John King wrote:
> While these posts don't address contesting, they do involve the use of
> towers, antennas and Amateur Radio in general.
>
Here in Midland County MI, we have a very good working relationship with
the local officials and EOC. With all the volunteer work done for the
country, the county decided they would purchase the equipment with our
guidance and we would man it. We have complete stations in the EOC (In
the 911 call center) and mobile EOC. We have developed a mobile
repeater with mobile and portable antennas to get reasonable coverage on
FM, Digital, SSB, and yes...CW. Equipment covers 1.8 through 440. The
club is working on portable TV to use in conjunction with the mobile
EOC. We also have digital weather image relay to mobiles via the
digapeater.
We are working on APRS an JNOS setups as well.
Although all the hams participate that wish to do so, the level of
participation and where they participate is dictated by training.
Surprisingly a large percentage of our club members have the RACES
training and and *clearances* /RACES card signed by the Michigan State
Emergency Management coordinator (Used to be the Governor) as well as
the local EMC.
Yes, Grants were involved, but not to any one individual. (DHS to the
EOC as well as some other groups) NO ONE is reimbursed for time or
services. This being Amateur Radio it is ALL volunteer work. Don't even
expect gas money. OTOH they *usually* do feed us. <:-))
But to get back OT, we have a number of crank up masts, of 20 to 30 feet
and are working on a mobile tower.
Eventually we may end up with a mobile/trailer crank up to give us some
where between 30 and 50 feet.
Towers and antennas for emergency deployment are by their nature, less
than optimum for a fixed station. They need to be manageable by a
minimal crew (Ideally one person, but things in emergencies are seldom
ideal) and designed for quick deployment as well as take down. Five
minutes to put up or take down seems very short, but it can seem like an
eternity at times. Five minutes is also a good target for times and the
station should be designed around that. IOW five minutes to set up, turn
it on and go to work.
Often quick relocation is essential as in when the wind changes with a
major chemical spill. Been there and done that when we had to relocate a
shelter full of people at 3:00 AM when the wind changed and the spill
was about 12 miles away. You could not see across the parking lot and
breathing was difficult to say the least. In that case five minutes
would have been too long to work out in that *stuff* (NOTE, I think I'm
going to throw my chemical face mask into my go kit with fresh activated
charcoal filters.)
Also it's likely the antennas will need to cover HF through UHF though
*usually* not at the same time. For wide area disasters such as major
storms, power grid failures, and those created by man it's likely
portions of the whole range would be needed. Remember it was the sun
that caused the major blackout in Quebec in 89? A major, coronal mass
ejection or CME directly impacting the earth would end communications
and power from a multi state area to a world wide scale. It might be
days or weeks before we could even use ham gear for communications while
conventional communications and power would be gone. So those masts,
towers, and antennas will need to be very versatile. Maybe there's a
spot for that optimized vertical.<:-)) OTOH the portable verticals made
of nested sections of aluminum tubing would be great. IE the 66'
vertical. Don't forget the lowly dipole either. OTOH for major
disaster, long term deployment a two stage set up would work better.
Something for the five minute target and then a secondary set up such as
a small tribander to go on top of the crank up, or portable tower at 30
to 40 feet, but it still has to be simple and something you can put on a
20' trailer.
In most cases this is a case for simple antennas cut to frequency. No
tuners, no open wire feed, strictly as simple as possible as there will
be hams of all experience levels operating. OTOH cut "close enough" plus
an auto tuners would be great.
73
Roger (K8RI)
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|