A perspective I have mentioned before focuses on the situation when a "communications emergency" occurs. This is when normal means of communications are incapable of handling the traffic load.
This perspective focuses not on whether infrastructure fails but whether it can sustain a load. There are situations where infrastructure is functional but overwhelmed, especially cell phones. The Rita evacuation in the Houston are wiped out cell phone service in the immediate vicinity of the evacuation routes. Many organizations were caught short when this happened. For example, United Way and the local Food Bank were scrambling for supplies but could not coordinate their efforts. They were short because many local supplies had gone to Louisiana for Katrina. I also think more use of VHF for covering NVIS distances is possible. A nearby digi can connect at times to a Winlink Telpac node in Austin. That is a distance of 130 or more miles. Since local use of NVIS would be to reach the state EOC in Austin it is a feasible route if dependable. This is using FM so SSB might work reliably. Rud Merriam K5RUD ARES AEC Montgomery County, TX http://TheHamNetwork.net -----Original Message----- From: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 4:24 PM To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [digitalradio] Re: Winlink Can Be Reliable in Emergencies Quite a few emergency planners are counting on the internet staying operational except in the immediate disaster area. As an example, our ARRL Section leader wants members to move all digital to Winlink 2000 and is focusing most resources to developing an interlinked repeater system for voice and digital although I have not heard how this is being done. They even have "nets" that work through Winlink 2000 since many ARES members are Technician class licensees and can not operate lower (NVIS) HF bands with voice or digital. While there are fewer and fewer chances of losing telecommunications infrastructure for very long, it does occur. At that point, many of these systems may not function since they are based upon many things continuing to work. Some of the more foresightful emergency planners (not necessarily ARES/RACES) in my area, realize that even repeaters are not a sure thing either and have actually done exercises over multi-county distances without them. Do you really see much of a use for CW, other than longer distance messaging, perhaps via NTS? Even that is rarely done from the little traffic that I tend to see coming out of disaster areas. There may or may not be a simultaneous communications emergency, so that changes the calculus too. Other than myself, I would be hard pressed to list any other hams in my county who have at least some CW skill and are involved with emergency communication. There are several things that I want to explore in the coming year: - whether or not the ARQ PSK modes will be competitive with ARQ ALE/FAE 400. Maybe both? Maybe the developers who will be coming up with a Windows version of flarq could consider other modulation waveforms? - how effective will 2 meter SSB work between mobiles and base stations using voice and digital modes compared to HF NVIS operation. Even with extremely difficult terrain such as we have in this area. 73, Rick, KV9U
