<<< Concluded from previous message >>>
What was the most important thing I did? I made sure our operators all
got the lunches and t-shirts the race organizers provided for them. I
made deliveries when necessary and made sure everyone was taken care
of. My operators, hopefully, felt supported, fed, happy, and got a nice
souvenir for their efforts.
Making the troops as happy as possible is key for any manager's
success--especially when the workers are not getting paid. Leaders
exist to support their volunteers, not vice versa. - ARES® E-Letter
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Area : Netmail Area
Date : Wed May 25, 06:18 pvt
From : "ARRL Web site" 1:3634/1000
To : richard webb 1:116/901
Subj : 02:The ARES E-Letter for May 25, 2011
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Contributing Editor David Coursey, N5FDL ,
is an emcomm leader in San Joaquin County, California and author of the
N5FDL.com blog.
==> LETTERS
On "HamCrams," April Issue
I am responding to the "HamCram" article and comments in the last
issue. I have been licensed since 1959. I have been an active member of
Nassau County, New York ARES® for nearly 30 years. I have worked with
kids in school radio clubs at least since 1977 when I started work at
Brooklyn Technical High School (W2CXN). My home club is the Long Island
Mobile Amateur Radio Club (LIMARC) where I presently hold the title of
Education Committee Chair. I am a retired public school chemistry
teacher.
In my experience trying to teach classes to high school students and
adults, traditional multi-session courses have not been very effective.
The attrition rate has been very frustrating. Many who start never get
to the exam. In the past year I have led a team of volunteer
instructors in four 1-day cram/review sessions. The ground rules were
that everyone who signed up was required to study in advance. We
suggested, but did not prescribe which books, media, on-line resources,
etc. they needed to use. These sessions that started at 8 AM and went
through the question pool by 3:30 PM were followed immediately by VE
sessions administered by a separate team of VEs.
The results were most encouraging. The Technician session results were
15 of 15, 13 of 13 and 4 of 7. The three who did not pass at the last
session told us that they had not studied in advance. On April 10, the
same team conducted a General class upgrade session resulting in 9 of
11 passing. One missed by one question and one had not studied. The
bottom line is that these cram/review sessions only work when a person
is committed enough to have done some individual studying.
We maintain a Yahoo group as a forum for support. Our experience has
been that passing grades were typically 30 correct or more, including
several 35s.
Our view is that getting the license is similar to what I used to hear
about driving. Get the license and then learn to be a driver, or in
this case an Amateur Radio operator. LIMARC and our county ARES® and
CERT/RACES groups are all working to provide the hands-on experience in
drills and public service events that are needed to make them
effective.
We are exploring the idea of more traditional classes aimed at filling
in the gaps that were glossed over during the pre-exam review sessions.
The model that seems to be coming together would be open to all
interested regardless of license held. There would be no pressure or
anxiety about taking an exam at the end. Topics would be chosen from
the various license manuals with sessions held prior to our regular
monthly meetings.
The comments about inexperienced operators not knowing how to manage
their stations in an emergency are a real concern, but it has always
been so. Our fellow hams have always responded to emergencies when the
need arose. I remember the first hurricane that I operated in, Donna,
in 1960. When an Avianca plane ran out of fuel and crashed on the north
shore of Long Island, there was an ad hoc response that was
overwhelming. The same was true in the days after the 9/11 attacks in
NYC and during the 2003 blackout.
You are absolutely correct that we do not have enough operators to meet
the potential emcomm needs in nearly any serious situation. Since we
always experience an ad hoc response and must transform these new
volunteers into an effective team, which ones are likely to be better
operators? I have contended for some time that they are not likely to
come from the NTS ops, but from the DXers and contesters. It is in this
regard that I am promoting participation in FD this year, especially by
our newly licensed and upgraded hams. In order to be a skilled
operator, one needs to operate. Drills and 'athons are good, but may
not be enough to keep the attention of many. One needs to have fun with
our hobby. It is not a job. More than 52 years of experience and still
eagerly learning. Keep up the good work. - Lew Malchick, N2RQ
, East Meadow, New York
Video: Interview with NC Ham who lost Home in Tornado
Readers might be interested in a video I posted on the Brightleaf
Amateur Radio Club Web site . One of our
members, Hollis Thigpen, KC3X, of Snow Hill, North Carolina, lost his
home in the April 16 tornadoes that came through the eastern part of
the state. The video is two minutes long, from WCTI-12, New Bern.
Hollis is interviewed the next day at his home. Also, here
are photos and captions I made at the KC3X QTH
13 days later showing a lot of the destruction, including the 72 foot
US Tower bent over at the base. - Dave Langley, W4YDY
, Brightleaf ARC Ham Chatter Editor;
Brightleaf ARC Web site Editor, North Carolina
Do's and Don'ts for EmComm Success
I have experienced all of the things on the lists published in the last
couple of issues by David Coursey, N5FDL. I would add that probably the
most important "Do" is to communicate freely. Sometimes this is the
most difficult, but it really needs to be emphasized. What we did in
New Mexico when we established the state SAR organization is to ask
each team what they thought their expertise is/was. Then we made it
clear to them that they would be called when we needed that expertise,
otherwise they would be put on standby. That way we did not wear out
all of the teams.
On the subject of a simple H-T, I await a response to see if what you
published will get any feedback. Meanwhile, I plan to check out the H-T
you reviewed in the March issue of QST and see if it meets all the
things that I suggested. It is imperative that it be simple enough that
one can program it without the book being close at hand. - Bob Skaggs,
KB5RX , Santa Fe, New Mexico
AA Battery/Power Solutions
I found a simple and economical way to have all the battery power I
need: Get the correct size AA holders from a place like Jameco or Parts
Express and put a few in parallel for longevity. Then add a flexible
cable with a power connector on the end that will fit your HT. The
battery holders generally will fit nicely into a small arms army
surplus ammo pouch and fit on any belt even though the pouches are made
for the ALICE belt (that belt is also the most comfortable). See my
emcomm web page
.
In re a simple H-T, I had one of the overly-complicated newer H-Ts and
I reverted back to my old standby ICOM IC-2AT. It is a very simple,
basic VHF-only H-T and it works fine with my home-brew battery pack.
The problem with the old IC-2AT is that a tone board must be added.
Being a fire fighter at heart I like to keep it simple and functional.
Fancy stuff in an emergency usually just gets in the way and hampers
the operation. - Bill MacLane, AI4WM ,
Palm Coast, Florida
Timely, Twitter and Passwords
In re last month's article on Twitter alerting, the author suggests
creating a "strong password that you might share with just a few people
in your group so they could post the alert if you were unavailable.
Board members or the club president would be some examples of who you
might grant posting access to."
You don't have to share your password, if you use http://timely.is/ YOU
set up Timely for the account. YOU add users to the Timely account.
Your group that you allow can post Tweets, either scheduled or within
30 minutes. It's a great tool for networking and team building. Hope
that helps. -- Lloyd Colston, KC5FM ,
Altus, OK EMA http://wx5em.us
Simple H-Ts
Just a quick note that the simple thumbwheel-operated H-T described in
KB5RX's letter is not a TH-22; it's probably an ICOM IC-2AT. I own
several of the Kenwood TH series handhelds (2m, 70cm, 23cm), and they
all program the same and are fairly simple to use. For the most-used
function (set up and store a repeater pair) I have the process coded on
an adhesive label on the back of each radio. For the less-used
commands, a photo-reduced, laminated function chart I produced in Excel
stays in my wallet. -- Marty Woll, N6VI ,
Vice Director, ARRL Southwestern Division; Assistant DEC, ARES®LAX
Formidable Footprint
Formidable Footprint is a free online Emergency Response Tabletop
Exercise Series sponsored by Disaster Resistant Communities Group
(DRC-Group), Depiction software, and Stoneybrook Group LLC. It is a
Web-based interactive real-time drill which will take about three hours
to complete. It features pictures, video, audio and interactive maps.
Teams from all over the nation and some international teams
participate. Although it is targeted to CERT and Neighborhood groups, I
feel it has a lot of value to ARES® members because: 1) Many types of
decisions and contact data are common to all groups and can be tested
by this drill, and 2) ARES® volunteers are not going to be available if
their families and/or neighbors need them. The better their family and
neighbor can plan for any disaster, the better their availability for
helping others. Summit County ARES® will gather at a single location
and work through the drill as a team. Details can be found here
. For a good overview
of the process, you can view the online video found here
.
We went through an interactive flood event to be used to elicit
responses from our team at various points, such as "Is this request
within the responsibility of our group," and "Who would our group
contact to handle this item," etc. After the drill there was an online
hotwash and we received a report of all our responses to the "injects"
such that we can use it for an after action report. Other drills in
this series include Wildfire (March 26), Tornado (April 30), Influenza
Pandemic (May 28) and Hurricane (June 25). I think ARES® should
publicize the availability of these FREE Tabletop exercises!
On another note, there is a Stop Disasters Game available here
. Sponsored by the
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, it has
five scenarios (Tsunami, Hurricane, Wildfire, Earthquake, and Flood)
and three difficulty levels. With a limited budget and time, the player
must manage the community to minimize loss of life and property damage
during the impending event. It is targeted at late teens, but at 57
years of age, I find it a very interesting game and am working to
optimize my strategy for the Flood event - the only one I have tried so
far. I think, again, this is something that would be of interest to
ARES®. The basic intent seems to be to raise the awareness of the value
of preparation for disaster, and I think it does an excellent job of
that. - Dennis Conklin, AI8P , AEC, Summit
County, Ohio ARES®
==> K1CE FOR A FINAL
The tenth anniversary of 9/11 is this September. Here is a link to a
first-person report by 9/11 first responder and
radio amateur Bob Hejl, W2IK, that I found to be very moving. Hejl was
among the first to be on the scene on 9/11. It is raw and powerful
reading. The author is suffering from PTSD as a result of his
experience. His account is not to be missed. -- Rick, K1CE
, Flagler County, Florida
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