Subj : Amateur Radio Newsline (A)
To : All
From : Daryl Stout
Date : Fri Nov 03 2017 05:48 pm
Amateur Radio Newsline Report 2088, for Friday, November 3, 2017
Amateur Radio Newsline Report Number 2088, with a release date of
Friday, November 3, 2017, to follow in 5-4-3-2-1.
The following is a QST. Hams in Pennsylvania and California give
priority to disaster preparedness. In the UK, the last of the
Bletchley Park listeners has died -- and Jordan prepares to launch
its first CubeSat. All this and more, as Amateur Radio Newsline
Report 2088, comes your way right now.
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BILLBOARD CART
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SPECIAL REPORT: DISASTER PREPAREDNESS ON CAMPUS
PAUL/ANCHOR: We open this week's newscast with a three-part special
report on disaster preparedness. You've heard these past few weeks
about amateur response to the challenges of Atlantic hurricane season.
But, what about earthquakes, or even a nuclear power plant accident?
Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, starts us off with the story of how a college radio
club is teaching students to prep for the worst.
NEIL'S REPORT: Ham radio is alive and well on the campus of California
State University-San Bernardino, as California prepares for potential
earthquakes, loss of electricity, and other disasters. Located directly
on the San Andreas fault, students in the CSU-SB amateur radio club are
working on several projects, tying together disaster assessment,
communications and of course, radio. Dr. Vincent Nestler, KK6WJU, is
the sponsor of the group and a professor of cybersecurity at the school.
The club has several projects, like detecting Bluetooth signals under
collapsed buildings, to estimate the number of people that need to be
rescued. He tells us about some of the other projects.
VINCENT: We have a disaster preparedness project where we have students
that are practicing "grid down." We have a tent with a generator, a
small computer that acts as a server to collect up all the data, and
charge up radios. We're working on some cool stuff like getting the
school as part of the broadband mesh that's out here. Again, if the
grid is down, and we can keep the mesh up, that allows us to have
digital communications in real time. One of the cooler things we're
trying to do is, in our simulation of grid down is, send up drones.
One drone will have a relay doing cross-banding. So that this way we
whoever can hit the drone from line of sight will be able to communicate
further, and maybe get to the repeater that they may not be able to get
to otherwise. So we want to send out drones to survey the area, send
that information back via the broadband mesh, so that anybody that's
on the mesh can see that video. We can send up the drone, and have it
show real time footage of "ok, this building collapsed; this building
is on fire".
NEIL: The club has licensed around 30 people. Vincent says that the
time for ham radio is now.
VINCENT: There's never been a better time for ham radio to get big.
Why? Two hurricanes, category whatever four and five, gone through
Puerto Rico; that whole island is a case in point, right? You have,
you know, the shooting in Las Vegas. Ham radio may not necessarily
be the case for that exactly; but, the world is on fire, right? You
got the crazy wild fires in [northern California]. The shooter was
shooting people. At what point are they going to be shooting power
grids? You know, terrorism strikes. So people are starting to
understand that we're going into crazy times, and that little extra
bit of security where it's like... OK, even if everything shuts down,
I have a radio, and I can get to people, and people can get to me.
Now's the time to push that; to say, look. The world is on fire. Get
a ham radio, get licensed, and learn how to communicate, so that if
you need it, you'll have it.
NEIL: Reporting for Amateur Radio Newsline, I'm Neil Rapp, WB9VPG.
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