The ARES E-Letter

Published by the American Radio Relay League
********************************************

December 21, 2011

Editor: Rick Palm, K1CE 

In This Issue:

IN THIS ISSUE

- Army MARS Phasing Out WINLINK
- Add Television To Your ARES Tool Kit
- Western Pennsylvania ARES: NBEMS for Data Communications
- Letters: A Tornado, and Lessons Learned
- Letters: Collections of SET Scenarios Needed
- R. Kent TeVault Scholarship for Emergency Communications
- ARRL Orange Section Hams Recognized
- Letters: Western Washington Section Writes Interoperability Plan
- Hams Help Save the Life of Fellow Ham
- K1CE For a Final

==> ARMY MARS PHASING OUT WINLINK

The Department of the Army has announced that it has begun to take
steps to phase out the use of the WINLINK 
System. The military chain of command that governs Army MARS feels that
the Internet portion of WL2K leaves the system significantly open to
possible intrusion. To deal with this it plans to replace WINLINK with
a newer military e-mail system that has extensive protection against
any form of intrusion.

To replace the WL2K system, Army MARS will be expanding on the concept
of a national network that is voice, RTTY, MIL-STD 110A and PACTOR
capable. The focus of digital communication will be MIL-STD 188-110A,
wide shift RTTY, and PACTOR III. PACTOR will become even more important
as the new areas of focus will be "Peer to Peer" and "Keyboard to
Keyboard" PACTOR communications. Amateur modes such as MT-63, OLIVIA,
and WINMOR, which cannot be used by the military will be eventually
phased out as well.

A large contingent of skilled volunteer MARS operators will be required
to make this system work effectively and this is where current and
prospective Army MARS members will be needed. The goal will be to help
Army MARS return to what it is really supposed to be: A radio-only
system to relay long haul traffic across the CONUS and OCONUS.

While these changes will affect Army MARS nationally, they are not
abandoning state and local agencies. They are just moving away from
giving them a winlink.org e-mail address. As they move forward, Army
MARS will be able to offer these agencies the ability to relay traffic
across the MARS radio-only network to anywhere across the country
including such places as the Pentagon, National Guard Bureau, and the
U.S. Army for requesting military support in a disaster. - Thanks, Mike
Corey, KI1U, ARRL Emergency Preparedness Manager

==> ADD TELEVISION TO YOUR ARES TOOL KIT

This is a TV success story for a local ARES group. The Boulder County,
Colorado, ARES group (District 11), BCARES, has experienced much
success working with our county's emergency services organizations; in
particular, fire and law enforcement. BCARES's tool kit includes all of
the usual ham services, including HF/VHF/UHF voice communications,
repeaters and various digital modes on HF plus packet on VHF/UHF with
back-bone linked digipeaters. But, what Boulder County Public Safety
lacked most was the specialty mode that we had to offer: television.
Amateur Television (ATV) is the one BCARES capability that really
excites our served agencies.

We started offering TV services 20 years ago at the encouragement of
Captain Bill McCaa, K0RZ, of the Boulder County Sheriff's Office. McCaa
was in charge of all of the Sheriff's communications and computer
operations and the county regional 911 center. Over the past few years
BCARES has received many more requests for assistance using TV than for
all other communication modes.

TV offers the agency information in ways never imagined by us or them.
It provides them with situational awareness, a buzzword for what is
happening on the ground. It helps remove the need for many voice
communication exchanges for information that is already contained in
the video imagery. Television allows the Incident Commander at the
Incident Command Post (ICP) to actually see what is happening at the
scene(s) of the incident, be it a fire, flood, hazmat issue, riot, or
SWAT operation. With this information, the Incident Commander is better
able to make appropriate command decisions. Via our 2 meter, TV net
controller, the Incident Commander is able to request BCARES cameras
provide him with specific images and information. We are able to
routinely provide television and other communication services in a
completely infrastructure free manner.

Many times every year, BCARES is asked by our local law enforcement and
fire departments to provide TV coverage of both real emergencies and
also multi-agency training exercises. These have included large, forest
fires, flash floods, hazardous materials incidents, civil disturbances,
large political demonstrations and protests, Halloween on the Pearl St.
Mall, University of Colorado football games and SWAT operations.
Boulder County ranks as the leading flash flood threat zone in the
state of Colorado and BCARES is specifically written into County
emergency planning.

BCARES' shining moment occured in September, 2010 when the worst forest
fire in Colorado history broke out in Boulder County. The Four Mile
Canyon fire burned over 6,400 acres of forest and destroyed 166 homes.
BCARES assisted firefighters by providing live TV coverage from
mountain tops back to the 911 center for a week. At the end, BCARES was
credited with saving several homes. See the related article in May,
2011 QST.

When most hams think of ATV, they immediately assume its SSTV. This is
not what BCARES does. Our TV is commercial grade, analog NTSC,
real-time, live video with full color and sound transmissions. On the
70 cm band, we run full 6 MHz bandwidth, vestigial upper sideband
(VUSB) TV transmissions. We use the same frequencies as used by cable
TV. This allows our TV signals to be received directly on unmodified,
cable-ready, TV receivers. For example, cable channel 57 equals 421.25
MHz, and channel 58 equals 427.25 MHz, et cetera. We also use the
amateur 23 cm and 13 cm bands, for FM-TV.

A few Boulder County hams have their own home ham TV stations. With the
exception of a Monday night TV net, there is little routine ham TV
activity in the county. However, when we have a BCARES operation going,
there may be as many as four or five TV channels lighting up and
becoming active simultaneously on the 70 cm and 23 cm bands. Out of the
80+ BCARES members, about one half are TV trained and capable of
operating our TV equipment.

When using TV for ARES operations, the same FCC rules and guidelines
apply as for voice and data transmissions. We use common sense and
decency along with the FCC rules to determine what are appropriate
pictures to transmit. BCARES has turned down some requests for TV,
typically for foot and bicycle races, when we determined they were for
commercial, rather than bonafide public safety purposes.

BCARES uses commercial, off the shelf, consumer grade, Sony video
camcorders. Our latest cameras are high-definition, but we only
transmit conventional composite, NTSC, standard definition pictures.
Using 1080i, high-definition cameras still results in much better
quality images, even when transmitted in analog 480i, standard
definition. The Sony camcorders include an infra-red, night vision mode
capability, which has been found to be extremely useful for low light
operations. For example, images we provided to the Fire Chief of a 2002
forest fire on the outskirts of Boulder offered extremely revealing,
night time hot smoke clouds that were not at all obvious to the naked
human eye. Through a long telephoto lens, the chief was able to follow
the progress of his fire crews advancing up the mountainside towards
the fire line.

In our 911 center equipment cache, we have several complete, portable
TV transmitters packaged in backpacks. They are complete ready to go
kits with Sony HD-TV camera, tripod, transmitter, antenna and battery.
A Diamond SRH-999, flexible, 70 cm antenna is mounted high on the
camera tripod, with a coax feed from the transmitter in the backpack.
We use a 12 V, 7 amp-hour battery, which is sufficient to allow
continuous, key-down, TV transmission for more than three hours.

Television has proved to be very useful to the Boulder County public
safety agencies and as a result has gotten a lot more hams active in
public service. There is nothing worse than having a group of dedicated
ARES volunteers that never get called upon to serve. After awhile they
lose interest. Then, when they are really needed, they are not there or
maybe worse, they are untrained. With TV, that has happened far less to
BCARES. We get called upon a lot. We recommend that other ARES groups
consider adding TV to their ARES tool kits. -- Jim Andrews, KH6HTV,
Boulder, Colorado ARES; TV Repeater Trustee W0BCR

==> WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA ARES: NBEMS FOR DATA COMMUNICATIONS

Narrow Band Emergency Messaging Software (NBEMS) is an open source
software suite that allows Amateur Radio operators to reliably send and
receive data using nearly any computer (Windows, Mac, and Linux) and
any analog radio without requiring a dedicated digital infrastructure
or specialized modem hardware. NBEMS works on both VHF/UHF FM and on
HF. In an on-line presentation, readers can learn the basics of sending
and receiving data using Fldigi, and how to verify file transfers with
Flwrap. They will see how to easily send and receive verified text
messages using Flmsg. NBEMS is the standard digital emcomm package for
Western Pennsylvania ARES.

Advanced NBEMS

In a follow-up presentation, operators can also learn how to send and
receive ICS-205, ICS-206, ICS-213, ICS-214, and ICS-216 forms in
addition to ARRL Radiograms with Flmsg; and about new high speed modes
in NBEMS. They can also see how to deal with large data files using
Flwrap data compression and Flarq. Readers can also see real world
through-put benchmarks and receive recommendations for how best to send
data, and how to make a monitoring station automatically handle changes
in NBEMS modes.

Click here  for these on-line video
presentations. - ARRL Web site

==> LETTERS: A TORNADO, AND LESSONS LEARNED

While I was unharmed and under no serious threat, I decided that having
a tornado hit my street was the perfect time to test some of what I
practiced with ham radio and emcomm. Several things went wrong, mostly
due to my lack of preparedness. Trees were down, and so was power,
cable TV, and the Internet.

I have an iPhone, and I thought I could find a hot spot. No luck: "Data
services not available." The voice telephone of the iPhone worked, but
only at times. Lesson: Cell phones are not reliable, even "smart"
phones.

I had received an inquiry about conditions on my street and wanted to
reply via e-mail. I decided I could use WL2K 
and WINMOR  via my HF radio as my
antennas were intact. I loaded RMS Express
 and composed my health and
welfare response. I decided that I would not only send the e-mail to
the friend that inquired, I would also copy it to my ARES DEC, ARRL SM,
MARS commander, and other officials. But their e-mail addresses are not
in my RMS Express address book, and I could not get into my e-mail
account on-line to get their addresses. Another lesson learned: Have a
hard copy list of important e-mail addresses.

I shrugged this problem off, and decided to send the single e-mail via
RMS Express and WINMOR. I boot the modem only to receive a message
informing me that it failed to initialize. Despite several attempts, I
was never able to initiate a connection. Since the Internet was down, I
could not simply telnet via Winlink. There is also no 2-meter nor UHF
packet node within simplex distance for WL2K via packet. So, I gave up
on WL2K.

I should point out that the failure was not due to WL2K; it was my
failure. In two years of regular WL2K use via WINMOR, I had never made
a connection with my Internet down. The problem was due to a port
conflict, possibly in my router or PC firewall. The problem disappeared
as soon as the Internet came back. Lesson learned: Test your WL2K
capability without the Internet.

At this stage of my tornado evening, I am still a total communication
failure. I considered alternatives: It was Monday night at 8:45, and I
remembered that I am NCS for the 9:00 ARES/RACES net on my local
wide-area UHF repeater system. What more could you need for getting a
message out? The W2SB repeater was working well and my leaning antenna
was still indicating an S9 signal back from the machine. I called up
the net and asked for check-ins: Not a single station checked in.
Despite a good active ARES group for drills, we often have difficulty
getting more than 2-3 members to check in to the nets. This night of a
tornado emergency, no one checked in.

I next considered PSKmail . I moved to the
30-meter frequency where PSKmail servers are known to exist. I executed
a "ping" via THOR 22 mode
. Lo and behold, two
servers responded. I connected right away to the strongest one and
executed the "send e-mail" command. The e-mail began to transfer but an
old unsent e-mail in my outbox was sent first. I then spent the next 20
minutes in ARQ ping-pong and my health-and-welfare e-mail failed to
transfer. I tried the other server and got a good connection
immediately. Another twenty minutes of ARQ ping-pong and I gave up,
with the message failing to transfer. A few weeks earlier, I had
discovered some issues with PSKmail and the authors had published fixes
via an updated release of the software. I failed to install them when
they were released, thinking I would do it "when I get time." Too late,
I had no Internet to download it. Lesson learned: First, I failed to
check the outbox and remove unimportant e-mail. In a real emergency,
where power sources are scarce, wasting time and power due to an old
unsent e-mail is not good. Second, I failed to update a software
release that eliminated known communication problems. I did not get
that e-mail out from my emcomm station, and I am the ARES EC! My friend
eventually got a text message to me and I squeak out a reply via cell
phone.

Later than night I switched to 3583 kHz and 7036 kHz where several
stations were clearly audible and enjoying rag chews in digital modes.
I was able to copy their QSOs and saw that most were using Fldigi
. With Fldigi I can switch to NBEMS
 mode, and send e-mail to any station on
frequency that also has Fldigi. The receiving station can relay the
message on or pop it in to the Internet, an easy solution. By this time
I did not need to send an e-mail, so I did not try. I had simply forgot
about this option.

I then also remembered that I had missed two NTS nets that were easily
within range on 80-meters. I could have sent a good ol' ARL ONE. I had
forgotten this useful option, too.

Bottom Lines

I failed to fully test my station under exact conditions that would be
encountered without the Internet. I failed to program my emergency
communications e-mail software with important e-mail addresses. I
failed to have a hard copy of my important e-mail addresses. I failed
to realize that important information within a Gmail account (and other
Web-based services) is not available if the Internet is down. I failed
to perform critical emcomm software updates in a timely manner. I
failed to write out my personal communications plan. (I had written the
county ARES plan, but not my own!). Such a plan would not have caused
me to forget two emcomm methods I could have easily used (NBEMS and
plain old NTS). I hope your readers can learn from my mistakes. -- Andy
O'Brien, K3UK , Emergency Coordinator, Chautauqua
County, New York

==> LETTERS: COLLECTIONS OF SET SCENARIOS NEEDED

This may have been brought up in the past, but I was wondering if your
readers knew of any collections of practice scenarios that could be
perused by those wishing to provide an SET that is both pertinent and
interesting, if not unique. It seems that it is often difficult to make
up a decent incident; a pool would share good ideas, as well as spur
some new ones. I would appreciate any information your readers may
have. -- Jan Woldseth, KB6FMZ , DEC4, Sacramento
Valley, California ARES

Training: COML -- TYPE III Communications Unit Leader

During all-hazards emergency response operations, communications among
multiple jurisdictions and disciplines--including emergency medical,
fire, and law enforcement services--is essential. Unfortunately, the
absence of on-scene communications coordination has often compromised
critical operations. To close this capability gap, the Department of
Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Emergency Communications (OEC) in
partnership with the Office for Interoperability and Compatibility
(OIC), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National
Integration Center (NIC), and practitioners from across the country
developed performance and training standards for the All Hazards Type
III Communications Unit Leader (COML) as well as formulated a
curriculum and comprehensive All-Hazards Type III COML Course.

The Type III COML course trains emergency responders to be
communications unit leaders during all-hazards emergency operations,
significantly improving communications across the multiple disciplines
and jurisdictions responding to an incident. This COML training will
qualify emergency responders to lead ICS communications units if they
possess the necessary prerequisites, including knowledge of the
following: local communications; communications systems; and regional,
State, and local communications plans. COML responsibilities include
developing plans for the effective use of incident communications
equipment and facilities, managing the distribution of communications
equipment to incident personnel, and coordinating the installation and
testing of communications equipment.

Among other prerequisites, the COML candidate must complete the
following training courses:

· IS-700 -- Explains the purpose, principles, key components, and
benefits of NIMS. The course also contains Planning Activity screens,
allowing participants to complete planning tasks during this course.

· IS-800b -- Introduces participants to concepts and principles of the
National Response Framework.

· ICS-100 -- Introduces ICS; provides the foundation for higher-level
ICS training; describes ICS history, features, principles, and
organizational structure; and the relationship between ICS and NIMS.

· ICS-200 -- Provides training on, and resources for, personnel who are
likely to assume a supervisory position within ICS.

· ICS-300 -- Provides training on, and resources for, personnel who are
required to implement advanced application of the ICS.

NIMS Compliant: The National Incident Management System (NIMS) provides
a consistent, nationwide approach for agencies to manage emergency
response operations. Recognized by the FEMA/NIC as supporting NIMS, the
Type III COML course is being made available to States and localities.
-- DHS/FEMA

==> R. KENT TEVAULT SCHOLARSHIP FOR EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

The DuPage County (Illinois) Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) has
officially launched the R. Kent TeVault Scholarship In Emergency
Communications. The scholarship program, which was named for the team's
founder and first Emergency Coordinator, was created to further
emergency communications within Amateur Radio.

The R. Kent TeVault Scholarship in Emergency Communications has been
designed to offer a scholarship to encourage emcomm training in
general, and for the benefit of the DuPage County ARES team
specifically. This scholarship will reimburse selected Amateur Radio
operators who take and successfully pass the ARRL Introduction to
Emergency Communications Course (EC-001). A complete description of the
program and an application can be found on the team's web site at
www.dupageares.org  on the "Emcomm
Scholarship" page. -- Michael J. Schulz, W9MJS, EC, DuPage County
Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), Illinois

==> ARRL ORANGE SECTION HAMS RECOGNIZED

On October 28, 2011, California's 62nd District Assemblywoman Wilmer
Amina Carter recognized local hams at the "Third Annual Public Safety
Awards" volunteer recognition ceremony at The Inland Regional
Conference Center in San Bernardino, California. Representatives from
Congressman Baca's office, city, county and state government offices
(San Bernardino County Fire, Fontana Police Department, Rialto Fire
Department) were in attendance. Each fire and police department honored
their respective nominees with certificates of recognition.

The following were awarded for their communications expertise and
volunteerism within their respective public safety agency:

• Jim Eason, AD6IJ, volunteer work with San Bernardino County Fire
Department, club affiliation is with the Citrus Belt ARC as president.

• Jon Montgomery, K6FZZ, volunteer work with San Bernardino County Fire
Department, club affiliation is with the Citrus Belt ARC as treasurer.

• Louis Johnson, K6UMX, volunteer with the Fontana PD, club affiliation
Fontana ARC, ARRL VE, and Elmer.

• Joe Martinez, NJ6OE, volunteer with the Rialto Fire Department, club
affiliation President, Rialto ARC, Webmaster for K6RIA.net, and ARRL
VE.

Congratulations to all four, and thank you for your services to each of
your communities. -- Carl Gardenias, WU6D, ARRL Orange Section Manager

==> LETTERS: WESTERN WASHINGTON SECTION WRITES INTEROPERABILITY PLAN

You published my request for "sharing of District-level and
Section-level written plans that outline mutual aid agreements" in the
June E-Letter. Unfortunately, I did not receive any responses from
other areas of the country. As a result, District 4 in the Western
Washington Section wrote an interoperability plan from scratch which
has now been signed off by the Emergency Managers and Amateur Radio
emcomm leaders in the four counties. This document is available here
 for those who
would like to see what we came up with. Much more work on the
appendices needs to be done, but at least we now have a guiding
document that we can build upon. -- Steve Aberle, WA7PTM, ARRL Official
Emergency Station (OES), Western Washington Section

==> HAMS HELP SAVE THE LIFE OF FELLOW HAM

It was 10:00 PM as I reached for the power button of my ham radio and
call it a night. Just before my finger touched the switch I heard a
faint call -- someone was lost and needed help. Naturally, I would
stick around to hear more. After all, this is one of those rare moments
many hams live for.

Ron, KB6UF was not only lost in the Sierra Nevada mountains but also
stuck. While driving alone from Louisiana to California to visit his
grandkids for the Thanksgiving holiday the 68 year old missed the exit
where he was scheduled to stay at a hotel. So he turned to his GPS. It
instructed Ron to turn here and go there. The road turned into a gravel
road and Ron knew something was wrong. "I felt like I was going in
circles," he later said. He was 8 miles from the main road.

Pitched black and no street lights for miles, Ron hit a ditch. The
front wheels of his small truck were in the air and it was clear he was
going nowhere fast. He checked his cell phone. No cells. He has a 2
meter radio in his truck. No answers on any local repeaters. He turned
to 40 meters, remembering there are usually a bunch of hams on 7.195
MHz.

Within minutes, multiple hams were offering advice; use the low gear,
fill in the hole with brush and sand, rock the truck back and forth.
Somebody asked if Ron's GPS was working. It was. Ron gave out his
coordinates over the air. Now as many as 100 hams monitoring the
frequency knew Ron's exact location: in the hills near Mono Lake,
California, near the Nevada-California border.

Dave, N5SDO in New Mexico stepped up and became net control. Everyone
including Ron can hear Dave. Dave assessed Ron's predicament by asking
pertinent questions: Are you alone? How much fuel do you have? Do you
have food or water? Is there somebody we can call for you? Ron gave
Dave an 800 number to the Sheriff's office. Dave tried the 800 number
but it was a non-functioning number.

I thought about that non-working 800 number for a second. Maybe the
Sheriff's office discontinued the 800 service due to budget cuts, so I
Googled the 800 number and found the local dispatch number to Mono Lake
Sheriff's office in California. I called it. I had to explain I'm a ham
radio operator in Chicago and I'm monitoring a man stranded and lost in
hills near Mono Lake. The dispatcher said she would bring this info to
her sergeant. Ten minutes later the sergeant returned my call. I
quickly explained what had been happening over the past 90 minutes.
"Does he need a tow or is this a search and rescue?," asked the
sheriff. I relayed the question to Dave who then asked Ron. Ron said he
was requesting an officer. As soon as the sheriff heard "requesting an
officer" he said someone will be there in 30 minutes.

When Ron announced on the radio he could see the lights of the
sheriff's car approaching, many hams monitoring the frequency cheered
on air. Working together Ron doubled the nylon rope the sheriff had in
an attempt to pull Ron's small truck out of the ditch. The rope
snapped. Luckily, there was a piece long enough to triple fold the line
and that proved strong enough to pull Ron's vehicle free. Again, hams
cheered on the air as Ron was following the Sheriff back to town.

The sheriff said, "It's a good thing you had that radio otherwise we
would have found you in the Spring. Nobody comes up here this time of
year."

HF was the only way Ron was able to get help. Thank goodness he had a
good HF mobile or he might have been out there for days (or longer).
Several comments were heard stating "that does it, I was thinking about
putting an HF rig in the mobile but now I'm convinced and going to do
it" after listening in that night.

Thanks to all the hams that helped a fellow ham in need, especially
Dave N5SDO in New Mexico, Nick W9ZXT in Illinois, Jerry N0VXE in
Colorado, Dan KD0LYK in Kansas and Dave W7DBS in Nevada and of course
the Mono Lake Sheriff's Office. -- Henry Schleichkorn, K9KDE, Chicago,
Illinois henry@k9kde.com

==> K1CE FOR A FINAL

These are the last words I'll be writing in 2011, and I wanted to close
the year out by thanking Mike Corey, KI1U, ARRL Emergency Preparedness
Manager, for all of his efforts in editing this newsletter, and for his
dedication and enthusiasm, expertise and experience, in managing the
ARRL Headquarters' emergency response and field support functions. He
does a superb job for all of us.

_______

You can now read my deathless prose in the Public Service column in QST
each month. In the January issue, I wrote about the intangibles that
make or break an EC, and how to pick a good one in the first place.
Check it out! And happy holidays from all of the ARES E-Letter
editorial/production staff here in the executive suites tower on the
ARES E-Letter corporate campus in Flagler County, Florida! 73's to all,
and to all, a good night. -Rick Palm, K1CE

The ARES E-Letter is published on the third Wednesday of each month.
ARRL members may subscribe at no cost or unsubscribe by editing their
Member Data Page as described at
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/ares-el/.

 Copyright (c) 2011 American Radio Relay League, Inc. All
Rights Reserved

 
          
 
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