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Red Cross Asks For 50 Ham Radio Operators To Fly To Puerto Rico (arrl.org)
Bruce Perens writes: The red cross has asked for 50 ham radio operators to fly to Puerto Rico and be deployed there for up to three weeks. This is unprecedented in the 75-year cooperation between Red Cross and ARRL, the national organization of ham radio operators for the U.S. The operators will relay health-and-welfare messages and provide communications links where those are missing and are essential to rescue and recovery. With much infrastructure destroyed, short-wave radio is a critical means of communicating from Puerto Rico to the Mainland at this time.
The summary is slightly inaccurate. It is the American Red Cross that is coordinating this effort.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Hi from Adam KB2JPD FDNY*EMS
Contacted the ARRL right away. I am a first responder from 9/11, EMT for 25 years, 23 years with FDNY, am Spanish speaking, and am a General class amatuer radio operator.
Please have us in your thoughts and prayers so we can make several miarcles there in Puerto Rico. Those wanting more video and info from the island can look for my friend Nomar Vizcarrondo works for Univision, is a ham, and is getting internet video and news out of Puerto Rico. Much of the audio is in Spanish but the video is self-explanatory.
And that's the end of that.
Their all black and spanish what? Or did you mean they're?
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Yea, not really. 1200 baud packet is pretty bad for transmitting even basic information on a sustained basis. APRS use is sparse in most of the US, yet listening to 144.39 in any city shows that the channel is almost always saturated, even when there are a lot of high digipeaters and everyone is using the newer wideN-n path.
In a traditional packet network where you connect to stations using 1 or more digis (connect N0XXX via K1YYY), the channel is quickly saturated with digipeating, which gets far worse when you have hidden node problems and other collisions.
Mesh networks using modified 802.11x equipment will work better only because there's an automatic routing that takes place, but it will still suffer if there's a high node that becomes a bottleneck, and hidden nodes. At least it will be a little faster and have a decent T/R turn-around time though.
The time to build these networks is before there's a disaster, then harden the nodes. Or at least identify locations and test ahead of time but keep the equipment out of harm's way until needed. And we hams who want high speed networks on VHF and UHF need to start using what we've got (56 Ksps with QAM and other modulation, OFDM carriers, etc) and then petition the FCC for more bandwidth after we've maxed out what we have.
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The point of prayer is to strengthen our relationship with God and our Savior Jesus Christ.
"Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?" is a common question, but it's a little flawed. First, there are no such things as good people. We are all sinners. I, for one, am also a hypocrite, because I preach the virtues of a life that I could never lead, and worship a God that I am supposed to be like, but will never be able to. People often ask me accusingly, "how can you preach that kind of life when you don't even live it?" My response to that question is often, "how could I hope to life that life if I'm not preaching it?"
God does all things according to His plan. We ruined our relationship with Him with our sin, and He has since been trying to draw us back. Being a believer in God and disciple of Christ doesn't mean life is supposed to be perfect and without peril. But, when peril does happen, we have a rock to stand on when people fail us (and they will, just as I will fail others). There is comfort in God, and in the scriptures, and in all of the examples in the Bible of incredibly broken people who nevertheless kept faithful to Him.
The people of Puerto Rico have experienced a great peril, but in that peril lies an opportunity at an outpouring of Christ-like love and humility, and not just for them, but also for us. In a time when many people look negatively at Puerto Rico for whatever reason, we should all be reminded that they are still people just like us. Sinners, just like us. We all fall to the same level ground. We are right there with them in their peril, as a brother is periled, so are we.
Not only does God care about the people of Puerto Rico, He cares about us how we respond to it. I see the terrible tragedy here, but I also see the tremendous opportunity to be a reflection of God's Grace as He intended us to be. Jesus never did anything for Himself. He was never selfish, and he constantly poured Himself out, emptying Himself on behalf of others. He never did anything out of selfish ambition or conceit. I want so badly to live that life the way He did, but I can't. I'm too selfish, and too great a sinner. But, that doesn't mean I can't try to emulate the love of Jesus and accept the Grace of His salvation from my sin.
So, yes I will absolutely continue to pray for the people of Puerto Rico, and I will do what I can to show them the love that Christ had for me. It might be all I can do to relay some messages home, but I will do it faithfully to glorify God and His plan.
It's not packet radio, they're asking for operators with experience using WinLink which is an HF (long range 100's and 1000's of miles) email system. Remote stations on PR will connect via HF to 'base stations' around the world (in this case mostly US based stations) and send emails which can include very small (25kB) attachments.
The WinLink system is completely volunteer run, designed and maintained and uses the PACTOR family of protocols (today PACTOR 2, 3 &4, along with Winmor a soundcard based solution).
I use to be a part of the WinLink development team, and currently an ASM/ASEC for ARRL/ARES.