As the president of MISA, I feel compelled to write a post and denounce the actions of the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV), the Discovery Channel support teams, chase tour vans, and other personnel that were caught on tape by Steve Miller’s crew in Oklahoma yesterday.

It’s ridiculous that I’m even talking about this, really… the TIV crew and the Discovery Channel crews, and the paid tornado alley tour groups are professionals. They get paid to do it. So why aren’t they acting professional?

They were caught on tape driving a rural two-lane road, passing on the left. Not just passing on the left, but passing in no-passing zones. Not only were they passing in no-passing zones, but they were driving in the lane of oncoming traffic when they approached the crest of the hill.

This is completely unacceptable. The VORTEX2 operations manual — whether the TIV and/or the Discovery Channel officially abide by it or not — explicitly states that the safety of the research teams and other drivers is certainly more important than getting in place to intercept a tornado.

VORTEX2 will send over 40 vehicles and 100 people to the field, and we will drive about 10,000 miles each season. VORTEX2 will operate and ferry through regions experiencing severe weather including heavy rain, hail, lightning, and high winds, not to mention tornadoes. We will be sharing the roads with numerous other vehicles driven by storm chasers, media, local residents, other travelers, and emergency personnel. Traffic jams will occur, particularly during weekends, near metropolitan areas, and when storms are isolated and/or long lived. Driving ability and confidence varies greatly in sub-ideal weather conditions. Many people who are watching our target storms will be only marginally aware of their surroundings. Therefore, we must be aware of them.

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To summarize, no tornado, no data set, no arrival time at a hotel is worth injury. Common sense behavior will go a long way towards keeping you and the rest of VORTEX2 safe. If it doesn’t feel safe, dont do it. If it doesn’t feel polite, don’t do it.

While MISA is technically a spotter group and not a chaser group, the public eye doesn’t discern the two. This incident gives both groups a terrible reputation that we are reckless adrenaline junkies.

Storm chasers or spotters are not more important than anyone else on the road. There is such a thing as being too aggressive. Emergency personnel in the area was already dealing with a tornado outbreak — if any of those vehicles passing unsafely had happened to lose control and/or collide with another vehicle, emergency responders would have one more thing to worry about.

I found this gem on YouTube while searching for other Skywarn videos late one night. While the premise and goals of the Skywarn program have remained unchanged, this video from nearly 40 years ago emphasizes how far the science of weather and personal computing has brought the activity.

Instead of chalkboards, meteorologists now use PowerPoint, videos, pictures, and diagrams on a projection screen to teach the general public (read: not meteorology students). Spotters in the field now have laptops, netbooks, aircards, APRS/GPS, and a whole array of wireless technology to assist them in the field and communicate back to the NWS, EOC, or to other spotters.

Since then, scientists have improved the understanding and reliability of weather forecasting. While weather is a science, humans don’t have it “down to a science” quite yet. But I wonder where we’ll be 40 more years from now?

Listen to Hawaii County Police live via RadioReference, where you can hear agencies responding normally to the usual calls and others moving to higher ground. It was just announced as I’m writing this that dispatch is now moving to higher ground at the Hawaii Civil Defense EOC. Lots of tones are being sent, but I’m not sure if they are regular fire tone-outs or tones that activate the tsunami sirens or other equipment used to alert officials or the public.

Monitor (and assist if needed) the HF frequencies that were announced by Radio Club Argentina:
- 20m: 14.200 and 14.350 MHz (Chilean Red Cross), 14.300 MHz (IARU)
- 40m: 7.050 and 7.095 MHz (Chilean Red Cross), 7.060 MHz (IARU)
- 80m: 3.738 and 3.750 MHz (Chilean Red Cross)

Monitor (and assist if needed) the HF frequencies for the Hawaii tsunami:
- 20m: 14.246.50 MHz
- 40m: 7.088 MHz
- 80/75m: 3.888 MHz

Amateur radio operators are requested to keep these frequencies clear and to avoid harmful interference to any of these nets taking place.

Do you know of any other ways to monitor the situation? Add your information in the comments below.

This, of course, meant that there would be new blood coming into those various leadership positions. I am pleased to announce that I was elected through a close write-in vote to serve as the next president of Mid-Iowa Skywarn, which is effective immediately. I am grateful to be elected to this position, and I do indeed have some big shoes to fill and expectations to exceed. I learned this evening that Jim and I have very similar reasons for joining Skywarn, which I will likely write about later down the road. I plan on hitting the ground running, and I have plans to act on. Tom N0VPR was also elected to the role of secretary/treasurer — Tom has been working with Skywarn and ARES for quite a while as well, and we have worked with each other as president/vice president for the local club.

The Mid-Iowa Skywarn Association is the organization that mans the amateur radio station in the Des Moines National Weather Service office, using call sign K0DMX. It takes storm reports from all corners of the NWS Des Moines’ 51-county warning area through an extensive VHF/UHF linked repeater network. We’re lucky to have a great relationship with the Des Moines meteorologist-in-charge and warning coordinator.

After the brief meeting, we moved on to our annual two-hour spotter training class presented by the NWS. It was a great presentation, I thought. It included some new pictures and videos. It was certainly a good crowd, probably more than last year. If maybe a half-dozen more people showed up, we would have run out of seats. A lot of new faces I haven’t seen around — either they are hams that don’t usually come to our “normal” club meetings or this was their first time attending a storm spotter course.

Tom set out some amateur radio information brochures and fliers, along with business cards that listed information about the DMRAA and its meetings. After the presentation, non-hams were mingling with the hams asking how to get involved in amateur radio, and most of those business cards were gone, so I’d say the training session also sparked some interest in amateur radio. It turned out pretty well.

Do you think phone patch is really outdated and useless? An amateur radio operator in Miami provided a phone patch to a Haitian to pass along a welfare message from Port-au-Prince to Miami. From the video description:

When telephones, internet, and power are cut off, Amateur Radio fills vital communications needs. Fred Moore of Florida, callsign W3ZU provides a radio/telephone patch for Jean-Robert Gaillard, callsign HH2JR, of Port au Prince. Audio captured by Brian Crow.

This is a great example of hams pulling together to assist in passing health and welfare traffic and assisting in disaster relief in other ways. This is an international, ham-to-ham, non-ARES effort, and it’s what’s been on several of the designated frequencies around the clock over the past several days.

• 7.045 and 3.720 MHz – IARU Region 2 nets
• 14.265, 7.265 and 3.977 MHz – SATERN nets
• 14.300 MHz Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net
• The International Radio Emergency Support Coalition (IRESC) is also active on EchoLink node 278173.

Unfortunately, IARU Region 1 is reporting that a convoy of amateur radio operators from Radio Club Dominicano (RCD) had to abort their mission after they were fired upon.

The beauty of amateur radio is that it’s many things to many people. Amateur radio is what you make of it, whether it’s HF, VHF/UHF, ATV, CW, PSK, Hellschreiber or even internet modes like CQ100. It’s not anyone’s place to tell you that whatever you enjoy in a hobby is incorrect. This isn’t a “that’s not amateur radio” post, I’m not going to say emcomm has no place in amateur radio. That’s like telling a stamp collector that he’s collecting the wrong kind of stamps or an artist using acrylic paint isn’t a real artist. I would, however, like to offer some points for your consideration.

I had never made up my mind about what to think about the growing emcomm section of amateur radio, until I happened to see Steve KB9MWR’s YouTube video (embedded below) via Steve K9ZW’s blog. I have struggled to find a stance on all of the issues surrounding it — I had some basic thoughts about it, but I couldn’t put it into words. Steve does an outstanding job of summarizing the words that I’ve been trying to put together:

Let’s first recognize that ARES/RACES/MARS/CAP/REACT and other acronym organizations do good work. Overall, they are trained very well and put a lot of time and effort into their hobby. I usually participate in Skywarn on my own activation, and have done a few ARES events as well.

However, you can be the most well-trained organization and your served agencies still won’t see the need for your services. What I mean is after 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and other emergencies and disasters, radio system engineers have wised up and made their systems more redundant. Systems will still fail, but they have at least one more redundant system to fall back on, and if that system fails, there is usually a plan for that as well, and it likely involves something like simplex communications using their own frequencies — not amateur radio operators.

Not only does radio system redundancy make amateur emcomm obsolete, but some hams still insist that their services be used even when the served agency’s radio system works perfectly fine. When the county emergency manager spoke at our club meeting earlier this fall, he also spoke about how he handled the flood emergency last year and mentioned there were people equipped with radio walking the levees regularly to report any problems or weaknesses. He tried to make the point that radio communications are extremely important in emergency situations.

A well-intentioned ham chimed in and asked “what kind of radios were they?” When the EM responded that they were EMA-rented radios, the ham started to go down a slippery slope. “Where are all the hams involved in this? Why wasn’t ham radio used?” This continued for several minutes while I began to grind my teeth until another ham stepped in.

The other ham made the point that basically said if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. EMA had a radio system that worked for them, and it’s their call whether to use them or not. If the radio infrastructure is there, all the EMA employees have to know is how to use the push-to-talk button.

Many hams aren’t seeming to cope well with the fact that today’s modern systems are more reliable than they were in previous decades. They still insist that amateur emcomm needs to play a role in an emergency whether their served agencies need them or not. Nothing will burn bridges faster with agencies than hams trying to elbow their way into emergency operation centers and disaster areas.

Here in Iowa, we have a couple recent examples. The Cedar Rapids public safety system stayed online even as the downtown area was inundated with water during last year’s epic flood. The EF-5 tornado that tore through Parkersburg last year took lives, homes, vehicles, and power — but not cell phone systems or radio systems.

Steve also makes the point that some emcomm organizations are being taken for granted for free labor. In my county, the ARES emergency coordinator has made it clear several times in no uncertain terms that the ARES operators are allowed to only perform duties related to radio communications — not transportation, not lost and found, not first aid, not barricades, not traffic control. Only setting up radio systems and radio communication itself are allowed. This is an excellent policy that should be implemented ARES-wide to prevent agencies from exploiting the organization’s manpower outside of radio.

That also brings me to the point of hams going above and beyond their job descriptions to “help out” — which often involves getting in the way of the real professionals trying to do their job. I’ve heard horror stories of hams showing up uninvited to large-scale structure fires or vehicle accidents and end up getting in the way. Thankfully, this hasn’t happened in my area. These are usually well-intentioned hams, bless their hearts, but their desire leads them astray.

There’s a up-and-coming mindset that amateur radio’s sole purpose is emergency communications. According to §97.1(a), yes emcomm is one of the purposes of the amateur radio spectrum, but let’s not forget about (b), (c), (d), and (e), which promote the hobbyist aspect of amateur radio through advancement of radio innovation, community education, and the advancement of international goodwill. It troubles me when an emcomm radio operator carries a “holier-than-thou” attitude over other hams just because he or she has “special Homeland Security training,” whether it’s in the incident command structure or otherwise. Again, I’ve been fortunate enough that I haven’t seen this in my area, but in other regions it runs rampant.

Even without the ARRL establishing ARES, amateur radio operators have — and always will — help out in emergency situations when needed. We don’t need several formal organizations for this.

The ARES command structure established by the ARRL is ridiculously elaborate enough to be the shadow government for the United States. Have you seen it? It’s obscenely bureucratic, once you see it you’ll know the cause for most ARES screw-ups. Not to mention the politics that take place among ARES leadership.

Most of the positions within ARES command requires membership with the ARRL. What’s the reason for that? So that the ARRL can make more money. Not only is that a terrible reason, but it also keeps radio operators that are otherwise qualified out of contributing to ARES because they choose to not give their money to a greedy organization for one reason or another. I wonder how many outstandingly talented operators this keeps out of the ARES leadership roles that could have helped the organization run more efficiently and improved the organization overall?

Inefficiency. The basic plan for an ARES event if the governmental radio systems fail, then hams will either use their own pre-existing infrastructure or improvise and build a new temporary system for the event. Then, due to FCC regulations, the ARES operator will partner up with someone in a served agency. The person that the ARES operator is partnered with will have to give the message to his ARES partner, then the ARES operator will say the message over the radio, where the ARES operator on the other end will receive the message and pass it on to their served agency. See where governmental agencies would rather spend money to reinforce their infrastructure and use their own systems? In one of my other jobs where we use radios on a regular basis to administer athletic events, I could not imagine having hams do this instead of just using our own radios, even if it is free labor. It would be absolutely agonizing.

In a true emergency, I’d be willing to bet a large number of the same hams that continuously do ARES drills won’t be able to help in a true, unnanounced emergency for several reasons — medical problems, family, work — after all, it is a true emergency. A large number of hams could be displaced. Their equipment could be destroyed.

The only trait that separates amateur radio operators from everyone else are their technical abilities — the ability to troubleshoot, improvise, build/rebuild systems, and the knowledge of all the different bands and modes available to complete the task. Yet those skills are diminishing with the new emcomm generation. I have admittedly been guilty of being an “appliance operator” at times, for several various reasons that will probably be covered in another post. But once we lose these traits, we have no more of an ability than any other human being that knows how to squeeze a push-to-talk button.

It’s another stigma to all of amateur radio that comes along with the new emcomm generation. It’s not just a stigma, but a phenomenon, too. Most people think it’s a taboo subject. I’m talking about the new hams that are infatuated with putting blinky lights and official-looking stickers on their cars more than they’re interested in learning about the technical aspect of amateur radio. If you are a visitor of Hamsexy, then you probably know what I’m talking about. If not, head over to a thread on Firehouse for an official definition from real professionals. These people are a danger to the public, but luckily, I haven’t observed this kind of behavior in my area whatsoever.

Since KB9WMR’s video has been passed around the internet, there’s been a lot more chatter about the “big tent” theory. As I said in my opening few paragraphs, amateur radio is what you make of it. I accept anyone’s passion for whatever their niche is in amateur radio. I will never interfere with what they enjoy doing with their ham license. It’s not my business to do so unless they are interfering with any of the rights I am granted with my license. We’re all working together, doing different things under the same tent.

Along the same lines, K9ZW has proposed the “freecom” theory. Apparently, I have been doing freecom since I took my test. Freecom emphasizes self-preparedness as opposed to a crowd-sourced ARES-oriented system. The ARRL states that emcomm is one of the biggest reasons new hams get their tickets. I didn’t get my license for emcomm, aside from participating in Skywarn.

When my job as a photojournalist took me to the devastation in Parkersburg after the EF-5 tornado ripped the town in half, my entire viewpoint of self-preparedness and disaster situations changed drastically. I’ve wanted to get my ham ticket since I was a kid, but when I drove into Parkersburg just at sundown when there were still livestock in the trees, it changed everything and it pushed my desire to get a ham ticket. I would encourage you to read more about freecom on K9ZW’s blog.

Should we have emergency communications in amateur radio? Yes. Should we be educated about preparedness? Yes. Do we need to keep maintaining an inefficient, overly-political, antiquated, bureaucratic emcomm-specific radio organization? No. Amateur radio operators have always been willing to help in times of true emergency, and that won’t change if ARRL didn’t have its grubby little hands all over it. ARES-type emcomm as we know it could use some restructuring and attitude changes. When all else truly does fail, agencies will still want us, whether we’re trained in ICS or not, and whether we’re ARES or not.

The Big Map on the wall showing positions of Lead and Half-Marathon Lead motorcycles

I helped out on Sunday at the Des Moines Marathon as my second ARES event. I felt this was an exciting opportunity since the event organizers clearly truly appreciate the help. This is the most operator-intensive Polk County ARES event, from what I’m told. The marathon traverses through a pretty good chunk of the city, going from the statehouse to past 42nd Street, down to Gray’s Lake and back up to the statehouse. Obviously, it’s a lot of ground to cover for radio operators that can’t be done on simplex.

It appeared that race organizers rented about a dozen radios and used Electronic Engineering’s Des Moines 800 MHz trunked system. I’m not sure who the radios were distributed to, but those radios alone don’t compare to the needs that Polk County ARES fulfills. ARES staffs each medical tent, checkpoints, water distribution sag wagons, plus shadows event organizers. Clearly, there is a need for ARES manpower and the race director was visibly grateful for it. I’d be willing to bet that upwards of 40-50 operators were utilized at the event.

A mix of 140/220/440 repeaters were used. The location of net control (in the swanky Splash restaurant) near net control made it difficult to get into the 146.61 repeater, so the DMRAA’s VHF club repeater on Park Avenue and a portable UHF repeater at Methodist Medical Center were relied on heavily. A downtown 220 repeater were also used between a few operators. The 146.82 repeater at the capitol complex was down, so it was a kink in the plans but net control and operators adapted.

The crown jewel of net control was the APRS setup. Polk ARES was asked to track certain motorcycles this year, after a couple of years of not doing it, so the race committee saw there was a definite need for that service. Mike, AE0MW put APRS trackers on the lead motorcycle, half-marathon lead motorcycle, and the trail motorcycle towards the end of the day. It was a pretty slick system (and read more about it here). Mike took the PDF of the course map and overlaid it on the map in UI-View. The map was then projected onto a wall in net control, and everyone oohed and ahhed at it, the race director included. It proved to be very useful.

There was an area in Water Works Park where the runners would drop down into the Raccoon River valley and couldn’t hit the temporary 144.34 digipeater on top of Methodist, and so we went 20 or so minutes without a location report until they came back out of the valley. This could have been solved by utilizing a mobile digipeater (D700/D710) in the southwest corner of the course, but coverage overall was pretty solid.

We were pretty lucky to have cool weather in the morning and slightly warmer weather in the afternoon so there were very few injuries — a few skinned knees — but mostly just exhausted runners. A lot of runners were also transported via sag wagons and water stations needed to be restocked and without PCARES operators it would have been difficult to coordinate.

Already, PCARES organizers are looking at what can be done differently and improved upon for next year. Tracking more units and the utilization of D-STAR have already been mentioned in brainstorming. We’ve got a whole year to prepare now!

I have created a Facebook Page for Iowa ARES. I invite ham radio operators who are registered on Facebook to become a fan and invite their family and friends to do the same.

Click here to view the fan page.

The merging of ham radio and social networks interests me greatly. We are seeing a lot of technophobic hams jump on the Twitter and Facebook bandwagon. Some are “good at it,” some aren’t. I’ve been wanting to write about it for some time now, and I will very shortly. For now, I will say that Iowa ARES is definitely taking a step in the right direction with their fan page.