Are You Ready?
How prepared are you? Have discussed your Family Disaster Plan at home? Do you have a first aid kit, flares or reflectors, water and an ABC dry chemical extinguisher in the vehicle you drive daily? If you don’t have these items in your “Go Kit” now, you have your homework assignment.
Emergency planners emphasize that the most important in disaster preparation is to HAVE A PLAN!
Radio amateurs must plan not only from the amateur radio perspective, but also with respect to community and family. You should presume loss of AC power and address potential loss of repeater use after storms. You should also keep essential personal protective equipment, such as an N95 mask, gloves, safety shoes, rain gear, and hard hat.
A Red Cross survey of coastal communities indicated that barely a third of families plan for hurricanes or flooding. Only a fifth has a disaster supplies kit or evacuation plan. The VA Dept. of Emergency Management states that most hurricane- related deaths occur from inland flooding far from coastal areas. HAZMAT releases and transportation accidents can happen anywhere and may require evacuations and opening of shelters.
What if your community was a target of terrorism? Is your home or place of work likely to be in or near an affected target area? All of us who live or work near Washington, DC, the Ney York City area or Oklahoma City know what it's like to be in the "bullseye," but anywhere could be a target.
If you don’t think that your community is at risk for disasters, you are mistaken. Consider these examples: Natural disasters – most parts of the country are at risk for tornadoes, severe thunder storms, winter storms and flooding. Technological disasters - Every community has the potential for HAZMAT releases and transportation accidents. Resource shortages – every summer drought, thunderstorm or winter storm brings the potential for loss of AC power and water and food shortages.
Knowing WHAT to do, WHERE to go, HOW to get there and how to NOTIFY everyone where you are and if you are OK is the framework of your family disaster plan. If family members are at work or school and can’t get home, they need to know a safe place to go and someone to call to let other family members know where they are, if they need help or are safe. If your family ever needs to evacuate, the process is less upsetting when everyone already knows the plan. You must plan for young children, elderly relatives, animals and other special needs. Your local office of emergency management can provide detailed disaster planning information.
Have you practiced EDITH? It stands for Exit Drill in the Home. When your smoke alarm goes off, crawl low to avoid smoke, exit the door, meet outside. Go to a neighbor’s house or use a portable phone to call 911. Designate a pre-arranged shelter with a neighbor within walking distance, where kids know they will be safe, and can wait until you get home. Elderly relatives need someone to check on them daily and whom they can call for help if you aren’t there.
If your neighborhood is told to evacuate so that your nearby neighborhood refuse is not an option, your family will be more at ease if they know somewhere else safe and comfortable to go, instead of a public shelter. When local phone service is out, long distance “may” still work. So designate an out-of-area friend who agrees to accept collect calls from family so that everyone knows who to call to let others know where they are, if they need help or are safe.
Ensure that family members know where and how to shut off the electricity, gas and water at the main sources, should they need to evacuate. Are your main utility shut-offs in the home plainly marked? Is there an adjustable wrench in plain sight near your gas meter? If your family ever needs to evacuate turn off all utilities to reduce risk of fire, water damage and contamination.
“Your Family Disaster Supplies Kit “is a Red Cross pamphlet developed in cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). It lists essential food, water, shelter, first aid, and safety items which you should have already assembled in a sturdy, water-resistant, easily transported container, which is accessible at home or which can easily be taken with you to a public shelter. Each family member should have their own backpack to carry their own flashlight, extra batteries, eyeglasses, a change of clothing, socks and underwear, rain gear, sturdy shoes, personal medications, sanitary supplies and comfort items.
ARES public service events are no substitute for a full-scale emergency response exercise. You should depend upon having only an HT for EmCom. A mobile rig with at least 25 watts output is better.
If everyone develops an adequate simplex capability with suitable equipment and practices basic skills, loss of repeater coverage isn’t a big deal. Everyone should know the local ARES or RACES simplex frequencies to use, have these pre-programmed into their rigs and exercise the local operating plan regularly.
It’s naïve to presume that repeaters are always going to be there to make up for a poor station on your part. How would you alert and communicate with your family or ARES group if the phone, Internet and AC power were off for three days, the battery backup on the repeater goes dead after the first 24 hours or the “machine” on which you depend on takes a lightning hit? Use smoke signals?
Teach new amateur operators where the “reverse” button is on their transceivers, what it is for, and how to turn the automatic repeater offset “on” and “off.”
Lead by example. Demonstrate and encourage use of correct radio operating procedures. Practice handling traffic. Encourage questions and discussion of equipment, antennas, homebrew projects, emergency power and emergency planning to maintain interest. Rotate net control duties for nets so that everybody gets a turn and learns how.
Realistic training should presume that repeaters will either be inoperative due to storm damage, or will be operating on battery backup, which must be conserved for as long as possible. If you prepare and train for the worse case scenario, you will be ready. If the repeater still works, but is on battery, don’t run it down needlessly, lest it not be there for someone’s emergency when they need it.
If a net usually meets on a repeater, but the repeater if off air for any reason, some people won’t have gotten the word, so use the repeater’s output frequency on simplex, because that’s where people will be listening. That beats the heck out of guessing where else the net may meet, and should be common sense.
New operators should seek a reliable, rugged, simple to use rig. It should be capable of operation from an external battery, have a low power option, such as 5 watts for maximum battery conservation, and a higher power, such as 25 watts for reliable simplex. It should be frequency agile, field programmable, with ten or more memories, have CTCSS encode and be packet capable.
A dual-band radio is highly recommended in urban areas, because UHF and 220 get in, out of and around reinforced buildings better than VHF, and are less subject to intermoduation distortion. We recommend that every ARES and RACES member develop at least an “appliance user” familiarity with packet. Get some experience checking into nets at home, handling formal traffic on both the NTS and ICS forms and developing skill in portable and mobile operations.
Any portable rig should have THREE power sources: its OEM battery pack, AA battery case in case you cannot recharge your NiCd, NiMh or Lithium Ion battery, and an auxiliary power cord to enable connection to an external battery or power supply. Get a gel cell battery adequate to operate your HT at full power for a 12-hour operational period. About 4ah is the minimum recommended, 7ah is better.
If all you have is an HT and you cannot afford a mobile, consider a “brick amp.” You want an amplifier such as the Mirage B23 or BD35 which provides 10w output with as little as 1 watt of drive and is capable of 25 watts out with 2-3 watts of drive, when both the HT and the amp are just “loafing” along at about 2/3 of maximum rated output. The idea is to let the amp do the work without burning up the finals on your HT by running full power all of the time. Your brick amp should be capable of occasional, intermittent 50w transmissions if really needed, though you generally avoid this because excessive RF power overheats the equipment and depletes your batteries faster.
What “go kit” items are best for you is an individual decision. Search and rescue survival planners recommend three levels which build upon each other. Level I is what is your briefcase and pockets which you have with you all the time. Commuters using public transportation or who walk, rather than drive, may not have room for much more than their personal cell phone or pager, eyeglasses, driver’s license and RACES ID, some cash for phones and vending, and maybe an HT, notebook and pencil.
A zippered, compartmentalized pouch which fits in your briefcase enables additional items such a spare HT battery pack, personal medications, snacks, water bottle, pocket knife, small “backup” flashlight and a lighter or matches. It’s better to have minimum essentials always with you, than to have a larger pack inaccessible during an emergency. You decide what works best for your circumstances.
Members of ARES, RACES, CERT or Red Cross DATs should prepare to at least Level II. It is recommended that your Level II equipment be stored in a backpack or shoulder bag in your vehicle, so that it is available quickly whether you are at home or away. What kit contents are best for you will depend upon where you live, your assignment and situational circumstances. Those living in urban areas will have different needs than those who are out in the country.
Recommended minimum contents for everyone include your HT (if not carried at Level I) “gain” antenna such as a telescoping half wave or wind-up J-pole, extra battery pack or AA case, flashlight and extra batteries, utility pocket knife, personal first aid kit, forms kit and operating references, earphone or speaker mic, local street map, notebook and pencil, stuff-able rain gear, hat, 1 meal and drinking water.
In rural areas you include 24000 scale (7.5 minute) topo maps of the area around your home and the route to your worksite. Also include an orienteering compass, insect repellant, sunscreen, fire starting materials, and an extra “warm” clothing layer. Selection of contents is up to you, but these recommendations are based upon the collective experience of many.
Those who are qualified to provide mutual aid on an ARESMAT or RACES Disaster Response Team, should prepare to Level III. Added to the previous two layers, its emphasis is on personal protective equipment and “Ten Essentials” recommended by SAR and survival experts for deployment in an unknown environment. All deployed amateurs in disaster areas should carry an ANSI Type II reflective vest, leather work gloves, sturdy work boots with ankle support and a traction sole, rain suit, and either 4AA or 2D flashlight with extra batteries. For CERT and damage assessment missions your gear should also include hardhat, safety glasses, N-95 mask, and medical exam gloves.
“Ten Essentials” recommended by Search and Rescue and survival experts include a first aid kit, map, compass, utility knife, food for two meals, fire starting materials, signaling materials, emergency shelter, extra clothing and water. It is recommended that you inspect and update the contents of all three levels twice yearly in the spring and fall.
Necessary radio equipment to support your assignment should be packed in sturdy “grab and go” containers. Tools and accessories are transported easily in a contractor’s tool bag. Evaluate what is mission-essential, versus what merely adds to the weight you must carry. It does no good to have a great station with batteries for 96 hours if you are can’t operate because you are cold, wet, hungry, sick and tired.
Plan on adequate auxiliary power for a minimum of 24 hours to do do your job. It is better to plan for 2-3 days of activity on a 24-hour basis until relief resources arrive. This is reality.
A typical operating duty cycle for voice nets is about 20 percent or one minute of transmit time to 4 minutes of receive. A busy packet BBS approaches 50%. Battery amp-hour ratings are based on a 20-hour discharge rate. Capacity is reduced non-linearly as operating loads and duty cycle increase.
A “quick & dirty” approximation which will keep you out of trouble “most of the time,” use the Amp-Hour per Watt Rule. Ensure one amp-hour of battery capacity for each watt of transmitter output, for each rig, for each 12-hour operational period. Experience has validated this in practice. It represents the MINIMUM which every operator should always carry, all of the time.
Recommended batteries for stationary operations are the BCI Group 27 or 30 deep cycle, widely used in telecommunications, marine, RV and agricultural applications. These are widely available and common everywhere and weigh 65-75 pounds each. Group 27 or 30 batteries are the largest that a physically fit adult can safely lift alone onto a hand truck and transport from the Battery Mart to your car and over to the EOC. A pair is recommended.
For indoor use get sealed AGM construction, so that you need not be concerned about acid spillage or out-gassing of hydrogen during charging.
Battery conservation isn’t the whole answer, but is simple common sense and good operating practice. Conserve your batteries by using the minimum transmit power for reliable communications, with the most efficient practical antenna and shortest run of low loss feed line.
If you operate from your mobile, running the engine 10 minutes of every hour will avoid draining the battery so much that the vehicle won’t start, but remember that when the AC mains are down and there is no electricity to run the pumps, that it is foolish to waste scarce gasoline to run your auto alternator to keep your battery charged when you may need that gas to evacuate!
Battery charging is science, not alchemy. To achieve a 90% charge state in an SLA battery, recharge it to 120% of its capacity; for a 100% charge state, charge to 140% of its capacity. The general rule for charging 12v SLA batteries is to charge at a rate of 1/10 the battery’s capacity for 12-14 hours. A battery of 15a/h capacity is charged at a rate of 1.5A. For a 90% charge, go to 12 hours; for a 100% charge, 14 hours. If your charger isn’t a convenient 1/10 of your battery’s capacity? Calculate appropriate charge times for a fully-discharged battery as follows:
90% charge: (a/h rating of batt. x 1.2) / charger output in amps = time (in hours)
100% charge: (a/h rating of battery x 1.4) / charger output in amps = time (in hours)
SLA battery manufacturers warn against attempting to achieve a full charge in less than 10 hours. This is because the battery will gas, swelling the case, possibly blowing the safety vents, causing loss of electrolyte! A charger for 12V gel or AGM batteries should not exceed 14V.
For general use you want a low-amperage, automatic charger. This compares the battery voltage against a pre-determined reset point in the microprocessor which controls the charger. The Schumacher Model SE-1-12S is a 1.5A automatic charger which can safely recharge small gel cells over 2ah if time and temperature are monitored, or can be connected continuously to batteries of U1 size or larger and maintain up to a Group 30. It sells for about $30 and has overload, reverse polarity and temperature protection and is available at www.batterychargers.com Ordinary auto battery are designed to deliver up to 16V to enable mixing of electrolyte of flooded batteries at the end of the charge cycle. They will ruin a sealed gel sell in short order, unless a diode or two are placed in line with the “hot” lead to limit maximum voltage to 14 volts. The Schumacher SE-600 is a 6A dual-mode charger with both “flooded” and Gel-AGM settings.
If the AC power went down right now, how long could you operate your station? Everybody likes to use a generator for Field Day, but they aren’t the best EmCom solution. They are noisy, distracting, generate gobs of carbon monoxide, require a reliable source of clean fuel and poses a host of safety and operational considerations.
If you decide to buy or use a generator, you must educate yourself in its safe and proper use. Generators use internal combustion engines which produce carbon monoxide. To ensure adequate ventilation of exhaust and fuel vapors, never run a generator indoors, in attached garages or near HVAC air intakes. Set up under an open canopy, shed or carport.
Don’t connect or plug a portable generator into a building electrical service. Plug only individual devices into the generator using UL-rated cords of adequate wire gage for loads. Ensure adequate grounding of the generator and equipment. Don’t set up generators or feed lines on wet ground.
Fuel vapors are heavier than air and can travel along the ground where they may be ignited by any arc, spark or open flame. Store fuel outdoors in a ventilated shed and use only approved containers.
Typical gasoline generators produce about 600w at 120 volts AC per engine horsepower. A 100 watt HF transceiver requires about 1200 AC watts at 120 volts. Generator capacity must be sized to not only the running wattages of the equipment, but also the starting loads. For low-loads such as furnace fans and lighting multiply running wattages by 2. For heavy loads such as pumps, winches or compressors multiply the running wattages by 7.
A 5KW generator adequate for maintaining essential appliance in a single-family house or a mobile command post requires 12 to 15 gallons of fuel every 24 hours. Section F-3201.2 of the Virginia Uniform Fire Code prohibits storage of more than 5 gallons of gasoline in residential areas.
Check with your local Fire Marshall to see what the safety requirements are in your area and COMPLY with them, so that you don't void your home owner's insurance policy!
National Electrical Code requires backup generators connected to a building electrical service be equipped with a double-pole, double-throw transfer switch. This disconnects the building service from the AC mains when the generator is connected, preventing injury to utility workers servicing the lines. It also protects building equipment from back feed when the AC mains come back on. In states using the Uniform Electrical Code installation of a transfer switch requires an electrical permit and must be done by a licensed electrician.
Photovoltaics are a viable option. A 30 or 40 watt panel can maintain up to four Group 27 batteries. A minimal solar system of about 1.5 percent of battery capacity is self-regulating and adequate to maintain batteries against self-discharge. Such a system is generally much less expensive than a general of similar capacity, and you don’t have the associated fuel safety, supply and storage problems.
Amateur radio emergency communications, done “right” seem “transparent,” to emergency managers.
Trained operators have technical knowledge to work around problems, operate from the same sheet of music and don’t waste their time or anybody else’s by sloppy work.
Just because we are “amateurs” doesn’t mean that we don’t maintain the highest standards of performance and integrity.
So go out there, do it right, do it safely and set a good example for your fellow operators.
Posted by
KE4SKY on 2005-01-12