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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.
When I said ham radio was still important because cell phones don't work in disasters where infrastructure is no longer in place. Been a ham since college in 1999.
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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..are you going to go, Bruce?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"we" didn't find out anything of the sort. You're just utterly incapable of nuanced thought.
Get off slashdot and go send some fucking telegrams.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Satellite phone
Unfortunately, the American Red Cross is not up to the task of hurricane disaster relief.
I know this is second-hand and anecdotal, however, it's not the only time nor the last will I hear about the Red Cross behaving badly.
In 1966, my dad was standing on a pier in San Francisco waiting, with thousands of other brave men, for the troop ships that would take them to fight in Vietnam. The ships were due to depart at about 0800. At about 0530, the Red Cross comes around selling coffee and donuts to the troops. My dad, an immigrant already, thought it weird and declined. Thirty minutes later, the Salvation Army comes around GIVING THEM AWAY FOR FREE to the troops. My dad never forgot that.
I knew a lady personally who was sent a bill for blankets and bottled water after her area was flooded.
Just recently in Houston, the Red Cross rejected pleas of help from people who really needed it.
I will never help them for any reason. Were it the Salvation Army needing HAMs, I'd pay for my own ticket.
The American Red Cross is likely looking for round-the-clock operators to staff about a dozen facilities in two or three shift âdaysâ(TM) - to augment/supplement the hams already on staff.
Iâ(TM)m sure some local hams are also assisting, but suspect most are busy trying to rebuild their lives.
Ken
The American Red Cross, the organization putting out the request, is American - and what difference does it make where they come from?
Ken
You are trying too hard - AREDN to an Internet uplink. Easily-deplorable $100 nodes with a few dozen $1,000 nodes with strong sector antennas and a reliable backbone network - every element of which can be bought off Amazon.
Ken
Easily deployable, not deplorable - damn autocorrect.
Ken
They've got to be hungry.
Airships, with wifi!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Today's Slashdot outage is an excellent example of why Commercial Communications, and especially the Internet, needs volunteer backups like Hams with their own Gear.
BTW, will we ever get an explanation as to why Slashdot and Sourceforge were down all day?
2 Meters and Repeaters aren't good enough. They won't reach the Mainland from Puerto Rico for one thing. It's fine for local stuff, as long as the Repeaters stay up, but how many of them are on Emergency Generators? And if so, for how long?
A QRP Sideband Rig on the lower Bands will run off a decent Car Battery for a week.
A few reminders:
*Ham Gear is Cheap. My most recent Rig covers 160-6, including the Marine Bands, (Called "Opening It Up". Not legal; nobody cares.), and including _everything_ cost $175. Elmer was giving it up.
*There is no Code Test. Hasn't been one for years.
*The Tests are ridiculously easy, and are given by Volunteers, either singly or by Clubs.
*In Emergencies, the FCC doesn't give a Flea Fart as to whether you are Licensed. Learn some manners and some rules, pass some Traffic, keep the Frequencies clear when needed. You really have to be an obnoxious Bucketmouth to attract FCC attention.
So Slashdot is finally back up, and as Bruce noted elsewhere, he hopes this Article stays on the front page for days. Lessons Learned.
It's been a long time since the Red Cross has done anything useful.
Ideally the RC should hire the public works department of Burning Man to do their disaster logistics...and should have plans for how to handle the various disasters that strike. They don't.
But looking for HAMs is a good first step towards a new, more effective Red Cross.
Easily deployable, not deplorable - damn autocorrect.
I think you had it right the first time.
Amateur radio is great but I think it's being used in times and places where it is not appropriate. A bunch of Amateur radio network nodes, even if connected to the internet at some point, may not be all that useful given the practical (on different frequencies) and legal (no encryption) limitations of the Amateur Radio Service.
Where I think Amateur radio should shine in emergencies is in the collection of trained radio operators capable of using their skills and piles of electronics to provide communications. I envision Amateurs setting up their own COTS Part 15 devices, converted to comply with Part 97, in their spare time to learn how radios work. When an emergency comes along they can tear that down, carry it to where it's needed, and convert it back to Part 15 so that people with their iPhones and Android devices can communicate with family and friends. Now in Part 15 territory it works with non-Amateur devices that people have in their pockets and encryption is allowed.
The licensed Amateurs would also talk among themselves using Amateur radio bands and equipment to coordinate things and pass traffic that people wouldn't mind heard in the clear. Private communications among family could be encrypted though with commodity hardware. Providing assistance to first responders should also be encrypted. This might be with commercial grade radios though, but the Amatuers still bring technical expertise to operate the radios and free up others so they can do what they are best at, instead of having to work a radio.
I believe the real asset that Amateur radio provides is the people, not necessarily the gear they have. Get a bunch of Amateur radio operators together, hand them boxes of CB and FRS radios, and they'll still be effective communicators. Give them boxes of Wi-Fi gear, random computer parts, and they'll restore internet to a community. Bring your Amateur gear, but also bring your skills so you can get what you find there working for you too.
Those Amateur radio network nodes are going to look rather deplorable when people come by and they find out they can't connect their Apple and Droid pocket computers with it. The FCC might look the other way on a lot of the rules in an emergency, such as use of encryption to keep medical details private, or "salty" language slipping by when an Amateur allows a non-licensed person to use the radio. Using commodity hardware, not the "deplorable" Amateur stuff, would likely keep the FCC and the community served happier.
That's my humble opinion of course.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
That doesn't necessarily follow from the word "prayers" alone. Some people pray to ancestors, saints, or some other non-fundamentalist entity which doesn't satisfy the properties of a classical deity with the three "omnis".
Besides, the main effect of prayer is probably to change the person praying and that alone can be valuable.
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slightly inaccurate. It is the American Red Cross that is coordinating this effort.
Amazing. Usually they just show up days late and screw things up. At least, that's what happened after the Valley Fire up here in Lake County, CA. They literally shut down functioning goods distribution, and never started it back up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The RC is simply trying to get in the way of what Hams are already doing. I've been relaying health and welfare messages every evening since a couple of days after the hurricane. Many other hams are doing same.
The RC and the ARRL like to get their mitts on stuff like this so they can use it for fundraising. All they're going to do is inject a bunch of huge bureaucracy into something that is already functioning exactly as it is supposed to.
It kept turning my neighbors into Hulks.
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.
Can't expect trolls to know grammer and speling.
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God and his Plan has often involved natural disasters to wipe out the sinners. Why are you resisting him?
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I agree totally.
Imagine two scenarios:
Scenario 1: ham spends 16 hours & relays a few hundred "We're alive" messages.
Scenario 2: ham bolts a VSAT satellite dish onto a pole w/southern view, fires up a small generator, aims the dish, configures the hughes.net (or WildBlue, or some other service) satellite modem, sets up an 802.11ac access point, then tells 2,000 people "it's working!", so they can post THEIR OWN messages instead of relying on one ham to do everything.
IMHO, it's a no-brainer which scenario would put the ham's skills to best use & benefit the most people directly (scenario #2, obviously).
And the gear isn't even all that expensive... maybe $3k/site, if FEMA or the American Red Cross gets totally raped & (over-)pays full list price for everything. More like $2k/site if they even TRIED to get a good deal. Add maybe $500-2000/month per site for satellite internet service and generator gas, max. To FEMA or the Red Cross, this is literally pocket change... they probably spend more money transporting a single truckload of bottled water.
It is written in James 2:14-17:
"14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, âoeGo in peace, be warmed and filled,â without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
Praying for someone in need without actually helping them is a hollow act. So, in a sense, you're correct that it's a terrible thing to pray for someone without giving actual, material assistance.
I *am* actually sincere, and it is not because of constant religious brainwashing. In fact I was a militant Atheist for nearly three decades until I experienced the true magnitude of Grace.
The vast majority of Atheists I talk to describe being a "good person" as being charitable, loving, kind, compassionate, forgiving, and so on. These are the very same things that I preach from the Bible, and certainly that they are written about so much in the Bible is the one and only reason that these things are considered "good" in our culture.
It requires no mental gymnastics to act on a desire to empty ones self of conceit and selfish desires for the benefit of others. It only requires an awareness of one's brokenness and the acceptance of divine assistance in trying to overcome it.
God reaches everyone in one way or another. The teachings of Jesus originated, as you know, in the middle east. A culture does not need to have seen a bible to have been influenced by the teachings of Christ. The Romans and Greeks carried those teachings all throughout Europe and Asia before Christians explored the new world long before what we know of as the Bible was ever assembled. Many books, including the epistles, were not written for decades after Christ's resurrection.
It's funny - I used to say the EXACT same thing about control. However, following Christ has always been a wholly voluntary and wholly spiritual decision. In fact, Christ was persecuted relentlessly by those who were actually in control at the time. The people who actually were all about control were terrified of Him. Even so, the teachings of Christ still call for us to respect and submit to the authorities of our governments, and follow the rule of Law so long as they do not conflict with God's law - as all authority on Earth is placed by Him. Christ did not endeavor to wrest control from elected authorities because that would be an affront to the Father - the exact opposite of His purpose on Earth. His purposes here were to demonstrate obedience to God, demonstrate a sin-free life (as he is the only one ever to have lived one) that we might endeavor to emulate, and to be the perfect sacrifice in fulfillment of God's law.
Controlling people was never part of that equation, but Atheists still cling to that argument for some reason I have yet to figure out. In retrospect I cannot even find a way to support it, even though I made it for decades.
What can 50 hams do? The plan is that they work in 25 2-person teams in the various ARC shelters taking names and addresses, entering those into a radio-based email system (Winkink) and send the info back to the states where the ARC is maintaining a "Safe and Well" database to be able to keep those interested in the well-being of people they know in PR informed. Sounds like it would work fine. The volunteers are to be there 3 weeks. No word whether they'll be followed by another 50 volunteers for a subsequent 3 weeks or whether it all might continue for quite some time due to the horrendous damage. How do you rebuild many washed-out bridges? How do you get supplies from point A to point B if you don't? Probably need those military-style bridges that the Army engineers construct as temporary things to get the tanks and troops across the rivers and ravines. Looks like a super-expensive, super-difficult cleanup.
Write on!
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