A couple of days ago, an interesting article popped up on reddit’s /r/amateurradio: 20 reasons why intelligent radios like Gotenna Mesh / Pro have some serious advantages over Tactical Ham / walkieTalkies for short range tactical unlicensed volunteer use in disaster zones (in concert w HF): #ares #races #cert #redcross #arrl #ham #amateurRadio #elmers #disasterrelief #ics #nims. This post linked to an article on Medium.
A couple of the 20 reasons include:
- Gotenna Mesh is the only radio asset capable of encrypting and transmitting encrypted private medical information and thus being technically legal for hospital to shelter or Emergency Operations Center HIPAA health-related transmissions.
- Gotenna is the ONLY radio asset that any civilian, loved one, or volunteers without an FCC ham license may legally use.
- Gotenna provides out of the box offline TEAM map integration, aprs, ctak, civtak, atak, gps and SMS message sharing with confirmation of receipt .
- Gotenna is the only radio asset that provides 100% auditable record keeping, information sharing, and situational awareness / handoff for DHS / FEMA Incident Control ICS National Incident Management NIMS purposes. Showing all Tx / Rx and confirmations.
The reddit post contains some interesting comments defending ham radio. The bulk of the comments seemed to say something along the lines of “Well, we have all this functionality, too,” and then go on to bash the proprietary nature of the devices. While this may be true, I think that these commenters are missing the point that this system can be used with little or no training and configuration.
I’m not really qualified to comment on the technical arguments here, but it does seem to me that the Gotenna Mesh/Pro does have some advantages over what hams currently use for emergency communications. What we offer is really not good enough anymore. I have said this before, but what we need in amateur radio is someone to drive the technology for emcomm. If someone doesn’t do that, then we’re just going to get further and further behind and less and less relevant.
Walter Underwood says
I see this exactly opposite from Gotenna’s argument. The benefit of ARES/RACES is trained people. The technology is secondary.
At the Rim Fire in 2013, hams staffed information telephones at the EOC. They could be trusted to follow a script and take good notes.
http://www.arrl.org/news/ares-races-volunteers-conclude-rim-fire-activation
In Haiti and in Katrina, hams were fixing printers, rigging wi-fi networks, and whatever was needed.
Walter Underwood says
For non-proprietary work in the tech area, look at what CMU Silicon Valley is doing with their resilient networking research.
https://sv.cmu.edu/research/Wireless/resilient-networking.html
Wireless Innovators is the CMU-SV radio club, W6CMU. There is a lot of overlap between the research and the club.
https://sv.cmu.edu/wireless-innovators/index.html
Franklin Bryan says
Trained ARES volunteers are very important. At our EOC in Pensacola, FL, after hurricane Ivan, and again in Puerto Rico, we saw complete system failure (no phone lines, no cellular, nothing. One important function was that we bootsrapped APRS to keep track of roads that were out of service. Sharing this information with truck drivers was essential to get supplies in. However, not many truckers have ham radio. Similarly, in Puerto Rico, the governor couldn’t get a message out to truck drivers. In these two situations, we used CB radio and FM / AM broadcast. The beauty of gotenna mesh is that it provides one other alternative to integrate these essential people into the incident management to get and receive good Intel and effect rescues or deliveries with those who would otherwise be unreachable.
Todd Carpenter N9YSQ says
Knowing a little about Gotenna mesh technology, let me share some things. First it is only capable of up to 6 relays among devices. It is only around just under 1 watt on high power and 1/2 half watt standard. It is a part 15 device. It receives no legal protection from interference. There is no true encryption as by law (havent seen any changes) cyphers/modes must be commonly known. RTTY could essentially do the same thing. Gotenna uses GFSK modulation. In addition it operates within the 33 centimeter band. 902-928 MHz as an ism device. It requires a phone or tablet to send information out but not for relays. I am not aware of it being able to send forms such as NBEMS or even FLdigi.
Steve ~ W8SFC says
For the Gotenna Mesh/Pro to work it needs to be paired with a cell phone and a per unit cost of $500.00 I am not too keen on the idea of barely trained people swarming a disaster site with these things. I was stationed at Fort Knox during the super outbreak in the Ohio River valley of 1974 that spawned lots of tornadic activity over a large part of the area between Kentucky and Ohio (the infamous Xenia, Ohio tornado was part of that event). The air cavalry at Fort Knox was pressed into medevac service and I went with them to Brandenburg, Kentucky to render aid to the people. It was chaotic enough with trained military personnel and local law enforcement as well as fire and ambulance services all there to aid the victims, so I can’t imagine adding people with no radio discipline training to that and it turning out well. Another question I have is just how effective is this technology after the cell towers go quiet? This is where radio is difficult to challenge in terms of effectiveness in the field.
I’m not saying that in the right hands this would not be a good addition to have in the field, but the device’s website claim that little training is required purports that people who barely know how to use this device would be able to replace the licensed amateur radio personnel who have traditionally been there to help during disaster response efforts seems like a little wishful thinking to me. No matter what means of communication is employed in the field, you need people there who know what to do and how to get it done. No device is going to supplant that need. I saw that for myself on April 3, 1974.
Paul Vittorino says
I have a pair of the GoTenna devices and they work well in environments where cellular service is weak or inconsistent (elementary school). For emergency use I see their reliance on a mobile phone as a weak point. However the nature of the device as a generic data modem with the payload handling in the application makes evolving them easy. I think there are lessons to be taken from the devices.
Rob w4zng says
One of the biggest hurdles mentioned is the lack of encryption for medical information. It seems that the ARRL could work with the FCC, and possibly FEMA, to modify regulations to allow this.
Yes, I realize that this would conflict with one of the foundations of amateur radio, to be 100% open in order to head off possible criminal or seditious use. However, if new regulations allowed encryption only in government-declared emergency conditions, for a narrow class of HIPAA data, under the direct control of legal authority, and with the requirement that all information exchanged be saved at each end for after-the-emergency audits, these concerns would largely be addressed.
Or is such an effort already underway?
sam says
See also the Open Source
https://disaster.radio/
https://github.com/sudomesh/disaster-radio
GPS devices will be supported soon.