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Amateur Radio Braces for Hurricane Isabel
TaxSlave writes "Amateur Radio operators in North Carolina and elsewhere in the projected track of Hurricane Isabel are getting ready for action. ARES has been activated in many areas, and hams are recommended to be ready. NC ARES has an information page for the storm and Hurricane Watch Net has a good info page as well. Even outside the major storm area, hams are posted at shelters which are filling up with storm refugees."
Even though we have had so many advances in technology over the years, its the good ole HAMs that come to our rescue during times of trouble or disaster. Even during the recent blackouts in NYC, they kept in touch & relayed messages back & forth. Often there's just one link who keeps the messages going up & down.
Hats off to you people & thanks for the wonderful job you do!
How likely is it that their monsterous huge aerials will survive the winds ?
And Jews and Muslims? I tell you its just not right. How about some good roast beef? Or maybe some tzimmis or geffilta fish? And Blintzes! We should have blintzes.
Ok with all seriousness, please be safe and careful everyone, huricanes are not for messing about do what you have to to get out of the way. With all love and prayers from Jerusalem.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It will be interesting to see if any building-to-building WiFi links or other wireless networking tech can operate in a hurricane. I'd bet that high rain, very wet vegitation, and the odd flying bit of sheet metal will kill reception or reduce reliability. Also, external high gain antennas will be prone to wind-induced misaligment and damage.
Isabel should be an interesting test of any mesh networks in the area -- assuming that they have independent power sources, of course.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Does anyone (apart from truckers naturally) use CB radio anymore? Is it ever used in these sorts of scenarios?
Well this woman also has a clue about ham radio and my grid square is FM19.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
I've never done an extended or widespread Skywarn activation before. All of the auxillary nets are coming up along with the main net out of LWX. It's kind of exciting to see everyone lining up to go down to NWS and getting their systems on backup power--it's really the kind of thing that we do all this tinkering for.
In space, no one can hear you moo.
The last thing we need in Ohio is more rain (we're already over 9 inches above normal for the year), and Isabel threatens to add more precipitation to our area. Since we're so over saturated, nearly every time it rains, our areas go into automatic flood watch. As amateur radio operators, my wife and I provided communications for the American Red Cross for flood victims in the Stark County area in late July. Looks like we might be called to action again.
73 de KC8WVJ (and KC8WVK - my wife)
Hey, 34 is still pretty young compared to some of the old hams. I actually did a website for a Quarter Century Wireless Ass. chapter. The chapter president is in his 60s and quite web savvy. But again, we went to one Christmas ham party and we were the youngest in the room - there were even some old folks in their 90s there.
When we went to a field day a few years ago, most of the hams were in their 20s, 30s and 40s.
I have utmost respect for hams. They are the greatest tinkers and noodlers and geeks I know. One of our ham friends is also into amateur TV.
Check out the hams at work on the east coast. They are currently reporting weather and assisting FEMA; Live shoutcast broadcast is available here: http://live.irlp.net:8080/
I was at a ham festival in Victoria Springs, Nebraska a few years ago where we built an antenna out of clothesline and copper wire. It was so badass. I'm still new to the ham world, but when some of the older guys saw what we were doing, they ran in and got all kinds of tuners and books of formula. Anyway, with that antenna we were able to listen in on an easter egg hunt, which was pretty sweet. hams rock