Oahu Board of Water Supply Realizes the Merits in Amateur Radio

Members of the OAHU EARC immediately came up on Net and disseminated reliable source news including that from the US Coast Guard Channels that the Alert was Invalid.
Observations on what was not happening in certain critical areas gave credence that this was an invalid alert.

G3SEA/KH6

 

Well, shoot, DK ... all those FCC rules are mere "guidelines" - sorta like "serving suggestions" ... it is not like they are enforceable as LAW ... um ... right? I mean if it sounds like a good thing, should we not cut them a little slack? Don't the ends always justify the means? I thought we learned that from Watergate! K8JHR

 

You need to look up the story of Hurricane Iniki back in 1992 where Ham Radio played a critical part in initial communications between Kauai and Oahu after everything mentioned above was indeed knocked flat on Kauai.

G3SEA/KH6

 

OK First Responders operate VHF/UHF radios through a repeater same as 2m and 70cm does. We are not talking about Networked Radios like Cell Towers. Public Safety radios, aka First Responders radios has the same Simplex aka Repeater Talkaround. Simple as pushing a button. What am I missing?

Power Outages is not going to take a LMR repeater off the air as they have commercial stationary generators and battery backup. Now wind can certainly damage the coax and antenna. It is possible if the storm is strong enough to knock down a tower. But if winds were that strong, amateur owned tower would topple long before a commercial tower would collapse.

Sorry just don't see it. Public Safety LMR systems are hardened from storm damage where amateur radio is not. Given they are both down, the LMR radios have the same Simplex mode already. The money would be better spent elsewhere.

 

Well, I'm not the answer man for the water board, I'm only reading this as you are! There must be some reason why they think it's a good idea to have ham simplex backup.

 

Ready, fire, aim! This must be Facebook.

 

LOL, yeah I know what you mean, I just cannot see the need.

 

Why, that was 27 years ago with obsolete technology. Has absolutely nothing to do with today. You just got to get use to the idea ham radio technology has been antiquated and services are no longer needed. Today it is just a HOBBY, and I am perfectly OK with that.

 

OK, SOME Public Safety is just like 2m and 70 cm operation. Not all is. Even when it is similar, not all "subscriber equipment" (mobiles and portables) have any simplex capability accessible to the operator, i.e. "the button" may be there but not be programmed to do anything. Not all supervisors trust the lowest common denominator of operator with having the ability to push the right button at the wrong time, and mess up communications at the wrong time.

For one example, once while doing interference testing, I happened upon a shared patrol car that had been flagged as being 'down' for two days, waiting for a radio vendor to arrive. I forget if I found the trouble was the previous driver had either left the squelch open, or had edited channel 1 out of the non-priority scan list. The next driver, not understanding the radio operation, flagged the car as "not right," instead of readjusting the controls. So in Public Safety, there is a lot of "Keep It Simple, Stupid" practiced, including disabling useful features.

Having a staff that is trained and practiced in Amateur Radio equipment operating can give system managers the confidence to make "the button" and other options available, with the operators more likely to understand what might happen if "the button" gets pushed.

On the other hand, many Public Safety agencies are using or migrating to trunked systems, which require the subscriber unit to communicate with a discrete frequency or embedded control channel data stream in order to get listening assignments or transmit channel instructions. Any transmissions made on one of the system's frequencies, without the radios receiving a command to listen to it, are ignored. System failure and out-of-range operations, if used, need to be carefully planned for, pre-programmed, and taught well.

I agree that the clip lead and black tape style ham infrastructure will go down before hardened Public Safety infrastructure. Many of the Public Safety-affiliated Amateur Radio groups have their infrastructure in the same sites as the Public Safety infrastructure. In those cases, the Amateur equipment installation is usually held to the same standard as the other tenants, meaning that they will likely fail together.

And not all Public Safety sites are hardened to today's standards. New sites, yes, but sites that are 40 or more years old, no. The antennas and electronics have been refreshed, but a handful of the sites I was responsible for had been in the same exact shelter since the 1940's. And if necessary backhaul is by fiber optic or leased line instead of RF links or private microwave, then some or all of the Public Safety functionality is at the mercy of outside vendors.

 

Thank you for a much more nuanced discussion of some of the radio system issues that the water board might have, rather than the typical post of a categorical "that's a stupid idea!". There must be some reason why the water board thought that amateur radio training was a good idea.

 

These days, considering that ham radio does not have the same allure (especially to young people) as it once did when many of us became interested in radio many years ago, perhaps we should be glad that people are being exposed to the Amateur Radio Service in this way. It could ultimately "light a fire" in some of them to further explore its many other attributes and activities.

 

Yep and it is called Open Sky, EDACS, P25, and P25-Phase 2. I am building and operating an extremely large P25 Phase 2 system for a large electric utility. It consist of over 300 tower sites across 7 states, with over 2000 portable and mobiles, and 17 radio shops with over 200 technicians. That is a Networked Radio, and every one of them is capable of Conventional FM with Talkaround during failures. It is part of the P25 Phase 2 standard.

True, but still better than any amateur setup. Please don't say amateur radio does not fail or has better coverage because that is false. Amateur radio operations rarely have parts and technicians who can make repairs in a timely fashion, and a fleet of contractors to help out during emergencies.

I accept Amateur Radio being reduced to a HOBBY, it is not a service to anyone anymore. Technology left amateur radio behind. What is ironic, amateur radio was a leader in technology many decades ago. In the 70's and 80's amateur radio developed Packet Radio, and had some small networks to push text messages and TTY around. Amateur radio even had a huge block of IP Addresses. Never went anywhere with it, but commercial operations did and antiquated ham radios. Today hams are still using the same old antiquated technology and equipment. Sad thing is amateur radio cannot comeback as it simply lacks the bandwidth and will never obtain any additional allocation. Exact opposite is true because bandwidth is a commodity today, and the FCC is taking frequencies away from any organization that is not using their allocations. All you gotta do is look at Broadcast TV. They had huge chunks of bandwidth. The did not use and lost it, sold to the highest bidder. Commercial Broadcast TV did a public service and still lost bandwidth. CATV antiquated broadcast TV.

You and I may not like it, but there is no going back. I accepted it already. I fought it initially, trying to get youth interested, invested time and money. No more wasting my time and money on a loosing battle trying to make the public believe ham radio is still relevant today. You would have better results trying to bring back 8-Track and Cassette tapes. Just not going to happen.

I use mostly 2m and 70cm to talk to a few friends locally and abroad. Ironically we have to call each other on a cell phone to tell them to turn on their radio so we can PLAY RADIO, our hobby.

 

Great to see and hear that Hawaiian Folks recognise the value of what Ham Radio can provide with such an essential service as Water .... These classes also cover and provide their staff with basic understanding of circuits and testing ...
I know how isolated Hawaii is having visited when Apollo 13 returned ..... so we should be congratulating this organisation for their fore sight .... not knocking them ... I am sure these new hams will enjoy their new found skills and contribute to Ham Radio in general .... May other organisations see the folly of their ways .....

 

I agree the features must be present in the equipment software in order to be P25 compliance certified. As I alluded to, these features may be turned off by the system managers so as not to confuse employees whose primary duties do not include operating a complex radio.

And not all legacy Public Safety can afford to replace functional equipment with new P25 Phase II equipment, except where higher levels of Government funnel truckloads of funny money for interoperability grants. Not all agencies are eligible for these grants, and sometimes must compete with other agencies for the dollars that are available. Very few entities are willing to put out a bond issue to borrow millions for a wholesale technology replacement, unless the present system is an antique running on band-aids and baling wire.

But I totally agree with you about the coverage (not counting HF), reliability, and service response times for Amateur infrastructure not being any better than commercial systems. And I know from the inside that Public Safety agencies are not just drooling to put anyone with a half-charged Baofeng into the right seat of their vehicles, despite what many hams seem to convince themselves. Volunteers can be more often in the way than helpful, with certain exceptions.

But a few agencies, especially poor ones, do see a place for having some amateur Radio backup for some emergency tasks. That is why they make space available in their tower sites to responsible Amateur tenants, usually without cost.

A question. Of the 17 shops and 200 technicians for your system, who since World War II have worked on Class C transmitter power amplifiers for analog FM and the C4FM used for Open Sky, P25 Phase I, or MotoTrbo, how many can properly service the linear amplifiers required for the P25 Phase II base-to-mobile transmitters? I've been asking myself that for about 4 or 5 years, and don't have an answer. Of course, there's no problem for 'techs' who are just really 'parts swappers.'