Last year all Missouri hospitals received grant money to purchase amateur gear as a means of back-up communication. My XYL and I are the only licensed employees in the hospital so we were asked to put this money to good use. We gladly said yes and assembled a modest station. The hospital gave me access to their short tower which is 85' so I constructed a nice 80meter dipole and took it to the top. On July 7th the Region E district of Missouri held a communication drill organized by state level Disaster Management agency. All hospitals and local public safety agencies were invited to participate with the focus being on amateur radio. The drill included H.E.A.R. and MCI trailers. The drill was carried out on the states Emergency Management Resoures program with a continuous running IM to feed information to all participants. The test began with HEAR and as I watched the IM run I quickly noticed that most participants were not making contact by HEAR frequency. I checked in state level on 80m with no problem. After the HEAR test we began the amateur portion of the test of local repeaters and point to point test. Judging from the info that was coming over the IM and the 2m radio we were fairing much better on the amateur portion of the drill. 80m did deteriorate so we had to resort to back-up frequency on 40m and was able to continue our 30 minute check-ins on HF for the reaimder of the drill. The amateur portion of the drill concluded with good success of repeater contacts being made well over 50 mile radius. As I watched as the remainder of the drill continued with the MCI trailers and IP digital communications, they were of not much success either. After the drill came to a close it was apperant that amateur radio would have saved the day had it been an actual disaster. The state recongnized this and is giving a second round of funding for $1250. The first round of funding being $1200.
Let me say I'm not a Pro Active ECOMMer but if my employer will give me money to buy amateur gear and then pay me a days wage to sit behind a radio all day, I'm gonna do it.
Many say that amateur radio is dumbing down and going to a plug-n-play operator but to me it is apperant that the training and experience of todays operators proved their knowledge of station building in this weeks drill.
73
Jeff
Good to hear. We have a station at our local hospital that is way underutilized due to too few volunteers. I typically man the airport station, but since that is going away, I might spend more time at the hospital. Unfortunately, we don't have HF there, maybe that is something we could work on, along with getting other hospitals in the area on the air. A while back I suggested a packet network between several of the hospitals in the area, but it never went anywhere, again, lack of volunteers to actually do it. Maybe I'll bring that up again.
The dumbing down is a problem, when I started, you could assume that a ham knew how to make a dipole and knew the difference between 2 meter and 80 meter propagation, these days, you can't even assume that, which is a bad thing.
Let me say I'm not a Pro Active ECOMMer but if my employer will give me money to buy amateur gear and then pay me a days wage to sit behind a radio all day, I'm gonna do it.
You are indeed an EMCOMMER, and a PAID PROFESSIONAL ONE at that!
I would bet I could find many hams who would love a "JOB" using amateur radio! What does it pay? Twenty bucks an hour?
The 'dumbing down' of amateur radio is done, and is now longer a problem. Now it is the conversion of it to Public Safety Radio that is being jammed down our throats.
I'm waiting for the local taxi company to install ham radio and paid dispatchers to use it for the cabs. It IS coming, trust me.
A few years back there were a LOT of businesses on two meter repeaters, but by the late 1990s, the FCC had halted most of that. Now these grants are promoting the use of ham radio by agencies that should be spending their money on backup commercial systems, and should get out of the amateur radio "business."
The question is, though, how does operating "company owned equipment" as a "paid employee", in your own words, paid to do so, fit into the rules of amateur radio?
If the hospital had an "amateur radio club" with a club trustee, and a club call sign, and club members could operate the radio equipment for pleasure, that would be very different.
But this is a professional system, operated by a paid professional - you. Paid to operate it, as you said.
That is a severe distortion of the purpose of amateur radio.
And I would not want MY tax dollars going to an "amateur" system for public safety, even depending upon PAID HAMS to operate it. The hospital should be 'real' radio that interfaces with all the rest of the public safety radio systems.
Then, when an emergency comes up, and ALL the PS radios are broken, they can call upon volunteers to supply and operate amateur radios. But you have turned this into a paid employee situation, and the rules specifically forbid that.
I am vehemently opposed to this 'grant' stuff. Amateur radio is indeed a 'service" as someone commented. Just like Citizen's Radio Service, Wireless Service, Maritime Radio Service, Broadcast Radio Service -- anyone else see the word "service" in all those? It is how the FCC addresses each entity it regulates.
These grants are turning amateur radio into something it was never meant to be, and that is Public Safety Radio. When they succeed, there won't be any more amateur radio. It will all be "Public Safety Auxilliary" and it will be tightly regulated, with no chatting, no building, limited to FM only, and short, terse transmissions , of business interest only. The "hobby" aspect, which is what 98 percent of hams do, will be disallowed.
It is completely illogical for grant money to be spent on amateur radio. Grant money should go to improve or expand existing systems. I know, I can't win that battle, as money talks. The ARRL is hoping for this situation to grow, for it means "millions" of hams, who have "company" licenses. And it will expand, to include not only fire, police and hospitals, but delivery companies that can be construed to deliver emergency supplies, courier companies that transport county officials, construction companies that have to coordinate rebulding of disaster scenes, and the like. It will turn amateur radio into a 'general purpose business radio" and will kill it for many, many thousands.
I believe, if you want to be valuable in public safety communications, then do so. Join the organization, get yourself one of their trunked or simplex handie talkies, operate on their frequencies, help them learn how to install and maintain public safety systems, and more. Most can use volunteers.
But by your own statement, you are a PAID amateur operator. Where does that fit in with "Amateur Radio?"
Oh, I don't doubt that you are not the only one. We have many people in this "service" who have obtained amateur licenses as part of their job. They aren't hams. They are people who happen to have a ham license. The vast majority of them (and I know a few personally) would never, ever attempt to use a ham radio. But they have been told, especially if they are an Emergency Manager, that having a ham license is an adjunct to the job.
We really need to see where this is leading us. It isn't into even being permitted to work DX on 20 meters.
As much as I love AR, I'd have to say your story is more an indictment of the commercial MCI (telecom folks?) and 'profession' IP radio operators than a proof of the technical superiority of AR. (I know that wasn't your point - but it is mine)
The reason AR 'gets through' when others don't? Basically 2 reasons:
1. no infrastructure
2. simplicity
Well, actually 1 is part of 2 - so maybe there's only one reason. AR is SIMPLE (note: not simplistic!)
AR is not technically superior to the commercial public safety offerings - just a lot easier to make go! It takes less effort, time and skill to setup an 80m NVIS station that it does to make a mis-configured ASTRO setup work. AR is also a whale of a lot more tolerant of how it's configured! If you've ever worked on a commercial, digital TDMA radio system - you know what I mean. We still can't get hams to set their deviations on their packet stations to something reasonable - but it works anyway. Do that on a commercial radio and you get bup-kissed.
As was recently mentioned to me by the owner of one of the larger "Mother M" shops in the area - it's a lot easier to take an IT guy and make him into a radio tech than it is to teach a radio tech IT. The word "Convergence" has meaning here too.
AR beats crap out of nothing. When nothing is what you have - AR is GREAT! But, if you have anything else working - AR often gets relegated to the 'back woods' duties.
As soon as the commercial guys get out of their own 'dumbed down' mind sets, get their training and lack of technical Zen up to speed and actually learn how to configure, setup, install, maintain and operate their whiz-bang kits, you'll notice a difference.
The commercial products are also getting better and more tolerant of fat-fingered setups. Remember the early days of computing? See how it is today? That's coming to radio as well. It's getting to the point that commercial radio will also be simple (not simplistic!) and much easier for most any basically trained tech/operator to get going. Look up such things as "Cognitive Radio".
In the mean time - enjoy the crap out of your funded station. You're a lucky ham and to be commended for getting it done. You'll also continue to be the 'prod' that motivates the professionals to pickup their game - I hope.
EDIT: Also, having worked at a hospital myself doing patient care, when the utilities went down - I was there to do my job - not radio. Even though when that did happen, I was the only one that COULD call for help - and did. I busted butt to do what I was there to do - patient care. It would've been inexcusable for me to drop that responsibility to operate the radios.
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