On reddit, a fellow wrote:
Our radio club has had a pretty solid relationship with our county’s department of public safety for many years. That has since begun to dry up now that they have a new communication system that seems to check off all their boxes. As a result, they aren’t including us in real emergency situations like they used to and they’re reluctant to participate in our emergency tests where we practice. In short, I think the marriage is about over.
I’m wondering how other EMCOMM-based clubs find themselves these days in terms of their relationships with local agencies. Is the love for amateur radio EMCOMM drying up everywhere? If it’s not in your area, can you describe how it’s going and what your club is doing to keep the idea alive?
I’m asking because as a member of our leadership team, I’m very close to recommending we just sever ties altogether in a formal manner and drop to one drill a year or every other year. The amount of energy our team puts into organizing one of these just isn’t being reflected by the partners we’re trying to serve and the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze.
The responses to this post are all over the map. There were plenty who agreed with the original poster:
- “EMCOMM has been slowly dying for a long time.”
- “I work in the agency that manages emergency systems for my city and ham radio emergency participation is a joke to them.”
- “Ham radio as a service is dead. Let’s all move on …”
At the other end of the spectrum, there were these comments:
- “This is the opposite of my experience here in a rural, agricultural county in California. I don’t get a sense that this is a trend.”
- “We have 30+ members who have taken the ICS training and understand what our place ought to be: that is, assist when requested and stay out of the way.”
- “Our local Emergency Management department utilizes Amateur Radio during emergency activations in several areas.”
Even at the positive end of the spectrum, it’s clear that emergency management has gotten way more sophisticated over the past couple of decades. For us to continue to serve, we are also going to have be more sophisticated. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Amateur radio needs something like AMSAT for emergency communications. That is to say an organization that is advancing the state of the art in amateur radio communications.
Along with that, we have to participate more fully with the emergency management community. That means going to their conferences and publishing papers at these conferences and in their publications. Maybe I’m not close enough to what’s happening, but I just don’t see that.
Along those lines, I think that while our Public Information Coordinators are doing a good job of getting amateur radio on the nightly news and into newspapers, someone should be concentrating more on raising our profile in the emergency management community. Most of the people watching the news aren’t the people who are going to be making the decisions on how big or how small a role that amateur radio is going to play in their emergency management plans.
Tom AJ4UQ says
During a recent exercise in our (coastal, hurricane-prone) community, I’m told the failure thrown into the mix was that the public service 800MHz digital network failed.
The ham community picked up some of the slack and caught some good PR.
That said, if family comes first for the volunteer support, we need to figure out how to let ham families move to safety while outside hams take over volunteer roles for them.
Chuck K4RGN says
North Carolina’s statewide VIPER system has worked well during recent natural disasters. It’s 800 MHz P25, 221 tower sites, over 100K subscriber IDs, and 350 agencies. 95% outdoor coverage. A well-engineered system by all accounts. VIPER isn’t perfect but there are precious few anecdotes that hams have been able to fill in when VIPER nodes fail. That said, no one really knows how well VIPER would perform in the “big one” (a class 5 hurricane that cuts east-to-west across the state). No one really knows how well hams in the state would operate in that scenario, either.
Mike Cullen says
Here in the Newport, RI area EMA managers are exploring the the use of hams to address “first mile” concerns. i.e. when local phone/911 service is compromised. Recently, our fire chief watched local scouts running about the city on FRS radios, talking to ham relay nodes which then passed relevant traffic on 2M FM into fire HQ. Alan W6WN, living in Calif’s wildfire country, has some excellent YouTube and online documentation, that he’s sharing with regional “fire safe councils.” Alan and others are promoting growing citizen-level use of GMRS radios, new GMRS repeaters, and hams tapping their relay, filter, and net control skills. While local/state agencies continue to invest in next-gen P25 comms, the fertile space for hams may be to facilitate simple, low-cost backup comms at the neighborhood level.
peter s witheford says
sadly a big percentage of operators are stuck in a 1945 time warp. If we have the same or better technology as served agencies they will still find in their best interested to use us.
Frank Sanor says
We may need to change our focus. If the agencies have their commo covered maybe we should look elsewhere. Say the last mile telling Uncle George they are safe, or as a backup when the agency functionality dies. This was our mission when I was in Ohio Army M.A.R.S.
73
DE WA8WHP
Frank
Larry W2LJ says
The New Jersey State Police are very high on the use of Amateur Radio for AUXCOMM. That has filtered down to the County level and the AUXCOMM group for my county is very active in maintaining our state of readiness. The NJ State Police are also encouraging that all CERT Teams within the state get members active in Amateur Radio, and I and a fellow op have been approached about giving Technician classes to that end.
W8SFC~Steve says
As a relative newcomer, and not fully trained in emcomm disciplines, I think how alive this service is depends a lot on the attitude of the first responders in the area towards the amateur radio community’s value in the mix. Right now as many modernize their hardware and skillsets they have great confidence in their ability to “weather the storm” so to speak. This might be a mistake.
I wonder how many of the EOC’s and first response networks are hardened enough to withstand the highest level of potential damage such as EMPs. How do most towers and antennas fare in hurricanes or if hit directly by a tornado or lightning strikes? Because these facilities are centralized focal points, and thus potential failure points in the communications network in a given area they are more vulnerable or at least more difficult to harden against events that could disrupt disaster response communications and coordination efforts. The likelihood of a single event taking out all of the amateur stations in a particular area is fairly low, and amateur radio operator’s individual stations can be protected by putting some gear in a relatively small Faraday cage disconnected from the grid until it is needed.
An EOC is not geared toward being as easily preserved in a functional state after an event that would take out the entire capability whether that comes from a natural or man caused source. This is why we have SET exercises held periodically – in order to test the ability of disaster response to operate in the most adverse conditions possible.
Why some first responders/disaster aid organizations want to take amateur radio out of their plans is questionable and it seems short sighted, and not a wise move. A good case in point was September 11, 2001 in New York City. Not only did the cellular network collapse under the overload from everyone wanting to make calls, but the NYFD/NYPD and the Port Authority radio communications systems failed or became unreliable. Of course changes have been made to communications since then, but the point became clear – as well as we think we are prepared, technology has a weakness when the load on it exceeds capacity. This still exists, but the likelihood of a massive failure is much less than it used to be.
That being said, once the amateur radio community is no longer being used to augment the reliable coordination of communications and services to the victims of disasters, the results will be far from ideal. EmComm decisions are being made without amateur radio being included, and I think this is a mistake. We have a lot of capability in the amateur radio community and most of us are community service minded people to begin with. If the first response services want to abandon the communications they have long ago established with ham radio that is a choice but I believe it is the wrong one to make.
In many cities I can see this as the direction they are going, but if not for Skywarn, ARES, RACES, and other organized amateur radio activities many of the non-metropolis areas (which are the bulk of the territory covered by EMCOMM) have no support in disaster situations when the system is overwhelmed or designed to meet a less than the heaviest workload – or simply inadequate to handle the worst case scenario.
Fortunately the disaster response EOC in the community I live in values the contributions amateur radio has to offer in times of need, and they include us in periodic test situations. I think that any EOC that is moving away from this model is becoming too convinced on the reliability of their systems, and the people they serve will be the ones who pay the cost of such a decision.
WO5O Mario says
When the eye of Hurricane Harvey made landfall 50 miles from our small seaside community in 2017, as ham radio EOC volunteers, my ham radio partner and I we were as prepared as could be. Months before hurricane season started we had replaced the aging hf antenna and checked out the radio and computer equipment to make sure they were working. Our backup batteries were fully charged and everything was Go.
Then the storm hit. The high winds blew county antennas off the roof of the 3 story courthouse and knocked out the backup generator to the building. But our hf and vhf antennas held up to the ferocious winds and rain and our radio equipment went into battery backup power mode. We kept up comms with vhf and hf stations using RMS packet and Pactor.
In the end we sustained little or no damage to our radio equipment and we were there as volunteers to provide service to the EOC. I attribute the low damage assessment to our ham radio equipment because we kept it maintained throughout the year and we also had practice sessions using the equipment.
I don’t know if we’ll be be used much in the future but so far the folks at the EOC in Calhoun County Texas have supported ham radio EMCOMMS 100%.
Jim Tucker says
I’m Skywarn Coordinator for our county in Southeast New Mexico. Our club is ARES affiliated and has a close working relationship with our county EM. The move toward outfitting our EOC has been a slow one, but we have recently had a G5RV and a dual band ground plane installed with the coax fed into a closet right off the main situation room. We are awaiting the word to go forward on an ALE system utilizing state DHS S.E.C.U.R.E. HF frequencies. All this being said, our ARES unit is often overlooked, not so much by the EM, but by state and federal agencies that spearhead exercises in our area. The cold, hard truth is the amateur radio community is being overlooked by numerous agencies who have become so dependent on the latest and ‘greatest’ comms systems that utilize the internet and other digital protocols as a backbone. My personal view of the whole emcomm thing is, keep doing what you do, not because we await the call beckoning our services so we can rush in and save the day, but because we love it, it’s in our blood, and if that day ever comes, we’ll be ready. And my personal suggestion is focus on analog, discrete modes of communications that don’t utilize the Internet. My two cents.
John N2YP says
I’ve read and seen where government agencies don’t see a need for Amateur Radio but outside of one local county I don’t see that actually being the case and that one case is more the person in charge at the county level then the hams. We are in a rural area but as with any other area the public safety communications are becoming more robust and resilient. Locally we have worked to see where else we can provide value in addition to just doing checkpoints at a road race. Some of the things we’ve been doing is AREDN cameras around a race course, providing technical knowledge, triangulation/ direction finding of jamming signals, and Skywarn with also sending data direct to EMA for storms, snow amounts, rain fall amounts, damage reports and similar types of data. Additional areas of assistance we are working on developing at our suggestions and prompting of EMA are cameras for traffic monitoring at large events, overflow call taking at communications during large events like storms, river Ice reports and monitoring various sources of information to filter and funnel to EMA such as social media, highway department radio traffic and ground truth reports. We can’t forget that Emcomm can evolve and is more than just serving government agencies and includes things that benefit the community and work with other agencies and groups such as Scouting events (Klondike derby post monitoring), race sponsors, Red Cross events and activities such as smoke detector installs or local disaster action teams that respond to house fires and such to help victims in addition to shelters. I have found great support locally for what we do and sometimes they just need to be shown the value and capabilities and that gets accomplished by supporting local event and building strong relationships with EMA unfortunately sometimes the problem is a difference in personalities and that can easily be fixed on our end my changing leadership or by appointing an appropriate liaison.
Alex W5ALX says
It makes me screaming mad when we as Radio Amateurs have to justify our existence with emergency communication. If the local EOC sees you as a joke, then move along. I get really cranked when I volunteer, with equipment I BOUGHT MYSELF, and with TIME I COULD BE DOING SOMETHING ELSE, and am told “just stay out of the way and don’t bother us”. Plus, I am supposed to “be professional”. IT DON’T SAY PROFESSIONAL ON MY LICENSE!!!
When I volunteer my time and equipment, I expect respect, as we all should. If we aren’t, then let the arrogant jerks have fun in the next disaster.
Same goes for working public service events. We as Hams do not NEED to justify our existence to ANYBODY!
I am glad to help out if needed, as any self respecting Ham should be, but until I am asked, there is a whole raft of things that I can do in this hobby, and have for 40 years, without frustrating myself with arrogant officials who know not a thing about communications other than pressing a button on their VIPER system.
Kenneth Cechura says
Let’s be honest, boys and girls – all too often, we’re our own worst enemies.
Personally, i don’t see a major spot for amateur radio i the actual EMERGENCIES. The real need might be more along the lines of “is Aunt Betty OK?” – and maybe that mentality needs to be grown.
The days of “their repeater failed” SHOULD be pretty minimal – even with the extensive use of trunking systems. Radios SHOULD be programmed with a conventional or talkaround “Failsafe” (if the system fails, the radio reverts to a “Dumb” mode to allow the officer to communicate), and sites can also e programmed for a “failsafe” mode, turning themselves into standalone sites without network connectivity.
With TCP/IP based dispatch solutions, if the EOC gets slammed, they can move dispatch operations to anyplace they can establish a network connection to the system – new systems are no longer tethered to the dispatch radio racks.
Add the use of Sites On Wheels, Cells on Wheels, and other mobile assets designed for robust reliable operation, and the system should be fairly resilient. MUCH of this is lessons learned – system administrators study what went wrong, and put several layers in place to keep that from happening again.
True or not, amateurs have gotten a reputation for self deployment, self importance, and orange vests with a boatload of antennas – this is where sites like hamsexy.com came from. I’ve SEEN amateur groups harassing public safety agencies during events to “let them help”. That is NOT the time. How often do you see posts in the radio programming sites for “how can I program the police dispatch channel into my [insert Chinese radio manufacturer here] radio for emergencies”? I’ve had conversations where i was discussing a P25 statewide trunked system for an event – the crumudgeonly ham in the corner with his vest and Baofeng on a lanyard around his neck stated (and I kid you not) “That’s Digital, so even if i modify this thing, I can’t talk on that”.
Locally, in order to step FOOT in the EOC, personnel MUST be vetted. ARES as a whole doesn’t vet their personnel, nor does amateur radio (ONE question on the application aside). This severely limits the potential, because we NEED to have control over what information is going where. HIPAA is a chip off the block when it comes to protecting information. Department of Homeland Security has an entire classification guide devoted to information security.
If Amateurs want to be of service , there is a distinct need to understand the background requirements (what do they need first), the roles they can serve (what can they do), and the limitations (what CAN’T they do). If the amateur radio community’s job is to check the port-a-johns and make sure they’re not overflowing, then do it happily, and work with your local government agencies to do it well, and maybe add responsibilities in the future if need is seen for it…
Donald A Netherton says
Kenneth, tell all that to the Puerto Ricans. The Internet is highly unreliable. I work for a company that uses the Internet for everything, and during the fall of 2016 a hacker known as “Anonymous” took down the whole East Coast. All those network connected whiz bang radios the EOC carry were useless.
Honestly, until there is a disaster and it becomes plain that Hams can indeed fill a role (with equipment they have bought themselves, and their own personal time), then there is nothing to be done.
I honestly did not put a lot of money into equipment to go out and stand around while the “big boys” (who know darn all about how their radio works, and would have to call a tech to get the system working again if it broke down), I am just not going to fool with it.
Kenneth Cechura says
I’ll keep the back ad forth to a minimum – but consider that radio programming CAN handle many of the “if this fails” situations – but those failsafe options need to be set up by the system administrators, and officers may need some training.
IF those things are implemented, the need for “auxiliary” services may be minimized – SOWs and COWs can fill in within 24 hours, usually – but that is a big IF. Many don’t have them implemented.
And to be honest, that’s where your ICS system with COM-Ls and COM-Ts come in – those are the folks on the public safety side who should have things figured out. 20 or 30 years ago, they may not have been as readily available, but there is a lot of focus on getting individuals trained, and backup plans in place that may not have occurred before.
As many have said – YMMV…. it’s heavily based on region.
Walter Underwood says
California is all-in on emergency volunteers. The public safety folk know they will be overloaded in a big earthquake.
At the county level, we have a credentialing program for amateur radio volunteers. They are available for mutual aid with NIMS-typing. So an agency can request 3 Type II Net Controls and 10 Type III Field Operators.
Details here:
https://www.scc-ares-races.org/credentials/index.html
J. B. says
Read this – https://allthingsfirstnet.com/public-safety-advocate-lmr-and-firstnet-attributes/
A friend of mine that sold two way radios, was a fireman for 50 years, was a two way radio tech for the local / county, would tell you – Anything made by man must fail! Not just will fail, but must. because in his opinion, when you have a disaster – you have to expect that its not going to be there and its not going to work.
Amateur Radio Works! Why? Because it is so primitive that its damn near impossible to jam – with all the frequencies we have available to us, and it is redundant – having almost 400,000 Licensed users. You might say – the gubbermint says we have 750,000 licenses, but how many of those licenses are club licenses or contest club licenses or people that are dead or people that got a license but never bought a radio and or are in the process of letting their license lapse – because they didn’t find what they were looking for after they got their license.. Clearly 1/3 of the people are not active, more like 50% in my own personal experiences.
The more we rely on technology, the more opportunities there will be for it to fail!
9-11, a friend of mine operated a packet system in New York City that operated to the Oranges in New Jersey and the whole way back to Bethlehem PA.
Did you know that New York City had a red phone that was hard wired to a red phone in New Jersey that the governor could use to talk to the governor of New Jersey?
Did you know that during 9-11 it was discovered that the phone line was disconnected many years before – because no one ever thought it would be needed, and no one tested the line for years and when they went to use it – it didn’t work.
That very same person that offered the use of his Packet System — offered to donate the entire system – FREE to anyone that wanted it after 9-11 as long as they would keep it operational – and no one wanted it, so now it is gone!
In Pennsylvania after a train wreck in Summerset County it was discovered that there was no cell tower near the wreck and there was no communications for the State Police, FEMA etc for 3 days until the telephone company moved in a cell on wheels. A month later there was another train wreck – there still wasn’t any communications in that town.
People – especially the government – doesn’t learn by their mistakes.. Anyone stupid enough to think that they can rely on a cell phone in a disaster is just kidding themselves..
GMRS License sales – now the license is good for 10 years i’ve been told, are up 1000%. But you still have the same mindset for GMRS as you have for amateur radio.
No one wanting to invest in an honest Part 95 type compliant radio. A lot of Beofung users out there and a lot of people wanting to throw up repeaters in every town to argument their poor choice in radios. Some trying to use GMRS as a poor mans Ham radio, putting up antennas and trying to call cq and make contacts more than local.
Eventually they will pollute the well they drink from, turn it into a new version of the 1980’s Citizens Band Radio and since more than half of them uses it without a license, it won’t be long before the government drops the license all together.
Right now there is a license only because the government is making money and no one is complaining about jamming or interference..
Matt McMahon says
Here are the facts. It’s not 1985 anymore. Auxiliary communication support is very much alive and well, especially in NC. For those that have embraced training and fostering relationships with emergency management- they are engaged. I always ask clubs (or groups) “what is it you actually do here?” In North Carolina, the name of the game is Auxcomm. ARES and the abbreviation “EC” has absolutely zero bearing nor interaction at a state level. It’s all about the Auxcomm mentality of “wearing all hats” and STRICTLY how people can support emergency management partners. We continue to have groups that state they are EMCOMM, but are not utilized at all due to the old ARRL mindset. Unfortunately the ARRL alone has ZERO bearing with EMCOMM here in NC.
Ed DiCroce says
There are obviously some amateur radio EMCOMM groups that work well with their particular communities to provide auxiliary communications. However, this is becoming the exception to the rule.
The current state of affairs is that most public officials have zero use for EMCOMM groups and see them as pests. Sometimes they appease EMCOMM groups because of past history when amateur radio played an important role.
Why not become an actual member of your state or local EOC if they have a volunteer program? Join a CERT group if they’re active in your community. The Red Cross can always use volunteers. Who knows, once established in such a group, you may actually find a way to license people and have them use ham radios !!! Of course, the real goal should focus on volunteering and giving back to your community, not just the radio part. That will go a lot further.
Jim Jim says
Having been a fly on the wall at my counties last drill, the EMA director did not even attend. His words were “I have better things to do”.
As far as my area is concerned, they are not interested in ham radio. They are all transitioning to the 800+MHz P25 trucked systems that can use cell phone towers. They think ham radio is old and outdated.
I do not think we should give up because the local govt has a shiny new toy. I think that we should continue to train and drill in order to maintain readiness with or without the support of the EMA support/assistance. Duty to the general public more or less.
Ed DiCroce says
I totally agree, we need to be prepared and ready. Working with authorities in advance is the best way. However, if they don’t see a need, readiness is the next best thing.
Years ago I witnessed a group of CB’er from around my home county coordinate, seek out people and resources. A small group of hams also helped with the effort. In this situation, a dam had burst !!! Needless to say, it was a little too much for the local authorities to handle on their own. They even called in the National Guard for that one.
Another case I know of was when the EOC communications gear of a small town failed to work in a long term emergency caused by a severe ice storm. Prior to that, the Fire Chief said he didn’t need hams because they never have disasters. He changed his mind after the hams connected the EOC to the State EOC via ham communications gear.
Bottom line, readiness pays off. In the meantime, let’s enjoy the hobby and hope we never have to deal with a real emergency.
Larry Campbell says
No one wants to see a bunch of old white men in orange vests pretending to be of use. Our city in Tulsa severed ties a long time ago. Get over it and move on old man.