never a peep from the ham community, not that we needed them.
What we did have was issues with random citizen with a Baofeng getting on local fire channels asking for updates and providing advice.

Floods:
Not one ham was seen. But we didn't need them.

Major fiber cut:
Hams showed up at the local hospital. They handled radio traffic between hospitals. However the hospitals had perfectly functional HEARS radios that worked just fine. Not one public safety agency was severely impacted by the fiber cut and life went on.

I've been through a lot of natural disasters. I have not seen the ham community show up in any useful role.

Sure, handling personal communications in/out of the area can be absolutely useful, but that is not "emergency communications".


I still say that ham radio needs to drag itself out of the 1950's and figure out a way to use its ample bandwidth to set up IP links in/out of the disaster areas. Let the public use a ham provided WiFi link so they can communicate on their own.

 

[mastr]

...handling personal communications in/out of the area can be absolutely useful, but that is not "emergency communications"...

The above is exactly what the amateur radio community should be making efforts toward. A well promoted program that would allow the general public to get "are you ok?" messages to/from their loved ones in the aftermath of a disaster would be an appreciated public service and would buy them far more goodwill from the public and political powers than trying to be an auxiliary to the job that police/fire/EMS/EMA/etc. are already doing.

 

[natedawg1604]

Frankly I would suspect that a lot of people who have a strong desire to respond to emergencies, wildfires etc. join their local volunteer fire department and/or search and rescue team.

 

[BucksGuyUSA]

The State of Haw'aii has undergone a disaster on the island of Maui and with all respect to those who've died, been injured, and or lost their homes and property; where is the ARRL and their much talked about EMCOMM capacity? There is no mention of anything on their website as of 1745 GMT and nothing in their public service section of their website. It is as if nothing has happened,

Yes, I know power is down and there are only about ~3,000 amateurs in the State, but someone there has to have access to an emergency generator/solar panels, a ticket, and a HF radio.

I guess wildfires weren't planned for in their 'scenario gaming'.

For 10 years, including the year 2012, I was the the municipal emergency management coordinator (EMC) for our local government. I was (and still am) licensed for amateur radio, but was not very active.

We're in a rural-ish area, and Superstorm sandy took out thousands of trees, and the severely damaged the power and telecom infrastructure, including the landline phones, both DSL and Cable internet, cellular service, and, for a frightfully long time, made much of the county-wide radio system (police, fire, ems, all that) unusable/unstable.
We had no cell service at all for a week, and even when it came back, it was voice & SMS only, no data. We had no power at the municipal building for 2 weeks (ran on generator), no landlines and no internet service for just over 3 weeks.

I had written a long thing about the gross ineffectiveness of the ARES/RACES/Whatever but I think the actions taken as a result of the retrospective of the incident with county & state officials speak for themselves.

Based on that retrospective,

• I removed ham radio as "backup communications" option from our plans,
• The county re-visited and re-activated a simple VHF repeater system that had fallen dormant.
• We bought a decent VHF antenna, and a few handhelds on eBay (we are a small community!) With an investment of about $2,000, we now have a perfectly useful backup inter-agency communications system, and we don't have to call on some guy who's more worried about keeping his CPAP machine powered up than the repeater.
• Back in 2013, based on their experiences, several municipalities purchased satphones.

10+ years later, I'm not the EMC anymore, but these days, many satphones are literally cheaper than an iphone (but service is a bit expensive) and the number of "mobile command centers" and "Cellular On Wheels" options today make ham radio downright anachronistic. It had a good run, for sure, but it's sort of like people who make their own beer - it's certainly a fun hobby, but a hobbyist can't supply a whole town with beer.

 

[AK_SAR]

I sat in on an interesting discussion at one of the big trade shows last year. Had to do with one of the big fires in New Mexico. They had challenges reaching residents in some of the very remote canyons in the path of the fire. They tried using hams, but there was a problem:
Out of the thousands of licensed hams in New Mexico, there were only 17 that had gone through the entire process to get background checked and vetted by the state OES. Of those 17, most were unable to respond. Ham radio was deemed ill equipped to respond due to the lack of trained and vetted individuals that were available. The state OES had to turn to some interesting alternate resources.
"When all else failed", hams where not the solution, in that case.

This is one of the big issues. Not enough hams are willing to take any additional training to be ready to help in a disaster. I've heard a number of long time, Extra Class hams snivel, whine, and moan when they were simply asked to take the even the most basic online ICS training. And they only want to help if they can just do radio stuff, with their own go kit. (These are often some of the same "know code" guys who complain that today's hams have it too easy and don't know anything.)

If hams want to help then join a recognized SAR team, VFD, or similar. Most teams will be happy to have new members who are good with radios. But you better be willing to put in the time and do the training involved. My own career in SAR is winding down, as I'm getting kind of old for this sort of thing. But if you join the team I've been a member of, you will need to complete a >70 hour first aid course, BLS-CPR, a basic avalanche course (several evening classes and a couple of weekend days out in the snow), a basic mountain survival/travel/SAR course (several evening classes and camping for the night in a snow cave or other improvised shelter), and participation as a candidate in a bunch of other trainings and missions.. Only then can you advance to fully operational status. It generally takes at least a year to complete the whole process. And then when you are called out on a mission you need to be willing to take on whatever job needs to be done. That may involve radios (working on Part 90 frequencies), but it might be keeping the end of a parking lot clear so we can use it for a helispot. Or maybe just making coffee. Whatever needs to be done to resolve the issue.

 

[mmckenna]

10+ years later, I'm not the EMC anymore, but these days, many satphones are literally cheaper than an iphone (but service is a bit expensive) and the number of "mobile command centers" and "Cellular On Wheels" options today make ham radio downright anachronistic. It had a good run, for sure, but it's sort of like people who make their own beer - it's certainly a fun hobby, but a hobbyist can't supply a whole town with beer.

Our OES has a fly kit satellite terminal that will act as a telephone as well as have access to several statewide, regional and federal talkgroups. That was funded by grants and includes the service. No specialized operator needed.

The state also grant funded us two HF fly kits with antennas. These are set up with a lot of state, federal and amateur frequencies, as well as several ALE nets. It's quite simple to set up and operate. No specialized operator needed.

Several people in OES and PD have satellite phones.

As the radio guy, I have a satellite phone.

Our OES has access to a lot of simplex VHF and 800MHz channels for talking locally. No specialized operator needed.

Our PD has access to a lot of simplex VHF and 800MHz channels for talking locally. No specialized operator needed.

That's on top of a trunked system and several conventional repeaters on VHF and 800MHz.


Ham radio, while it's a cool hobby, has missed the "emcomm" boat. They are stuck in the 1950's where local PD/fire had one low band simplex channel and a couple of mobile radios. We don't need a bunch of untrained/non-vetted individuals with Baofengs. We don't need some 80+ year old guy sitting in his garage with a "kickass contest station". We absolutely do not need an untrained individual with a hand held radio that thinks they are now law enforcement/fire/ems.

Several of us who are also hams have attempted to get them to understand that the "emcomm" role is not something we need. Unfortunately they don't want to listen to what we tell them we need. They only want to do what they do, nothing more.

I really hope amateur radio/ARRL figures this out.

 

[mmckenna]

This is one of the big issues. Not enough hams are willing to take any additional training to be ready to help in a disaster. I've heard a number of long time, Extra Class hams snivel, whine, and moan when they were simply asked to take the even the most basic online ICS training. And they only want to help if they can just do radio stuff, with their own go kit. (These are often some of the same "know code" guys who complain that today's hams have it too easy and don't know anything.)

I've said this before:

A radio is a tool. It's a single tool.
To a true first responder, they have a radio in their "tool box", but they also have a lot of other "tools", training, experience, knowledge, skills, etc.

A guy with one tool does us no good. Hams seem to be under the impression that every issue can be resolved with a radio. Hams need to have a lot more tools in their tool box if they want to be functional in a disaster. They need to have training. They need to have experience. They need to have a wide range of skills. They need to be willing to do things that are not radio related.

Unfortunately I have not seen that in my experience. I see a guy with a walkie talkie that is 'here to help', but only as long as it involves using the radio.

The issue is that they want to be hams first. It needs to be the other way around. Have a skill, use amateur radio to enhance that skill. The days of needing a dedicated radio operator are just about gone. And I sure as hell don't need someone with a Baofeng.

 

[chrismol1]

The above is exactly what the amateur radio community should be making efforts toward. A well promoted program that would allow the general public to get "are you ok?" messages to/from their loved ones in the aftermath of a disaster would be an appreciated public service and would buy them far more goodwill from the public and political powers than trying to be an auxiliary to the job that police/fire/EMS/EMA/etc. are already doing.

I'm all in on that. If I was some kind of "emcomm" I'd get more satisfaction of helping local peoples contact loved ones than repeating some dispatcher stuff although maybe some important stuff can come up but in the last 20 years many agencies have robust communications plans. seems all they wanna do is talk on the radio to seem important.

 

[N4DES]

The timing on this is really something; a colleague just told me about another crackpot group in Kansas that did a videocast last night saying they’ll save everyone with echolink and federal cache radios that “FEMA said we can use”, and are “credentialing us”.

Hope to get to see the recording. I hear the rest of the hams hammered them.

Here is the site that has the August 10th Zoom meeting listed along with a number of others. RATPAC

It was very entertaining....

 

[AK9R]

The ARRL “stands ready” to get dues invoices out and QRZ ads sold to suppliers to keep the lights on in Newington.

QRZ.com is completely independent of the ARRL.

 

[kg4icg]

First responder are not enough with cellphones out. I was at the Pentagon after 9/11 for 39.5 hours where ham radio supported the Salvation Army and Red Cross rpoviding support (food, clothing, etc.) to the first responders until the cell phone companies brought in portable cells to support the overload. And no first reponders are going to provide comms to residence trying to contact families. No, ham radio is not going to provide emgergency communications but would provide other needed communications. That is when there is enough of them, they are orgainized, and do not just want to be gawkers. If one has not seen a real disaster, one is clueless and should not really comment.

Actually the Nextel Direct Connect was the only thing that was working that day because all the phone lines were overloaded with calls. I definitely know this because I left the Pentagon north parking 5 minutes before the plane hit and later that day had to bring in a Excavator. Worked for United Rentals and still do.