What modes are they using on 7.085?

BTW, it is very, very interesting to have real, arfham eyes on the ground and to read what the real deal is, and not a hyped up ARRL version of events.

I'm on the road this week, but I'll leave the radio and software parked on 7114 and will try to check the buffers in the evening by remote. I may be one of the stations best placed to receive you.

I'm now set up to receive both FT8 and Olivia 16-500 at 7114 + 1500. At 13 characters a wack, you can send messages via FT8 and, in the evening, I suspect they'd have a good chance of getting through. At the very least, good for emergencies, or for sending sked data, if/when you get posted to the back of the beyond with no more interweb.

Attached File

I'm at the Convention Center. The rest of the team will be arriving over the next couple of days. The list for who goes where seems to be changing daily as new info comes in. Our group of 10 will be relieving a group of 20 so I suspect the workload will be fairly high.

I was unable to get a Winlink message out yesterday but I was trying during the day. The problem is finding a station to receive. Lots of them are offline during the day and are only available at night. I'll keep looking for stations maybe in Florida, GA, SC, AL. When I was back in VA, I could hit a receiving station in Florida and one in Indiana. While I still have internet, I'm going to be downloading the current station list and see what stations I'm likely to be able to reach.

BTW, for 7.085, they're using voice only. I never got a straight answer as to why. They told me they set up NVIS antennas because the VHF stuff has issues with the terrain of the island, especially with the lack of functioning repeaters.

Stay safe down there and take some pictures.

ETA Are any of the NGOs using satcom? I know some guys on the meu that got sent down there and of course they are using satcom for all of there reach back but wasn't sure if people like the red cross were using it for talking to the mainland.

Some of the NGOs are using sat phones. Many of the .mil/.gov folks have satfones but when they first got here, apparently they were mis-configured along with the .mil and public safety digital comms. The PR NG folks 10ft. from me were talking about all the radios not being coordinated/synchronized so the commander was fuming mad that all that fancy expensive gear and they had to go back to HF MARS radios for comms. They were not amused. A lot of the .gov folks were in such a big hurry to get here and get out into the field, they didn't have a command post set up to get all the comms gear talking to each other. It's getting better but still not too good. There are still some inaccessible areas so fixing towers and such is problematic.

It's a zoo. In the meeting this morning, they were talking about opening a set of distribution points so people could come and get water, MREs, fuel, etc. Problem is, they don't have a good way to get word out to folks where those places are and when they would be operating. We need more folks to be hams so that in the event of disaster, a ham is in every district, city, town, county, school, hospital, fire station, police station, etc. so when comms go down (and they will), people can still get in touch with each other.

I served with a guy who did the hati earthquake relief in the late 90s early 00s and that sounds almost exactly like what they dealt with. Passing information to the masses is a big problem for sure.


What about the public service infrastructure? Are police LMR systems not operating? I get the need for HF to cover the island but you would think an island in hurricane zone would have a pretty decent public service network.

What a great thread. Planemaker, thanks for finding time to post this. Please keep us posted, if possible.
Again, thanks for your efforts!

It's easy to seat here and talk about what could be done. I'm curious, why not use a tried and proven public address system as a simple loudspeaker placed on a truck or a helicopter? This is what was used during war time in Europe. They also dropped printed material from airplanes. It's simple, reliable and relatively can be easily accomplished.

suggest they do communications to the country side a la apocalypse now style -

mount some large pa speakers on helicopters, and have them play a pre-recorded message as they fly the roads, saying where the distribution centers will be, and for those that hear the message, let the neighbors know.

then in towns near the distribution sites, drop fliers into the town centers, if they can't be reached due to roads, with the information, and on the flier, ask to have the information posted somewhere in town.

edit - didn't get to Gyprat's post yet.

btw, are there many 2m or 440 repeaters up? are you using any of them?

How bout dropping in a bunch of cheap transistor radios, and set up a pirate/legit radio station to broadcast info?  

Be safe down there, thank you for your service!

The LMR networks are all down. Virtually all digital comms went offline during the hurricane. Between no power and damaged towers and repeaters, hams and satfones (the ones configured correctly ) were the only game in town. The ESF-2 emcomm team here have decided they have a two-pronged strategy - get immediate comms to feds & response personnel, start re-thinking the entire comm infrastructure here so that this type of thing doesn't happen again.

It's important for city planners in disaster-prone areas, particularly where the power grid outage might be widespread, that they have a comm plan that utilizes both HF and VHF analog in the clear comms so that hams, police, fire, ambulance/hospitals, shelters, etc. can all talk to some centralized command to be able to ask for crititcally needed resources and to provide an area wide sitrep. Here the folks have to send out teams to find out what the status of various areas are and the likelyhood of getting comms back to that area. Some areas are still cut off. Some areas have seen precisely ZERO Federal presence of any kind since the hurricane passed thru 3 WEEKS AGO. The fuel situation is getting better, which is good since the vast majority of folks that have power are making it themselves.

Oh, and there have been several reports where generators have started failing after 3 weeks of continuous use. In one case, commercial power came back up and the lights came on, indicating they had been using the generator and backfeeding the grid the whole time. There are a number of downed lines all over the island and it's impossible to know which are hot and which are dead and they may switch from one to the other at any time. Don't walk or go near power lines. You don't know if power is coming upstream or from some idiot hooked up via suicide cord.

great thread

keep the updates coming when you can planemaker

How does this review stack up OP?

https://www.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/772zlk/please_cancel_your_arrl_membership/?st=J8WE1U2K&sh=66d798a9

It seems like using Winlink is problematic. Why not simply use PSK31 and send the messages to a ham in the US? The ham in the US can simply copy and paste the messages into a regular e-mail and send it through the Internet.
A simple format can be developed like:

MSG0001
[email protected]   Message:......................................................................
End.
MSG0002
[email protected]   Message:......................................................................
End.

and so on.....


This can also be done with SSB Voice and CW if needed.

Came here to post same, you beat me to it. It'll be interesting to see what planemaker's take is.

The fellow posting this certainly seems legit and he's not hiding who he is.

is very hard to believe that the AARL is that fucked up, especially when so many people in HAM radio are ARES and other trained emcomm organizations.

all written by a guy who has been a HAM for a year whise call is NS0S that deployed to PR after a natual disaster.

I am not saying it is not true, but the call sign alone makes me go hhhhhhhhmmmm.

I'm sure there are two or more sides to this story, but...totally un-surprised by this report. Heroics, glory, and I liked how one reddit comment put it: "whacker emcomm shit".

I'm not an ARRL member. Never have been, never will be.

They sent people who dont know how to do digital? The Winlink system wasn't working for them, but no one tried cw?  
Have to figure it would be easy to get into at least one of the stateside NTS traffic nets with messages.
I regularly experience busy winlink nodes. Its a great system but there arent enough nodes.  A local, portable node for vhf packet could be interesting.
But P2P should work as well.  
More questions than answers

That points out a few of my biggest fears on deployment.  Having to use someone’s radio that I have no time on and don’t know how to use.  I trust my own stuff much more than anything else along with lack of backup and a plan B.  
And not having the infrastructure in place or setting up for me to communicate with.  Also no plan B on that.  

The first one is a deal breaker. The second part I can adapt for.

Most of the article is a complete crock of shit.

The chaos part is spot on, though. I've been attending the morning ESF-2 (Emergency comms) meetings and every day, the high priority item is something completely different than yesterday. One would expect a fluid situation in a disaster zone, but it's more like a popcorn popping kind of thing.

As I understand it, the ARC set up a net control station over at the ARC HQ location in San Juan. That's fine, but that station had no direct line to the FEMA folks that could actually fix problems that came up. The ARC are hopelessly outclassed in a disaster like this because they don't have the people, equipment, or logistics skills in volume enough to make a difference. FEMA does, but they need to get out of their own way. The .mil has been fantastic down here because they just go get things done rather than mulling over it for a few days.

The ARRL provided all the gear. It was decent stuff. I'm not an Icom guy, but I could have dealt with what I was given. In my case, I brought my own gear that I KNEW worked. They had HF kits and some Icom 7900s for VHF. The gear all seemed to do fine from what I heard. The antenna was OK, if underwhelming, but I didn't hear of anybody having comm problems if they set the antenna up right.

The part about not manning the net control station at ARC all the time was only partly true. They probably sent too many folks out in the field and didn't have enough staff to cover the station 24/7. The hams that set up shop at the FEMA command post were passing messages to the folks that could actually respond to the problem. Neither the hams nor the ARC could by themselves. That part should have been coordinated up front and it clearly wasn't. The ARC was acting independently. And, some of the hams thought they knew better about what they should be doing than the coordinating staff.

I will say the Puerto Rico ARRL regional guy that has been engaged from the beginning has been excellent. He's a very smart dude that knows a lot about PR, knows a lot of people in PR, and gives local intel about conditions in real time. Invaluable. Several local hams have been part of the team since the beginning, many of whom, like Oscar, have had their homes damaged, and some of whom don't have generators.

I've used Winlink twice since I've been here. It works fine if you do the leg work a-priori to figure out which stations you're likely to be able to hit. I went thru and targeted about a dozen in my "favorites" list. The best one so far has been KX4Z with N5TW a close second. When I connected to KX4Z, I got an e-mail I wasn't expecting from the Winlink dev team. Took a lot longer to get, too.

More when I have time.

That could be done with python and fldigi in about a day. Then you could use any fldigi mode

Planemaker,
Will it be ok if I forward quotes from your posts to the local hams who are helping Red Cross with emergency comms?

Sure, if they have FLDIGI. Heck, it even has a buffer and can receive messages when unmanned. Find an odd frequency, set filters to narrow and it's GTG.
This can also be done with CW easily, especially with low power and tiny portable antennas.

Sure. Anything I can do to help, particularly if it streamlines emcomm for future disasters.

If there were a way to make an e-mail to all ARRL members and/or Red Cross members asking them to sign up for some free training (either provided by or coordinated with FEMA, SHARES, and other .gov programs) for how to help your local community with emcomm, that would be a great first start. Otherwise, you'd have to probably do a FOIA request to the FCC to make a giant snail-mail list, which would cost a fortune.

I've already learned a great deal about what to do and not do. I'll be taking that back to our local emcomm group in the city where I live.

BTW, it was trivial to have a PSK-31 QSO with Florida stations on 20m during the day. As to whether PSK-63 or Olivia would do as well, I'm not sure.

Unfortunately, I have to be back on the billeting ship by the time the ARFCOM digital net starts tonight. I think I've got one more day here and after that, I'm being sent out into the field. Interestingly, the folks that wanted me here really like the power setup I brought with me (solar + LiFePo4 power pack). Power here is generator supplied and isn't always reliable or good. We had a fairly serious brown out yesterday. Luckily, I was actually plugged into my power pack and that was in turn plugged into the wall. The wall wart felt the brown out but neither my laptop nor my radio skipped a beat since it's a pure sine inverter. Now they want to get the same setup for all the teams going out into the field. Not sure how long that will take, though.

In addition, my wife tried to Express Mail overnight a package to me last Monday. It was supposed to be delivered by 3pm Tuesday. It's still not here and no one can tell me where the heck the package is. Disasters, like wars, are come as you are parties. Whatever capability you think you want to achieve, you better have all the pieces already in hand and tested. Otherwise, you got nothing.

That's a gutsy and admirable thing to do.  Best of luck.

Thanks buddy. It will only be forwarded to several people who (including myself) are helping the Red Cross to setup emergency communications in their local building. I was surprised to learn that they don't even have a backup generator, leave along any communication devices except smartphones and PCs connected to the internet.
I've also been seriously thinking about building a semi-portable cross-band repeater that will be able to run off solar and a battery. Perhaps a Wouxun dual band HT radio with cross band capability will work. Placed on a local 350 ft mountain it should cover the whole county and maybe even more. I have already checked the coverage and was pleasantly surprised.
Anyway, stay safe over there.

federal license call sign search
http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/searchAmateur.jsp

for operator clas, chose all, enter call sign nsos.
result no valid call sign nsos.

edit - found a match on NS zero S

Call Sign     NS0S 
(Vanity)     Radio Service     HV - Vanity
Status     Active      Auth Type     Regular
Dates
Grant     03/20/2017      Expiration     03/20/2027 
Operator Class     Amateur Extra      Prev. Op. Class     General 

op:

I understand you said most of the repeaters are down because they don't have power.
are there any people using 2m or 440 point to poiint there, and what are common frequencies use there, if so?

I'm curious if 2m or 440 are of any use on the island right now, but since they are more line of sight, I can understand why communications with them would be hard without a repeater.

There's one repeater that has come back up that is owned by a local ham. That's the one most 2m traffic is on. It doesn/t cover the whole island, though. There is a plan today to air drop in a group of .mil folks to El Yunque to fix the main cell site there and to set up a 2m repeater since it's one of the highest spots on the island. Still won't cover the entire island but it would cover Vieques and Culebra islands and should reach all the way to the US Virgin Islands. There's another repeater that might be up mid-week next week that would give 2m coverage to the western part of the island.

Keep in mind that hurricane force winds started hitting the main island on 9/19. One month ago. It will require several months more to get power to the islands. Food and water are being trucked or airlifted for a huge number of people here. At least trucks are rolling now, they were stopped for a while when the local teamsters tried to extort more money from the shipping companies and FEMA to drive. Disgusting.

Good luck OP.  IM sent.  I'm in Anniston, I think we are part of the same deployment.

I have an audience of about 10K that would Love to hear your story, when you get home and unwind, let me know-we'll get it together and get it out (if you're interested )

thank you for the information and updates. tenatively, I am suppose to  go there as part of relief work, but all I have is a hand held 2m/440, and was trying to decide if it was worth bringing it just in case, even though the group should have a sat phone.

would you know what the call signs/access of the possible repeaters might be, and in your opinion, would it be worth bringing one just in case?

Yea I looked it up before I posted. It is valid.

My impression is that since he is fresh out of the .mil, he still expects civilians to act with discipline and integrity for the team.

He has not adapted to regular people yet that do things in their self interest and will lie about things to save face because they little self confidence or esteem.

He will get used to it.

Have been dispatched to Ponce. Took 2.5 hours to take a drive that would normally be 45 minutes. Between San Juan and Ponce there is little in the way of cell or internet. Part of that is terrain and part is because stuff is broken. Drove a little bit after dark. It's easy to see where the electricity is and isn't. On the way down here, there were high rise buildings with people in them where the windows were all open and people were hanging their laundry on their balcony. Can't imagine having to haul water, food, etc. up 20 flights of stairs. A few houses looked fine except they had no roof. Broken trees and debris <everywhere>. Since almost all signal lights are either powerless or broken, driving down here is a scary proposition. 4-way stop? Nope, not here. BTW, few here use these new inventions known as "turn signals".

I've seen numerous fuel convoys on the roads, most of which had either military or Puerto Rico PD escort. So many roads to high tower areas are still impassable that now they are airlifting stuff to them along with fuel and personnel. Hell of an expensive proposition to do that for very long. I saw containers actually moving out of the port at San Juan before I left. I suspect the truckers got shamed into actually working.

Internet is sketchy at best and cell service also sux rocks. Ponce is the 2nd largest city on PR. Once you get out of the center of the cities, everything pretty much goes to crap. There was a sign up on the wall indicating that 19.7% of the population had power. That's a little misleading since it's actually 19.7% of power customers. They've prioritized getting banks and shopping malls up the fastest. If you live in a rural area, you won't get power for months. Around 5% of the population has power where they live. For obvious reasons unemployment here has skyrocketed to around 50%. Briefly stopped by Plaza Las Americas mall in San Juan. It was like Black Friday. Thousands of people that went there for air conditioning and to charge their stuff up. Every available power outlet had a power strip connected to it and 6-8 people were charging their stuff. Sears was doing a brisk business selling tools and gas cans. On the roads, when people get a cell signal, they pull off to the side of the road to use the phone.

More when I can get internet again.

Stay safe!

I used to fly into Ponce back in the day, but I never spent any time there.

@planemaker: you appear to be doing a pretty good job of getting periodic internet access. This would seem to indicate that there is sufficient, if inconvenient, access for DIY health and welfare message traffic for the general population. Sounds like a few shiploads of solar chargers would go a long way to improving matters. I wonder if offered a choice between food or a charger what most people would choose at this point?

Given your periodic access to the internet, do you need us to keep up the watch on the arfham 20 and 40M digi freq's (either Olivia 16/500, FT8, or both)?

I had a CQ ARFCOM call on 20M from @planemaker in my buffer from sometime this morning. I tried replying but do not know at what time @planemaker made his call. It's always a good idea to include a time stamp in your calls.

Gent's: I have CQ calls on 20M from @planemaker in my buffer from 2018 and 2030UTC. I suspect that he has finally moved to a position without internet access. Let's redouble our efforts to monitor. I suggest monitoring of both Oivia and FT8 on the arfham digi channels if you can.

Now switching to 40M for the evening. I will not be in front of the radio until late, though.

Awesome that you're answering the call and helping out.

Based on my limited time on amateaur radio (as a tech) I've found that HAMs are salt of the earth kind of people.

Be safe. Godspeed.

Thanks for the updates, we know you're busy.
I saw a few nice arrays today when visiting some friends, I think it's/they're owned by FEMA. I would imagine they'll be headed your way.
I'll see if I can post  pic....



No, guess not. Here's the link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzSNZT5_eZ7hRDN0SC1wMm1ObFU/view?usp=sharing

News Story featuring the Reddit OP: wow, no shocker here

to our ARF-OP stay safe and thanks for what you're doing!

Received Olivia message in my buffer (not live) from @planemaker this morning. Message follows: "Internet intermittent. Cell is YoYo. Very high noise level here. More when radio cools down."

I've been sending to him in the blind, in the hopes he is also leaving Olivia up and monitoring. If I can get him live I will see about setting up a sked. Got a lot of stuff around here to do, though, so best I can do is just leave Fldigi and WSJT-X running.

Message received from @planemaker: "1414Z Antenna issues. Xmit from building roof. Other folks have sat dishes being set up. More at 1800Z."

I bet he at least lurks here

40M or 20M?

I was monitoring 40M overnight through about 1600Z, no copy. I did see your blind transmissions at 0105Z.

(Actually heard them due to alarm, I adjusted my regex because it's nuclear-plant-meltdown loud here. )

All my intercepts have been in the day on 20M. I've yet to hear him on 40M at night.

No signals received from planemaker at 1800UTC. Perhaps he meant 1800 local.

Nothing here on 20M either.

Third attempt to post. Have been only doing radio xmit on 20m during the day. Have gone mobile. Will try 40m after dark. RF noise ranges from S9+10dB to +20. Seems I'm getting out, just can't receive for jack.