KK5JY is right, a solution in search of a problem! It's just an eclipse. Again, amateur emcomm in this day and age is backup communications to be provided at the invitation of the governing agencies. Enjoy the eclipse. Check 6 meters. I was on in July, 1963 and 6 was amazing. I worked all of the west coast for the first time on AM. Did the eclipse do it? Heck I was only 15 at the time. Maybe it helped propagation, maybe not. But it sure was fun.
Many of the responses here surprise me, to a degree. Maybe I'm just more of a realist than some. I hope all of you are correct but it is likely you won't be; at least, not in every town along the path. Many places it will be a non-issue but others will have problems and then someone will need help and not be able to get it. What I do agree with is...if hams are not strategically deployed well ahead of time with detailed plans in place then it won't do any good. People act like the issues will only last a minute or two - that's beyond naive. The people won't show up for just 2 minutes and then leave; the eclipse is not the issue, the influx of thousands into areas that are designed for hundreds is what will cause the issues (if it happens as predicted). "The sun goes down every night" is comical - yep, it does! But 30,000 people don't descend on a town with a population of 2,000 to watch it like many are predicting will happen in places. That's the difference. I do hope the other commenters here, who seem to think it is crazy to think there will be issues, are right but I think after it's over we will hear stories of things happening in various places along the path and they couldn't call for help help or that help couldn't get to them. Not everywhere, no, but a few places. I mean, we're talking about a long path all across the country here...about 2,500 miles, 70 miles wide as the path of totality. There are problems that arise daily without anything special like this going on. I do not liken this to a Y2K scenario because with Y2K, if things weren't corrected ahead of time like they were, it would have been a continual problem until the issues were fixed. They found out ahead of time the problems existed and corrected them before they caused havoc. But it could be that for 24-48 hours there will be areas where most cell phones can't connect to make calls or send texts and roads are gridlocked with vehicles and people. To think otherwise is naive and silly. After the people leave, though, the roads become unclogged and the phone towers go back to the normal use for which their capacity was designed. And while I do expect some temporary cell sites to be put up in a few places, they certainly won't be in every town and community along the path... But, again, what can hams really do at this point? Unless a strategic plan is already in place (which is likely not the case in most places along the path) I feel the answer is likely 'nothing'. Maybe that is the point you all are trying to make. But it came across as if you are laughing, saying this won't cause any problems anywhere at all. History - recent history - shows that to be false...and those have been just isolated areas at large events. If the people show up as expected, cell towers will go down and traffic will be slow to standing still in various places from Oregon to South Carolina. That's just reality...a headache for a while but things will go back to normal in the end. Patience will be required for those who make the trek to these places.
No; No one is 'crazy thinking about issues'. Like I said, we have seen Woodstocks and Watkins Glens many many times before. The point is ARES can do nothing and has no public plans. IF they did, I WOULD take a 2M rig and, if not assist, at least APPRISE. But what am I supposed to do--monitor my rig for chatter? Fact is, I already have heard the various local swear words. I don't need such a lesson on 2M outside of Nashville. Outside you will hear a lot of 'please, thank you, and sir'. But on 2M (Nashville proper excluded) you will hear stuff that will make you say: "Paddle faster; I hear banjoes." Like this, only on repeaters: How does ARES proposed to manage that? I will be on Interstate 65 before the eclipse and after. Because of its central location, weather probability, and length of totality, this will be the biggest concentration logistically in the entire country. The only ISSUE I see is if the weather within 100km of Nashville goes cloudy. THEN you will have 250,000-- 500,000 clogging Interstate 65 AND OTHER highways fishing for clear skies. Won't be pretty. The issue isn't people camping and creating temporary Sturgis's....its people moving around at the last minute. So what the heck is ARES proposing to help on that?
In most places they aren't. I think that is the point of discussion - there will be issues but there will be nothing anyone can do about them beyond have patience. Like I already said.
You're making some of my points for me. Everyone from Emergency Management to State Tourism departments expects gridlock in developed areas, and maybe in rural areas, too. And they're expecting cell phone systems to be overloaded. Think Woodstock or Watkins Glen on a national scale, and even locally, think everywhere, not just one venue or stadium. What can hams do? Duh! Communicate. Communicate what? Whatever problems occur in their immediate area, if the cell system isn't available. To who? Police, Emergency Management. How? Preferably an organized net with direct access (not the phone system) to officials. But we can't be everywhere, so why bother? sigh... How will hams find the net? Bingo! If you're from out of the area, you'll have little way to know, though if more clubs and ARES groups did what this club in Pocatello ID is doing, that would help. Pocatello is a small town just south of the zone of totality, at the intersection of two Interstate highways that lead to the zone, and can expect gridlock and communications outages: http://www.pocatelloarc.org/ If you're heading to an 'Eclipse Zone', look up the local ARES groups or clubs and find out. But of course, most of them aren't really advertising their activity, so maybe you'll have to wade through the cesspool (really?) and find their net. Hopefully they'll keep activity up enough to find them. What if they gave an Eclipse, and nothing bad happened? I hope that's the case. The anti-EmComm faction has a non-linear view of EmComm. They accuse us of predicting Armageddon for every event. We realize that most of the time our operation ranges between being kinda helpful to 'not much.' It's the few times when it is something that we prepare for. Someplace in the zone, this will be one of those times. And it's not 'a little late' to coordinate that. ARES groups have ongoing relationships with Emergency Management, and as we've been producing these shows, we've learned that many ARES groups are preparing now, and have been for a while. But perhaps they're thinking of their activity as local, not needing publicity. If so, they haven't been thinking about the thousands of hams who will be traveling into their territory, willing and able to assist... if they can find you. 73, Gary KN4AQ
Well said, Gary. Short answer is - hams can be hams and serve as we should. Will it be needed everywhere? No. Will plans be in place everywhere? No. Does that mean we should be naive and look like we have our head in the sand by pretending this is a non-issue? Well...I won't look that foolish but some seem to want to. That's what's unbelievable.
I'm going to rephrase that: Most hams traveling to the eclipse areas won't be thinking of preparing themselves for an emergency where their communications capabilities could be useful, if they were prepared. I did think about it. I usually do check out repeaters in areas I'm traveling to. In this case, in rural Wyoming, there's not much. I'll have to decide if I can tote a mobile radio/antenna, because an HT won't cut it. We may have nothing but tumbleweeds where we're going. But if we do have a crowd, and someone does have an emergency, my radio may be the only way to reach help. But I wasn't thinking of it on a large scale until a viewer pointed out an Idaho county that preemptively declared a state of emergency for eclipse day. Then the larger ham radio role began to dawn on me. And I began finding that hams in some areas were working with Emergency Management. And I'm doing some shows to dig out the stories and details. I have no illusions that little HamRadioNow.tv can make a big difference in awareness. My goal is to make some interesting TV shows, and maybe make a little difference. And give a venue for the knee-jerk What could possibly go wrong? anti-emcomm trolls of the community.
After careful consideration, in the absence of publicized ham/ARES resources, I will NOT be bringing a ham radio to the eclipse. I will bring a FRS radio and an INREACH -- which does satellite based texting to any phone in the world. And, of course, my IPhone 6S. Yes, I know all about Wyo sparcity of comms...I spend a fair amount of time in Jackson Hole, and will be there after the eclipse. Hence the INREACH.
The ARES groups are NOT doing this on their own. They are being asked to be prepared by their local Emergency Management staff acting for their elected local government or an Agency that responds to disasters. They are "preparing for the worst and hoping for the best". If the locals did nothing, and something bad happened they would be severely criticized for failing to do their jobs. ARES is part of their local disaster plan, so they are on standby. Nothing more, nothing less.
Please be sure to post back here after the emergency and tell us how many life's were save with ham radio, How many babies were saved from burning buildings, and how many traffic accidents were reported to police or fire over ham radio. You can forget about any plane crashes because we have already established in another thread, that to ham radio a plane crash on a freeway is not an emergency, but an eclipse is. https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/saint-joseph-missouri-eclipse-emergency-net.575446/
What 'worst'? Traffic jams? Overflowing toilets? Sunburn? Public micturation? It would really help to know HOW to help--if the supposed 'worst's' were articulated. Don't get me wrong, as usual I am grateful for the work of public service professionals. But how, exactly, can the AMATEURS help?
