Re: [digitalradio] Re: NTS and traffic handling and digital

[Dr. Howard S. White]

Doc:   It's amazing to me how fast the irrational Winlink Haters crawl out of the woodwork on this reflector....   A brief report on the drill is on Page 1 and Page 2 of the San Diego Section ARES Alert   www.qsl.net/sdgarrl/alert0905.pdf   Most of the rest of the documentation is on the San Diego ARES Reflector on Yahoo.   Was Winlink a primary communications tool planned for the drill?   ... Definitely not...   In fact, Winlink was very much an afterthought  and ultimately an act of desperation...   The people manning SD EOC were very much the Luddites who were opposed to even equipping the EOC with Winlink.... [I was not even at the EOC as I was manning a Mountain Top (my house) as a HF/VHF/UHF relay until the simulated earhquake disabled my tower]   BUT When all else failed to connect to Imperial County EOC, the Luddites in the SD EOC finally tried Winlink...   They were able to connect through a HF Node in Texas which enabled them to pass vital traffic from EOC to EOC.   The point I am making is that us hams have a lot of tools in our EMCOMM arsenals.. and using this irrational hatred of Winlink...to discard one of our tools makes no sense... __________________________________________________________ Howard S. White Ph.D. P. Eng., VE3GFW/K6  ex-AE6SM  KY6LA Website: www.ky6la.com "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" "Ham Antennas Save Lives - Katrina, 2003 San Diego Fires, 911" ----- Original Message ----- From: doc To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 6:03 PM Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Re: NTS and traffic handling and digital I would like to see the documentation of this. As a former employee of a state emergency management agency and a former section emergency coordinator and a Ham for a long time the scenario described must be missing some important variables. If HF Winlink could hold effective communications on HF then so could a dozen or more modes.  There is no technological reason why HF Winlink was "the only" reliable mode -- unless the modes chosen were skewed to be certain of that outcome. Not looking for an argument, just some healthy cynicism based on a little knowledge of politics and science. HF Winlink may have been "one of many" modes more capable of effective weak signal communications but one cannot ever make the claim that it would be the "only". Add to that the need for redundant hardware and the high value of simple over complex and HF Winlink would be a poor first/primary choice.  The hardware is so rare as to be readily postulated as "probably unavailable" at both ends and the complexity of the systems rise above standard emergency requirements for mission-critical applications. A third-tier or fourth-tier nice-to-have perhaps. IMHO, YMMV ... 73, doc kd4e > Last August San Diego Section ARES ran a Simulated Emergency Test in San > Diego and Imperial County where we simulated the effects of a 7.9 > earthquake next door in Imperial County ( a likely scenario) which > destroyed most of the local infrasture. >  > Due to the simulated outages of local infrastructure, repeaters and > power sources, we were unable to establish VHF/UHF/Cell Phone or Land > Line voice communications between the San Diego EOC and the Imperial > County EOC. >  > The only communications that proved reliable was HF Winlink.  San Diego > EOC was able to connect into a Winlink Node in Texas and Imperial County > was able to connect to another HF node and we established and maintained > both Critical, Tactical and H&W communications through Winlink Email. >  > I might note that the success of HF Winlink when everything else failed > during the SET really changed the minds of a lot of died in the wool > Winlink Haters around here. >  > Could we have accomplished the same with HF voice Relays?.. >  > We tried HF voice without much success (they were in a HF dead zone)... > however in an real (non SET) disaster with more HF stations around for > relays...Likely... but definitely not with the same ease of use or > reliability... > > So there definitely is a place for Winlink EMCOMM in our bag of tricks... > __________________________________________________________ > Howard S. White Ph.D. P. Eng., VE3GFW/K6  ex-AE6SM  KY6LA Need a Digital mode QSO? Connect to  Telnet://cluster.dynalias.org Other areas of interest: The MixW Reflector : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup/ DigiPol: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Digipol  (band plan policy discussion) SPONSORED LINKS Ham radio Craft hobby Hobby and craft supply YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS  Visit your group "digitalradio" on the web.    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]    Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.