Force of Two: In Depth stories from 2 Puerto Rico volunteers on HamRadioNow

Ask yourself -- what website are you on right now?
An ARRL web site ? Nope....

Zed rocks. The site stays with the times. Pursuing advances in technology. Leading world-wide. Showcasing activity. Allowing interaction (which is a foundation for ham radio to begin with)

ARRL web site - ...totally irrelevant and boring content and behind the times...passive. One way.

League HQ - antique perspectives, behind in technology, and nothing but procedures - an example...
Field day rules - simple emergency drill exercise... are now 41 PDF pages long - it's a wonder no new hams want to get on the air --they've over-engineered and keep piling on rule after rule after rule over the decades.


Here on this forum (and other non-ARRL sites) we have interaction of hams, real discussion, video posts by hams for hams, technology exchange; A group of hams, by hams and for hams. There is no "league" here. No paid members. No elections or voting or quasi-bureucratic sections or section managers or liasons or offical appointments etc. Yet it's a great forum that provides info for the hobby to the hobby participants. eHams is similar. QSL.net and so on. No one NEEDS the league to advance the hobby. Their interaction with the FCC and even the WRTC have done little of relevance since, oh, about 1979 when we won the WARC bands .... SO...is the league even necessary to represent us in advancing the hobby? Some may argue that since then, the league helped us "win" a whopping 5 channels on 60M, or the new ultra low frequency stuff that's useful for about no-one....... looking back we lost much more than we gained during the past 30 years.

ARRL is all about collecting money from old dying hams and selling shirts, hats, pins and books now days to pay for high overhead and bloated non-profit salaries.... and no, we can't challenge the league or their perspective ... especially on their web site. yawn...boring.....

The new leadership has been in office for 2 years now. What have they accomplished? Only now getting to the "what should we change" question? Corporations do this in a matter of the first 100 days.

Time to drain the Newington cesspool! New leadership. 5 -year Term limits for all including CEO. Diversity. Accountability for actual results. Transparency.

Lets move to a new thread by popular demand...

 

Now that you technicolor yawned....do you feel better ?

 

K7JOE said:

The new leadership has been in office for 2 years now. What have they accomplished? Only now getting to the "what should we change" question? Corporations do this in a matter of the first 100 days.

• Actually NY2RF has been in less than 18 months...he's done a good job getting people to actually turn on their HF radios and use them....My opinions are poor ratings on a number of other different areas....too much emphasis on 'face' ('hams to the rescue')rather than inclusion. No emphasis on accuracy, IMO. The biggest problem: ARPA is a disaster as presently worded, and the ARRL knows this.

Time to drain the Newington cesspool! New leadership. 5 -year Term limits for all including CEO. Diversity. Accountability for actual results. Transparency.

• Members determines leadership;
• The ARRL is very much concerned about diversity; this is a ham problem we all need to solve. The actual employee makeup is not all 'old white men', but the leadership needs a better representation of the US population as a whole. They know this. You need people to choose to run to get them to lead;
• Transparency is a very real problem.

Your opinions may differ.

 

• Utilize local ARES teams first

In a real Disaster, the Local ARES members will be affected along with everyone else.
There needs to be "outside" team available for at least the first 96 hours. AND relief
teams to receive the first in teams.

• Better screening of volunteers, for physical, technical, and emotional suitability

Especially for people coming in from outside the area. The big problem with all of this
is credentialing. There is no local, regional or national credential that is recognized by
ALL law enforcement, showing a picture, training, fitness for deployment, skills, etc.
without a proper credential, no one can go anywhere (except to the local jail).
even the Red Cross ID means nothing to a local law enforcement officer, whose orders
are "NO ONE can pass this checkpoint"

• Select teams, even as small as two and fill out with individuals

YES teams of 2 build from there, maximum flexibility in where they can deploy.
A team of 2 with tents and sleeping bags can function almost anywhere.

• Designate qualified leaders upon whom the served agency can rely

Without getting to know who you are working for BEFORE an event you are going
to have nothing but problems. Teams and agencies that drill and train together are
real teams.

• Enough with the press releases

Press releases are important so the public knows whats going on. In a large event
thats what the joint public information centers are for.

• Commit to objective after-action evaluation

No job is done until all the paperwork is completed. I expect an after action report will be
done after the response is wrapped up. In this case, it probably won't be wrapped up until
mid year 2018.

I think it is sad that we are essentially abandoning Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
There is a great need for all kinds of assistance there. We are not providing it.

from FEMA this morning:

Power Outages/Restoration:

• Customers with grid power: STT*: 31.4%; STX: 3.3%; STJ: 12.1%

• VIWAPA estimates 90% to be restored by late December

Communications :

• 52.9% (+2.5%) cell sites operational; 88% of population has coverage

• Cell tower restoration continues for remaining tower sites

Health & Medical:

• STT:

Mobile medical facility operational

• STX:

Gov.Juan Luis partiallyopen;

Charles Harwood Facility closed

Water Restoration: Boil water advisory remains in effect territory - wide

 

Clearly both Jeremy and Michael (and the other members of the team) displayed considerable proficiency in carrying out the task at hand. Setting up aerials at random locations, operating their equipment and interacting well with local officials where ever they went.

To have the operation closed down in such an abrupt manner when there still was a need for their services does not auger well for the involvement of Amateur Radio in future events of this nature.

 

The problem we ran into while trying to use ARES was the fact that anyone with a license and a desire to assist can be a part of it. Screening, by ARES standards, was not possible. In order for our local emcomm to get rid of problematic operators, we had to cut ties with ARES and form a new organization.

 

Some of the island of PR getting WIRED now for electricity BUT THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH 'MAINS' GENERATORS TO HANDLE THE LOAD.

WHEN AVAILABLE this means rotation, and the duty cycle is very low---minutes to a couple of hours a day--and people are using this to run pumps for cisterns, and water pumps overall, so at least they can get water and flush toilets. Cooking when they can.

Purchases are mostly cash only; no RF driven credit card possible in any great quantity. ATM's swamped and empty rapidly.

Water delivery is still a major, major problem. WP3R reports OVER 22,000 gallons of water have been pumped from the Arecibo Observatory well and distributed by truck to the local population (they have big generators running on diesel, not mains).

The main problem is becoming roofs. 95% of houses are without any at all, still, in many areas. People define normalcy as being able to cook, flush the toilet, watch TV, and have a roof over their heads; that is months away still in many circumstances away from the coasts.

PR doesn't need press releases. It needs facts conveyed as news. Glad I could provide some new ones from my PR contacts.

 

All locals will be affected. That is why it is important to keep in good stature with your neighboring counties. Around here, we plan on taking care of our families first, and doing emcomm 2nd and letting our neighbors come and help, as we would come and help them while they took care of their families in a disaster.

 

Sure, but some things are worth spending to get. Such as restoring TRUST from MEMBERSHIP.

Of course, upper management can accomplish that FOR FREE. But in absence of first doing the things required for that (see your post 137) moving the corporation to another state which has fewer non=profit regulations against BOD and electoral process misbehaviour, auditing and other transparency, is just digging the lack-of-trust in policy making hole deeper, potentially driving away those who want to care for the ARRL.

Chip, you hit the mark squarely with post #137 though.

73 de John - WØPV

 

Regarding ARRL press releases, I'm still baffled about the bizarre retraction published regarding SHARES, "Getting It Right" in the Oct 26th ARRL Letter, which implies a correction but doesn't explain the mistake ("incorrectly characterized") from the previous weeks "... Recovery Mission Ends"story. They just printed a cut & pasted definition from the SHARES website.

As was expressed in the video and posts by Jeremy and Mike, after ARES management arrived tension seems to have developed between FEMA-SHARES and ARC. I wonder if the Feds felt embarrassed, showed up, or objected to being portrayed as late and/or the replacement for the ARES volunteers, and subsequently complained causing the ARC to pull the plug on The Force early, and then ARRL News to take back their first statement.

http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter?issue=2017-10-19#toc01

http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter?issue=2017-10-26#toc11

Again, no "hero stories" seen about ARES working with FEMA, or even about hams who may be SHARES "volunteers" (many getting their Fed salaries while away on disaster duty).

http://www.govexec.com/management/2...nteer-surge-force-fema-relief-efforts/141262/

 

I'm with you Chip. I guess PR and the Islands are "out of sight, out of mind" . After all, they are Islands in a big Ocean Its a huge human tragedy. There must be some major legal block that
is not allowing volunteers or needed supplies/goods to be allowed to be sent to the needed areas.
And the fact that the news networks have no interest anymore.

 

Great! The sort of discussion I was hoping for.

Indeed, but some team members will be available to provide guidance and some leadership. Drills in Seattle envision our group standing up after Day 3 or more as city government gets its arms around things. That does not keep members of neighborhood groups from becoming active.

In Puerto Rico the storm hit on the 19th and 20th. On the 22nd the call came from Red Cross. The first hams arrived in country on about the 27th.

 

That will be up to the served agency and its ability to incorporate out of town volunteers. After the slide in Oso, Washington in 2014 the county DEM called in ARES groups for duty in the EOC. They made it work.

 

Screening not possible or not done? At a recent activation out of town volunteers arrived and all performed but one. He was fired.

 

Even with short notice a clear designation of responsibility and authority is important. That is why deploying volunteers in existing teams is better than individuals with no knowledge of each other or their leaders. Also, a ham leader is important to the served agency to implement instructions.