Emergency portable local radio communication

[Kayaker530]

I am also an Amateur Extra Class Licensed Amateur Radio Operator. We have some folks looking into the Garmin system. We would only need to have one for each trip team. The camp program committee is looking for funds to undertake their use for this season. As you may have seen from something I shared earlier I'm also looking into the use of Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) automatic radio beacons as an interim measure for notifying the home camp and public safety agencies of a life or death emergency. If I had the money I would have already been on the phone to Micro Trak to request the restart of production on the Micro Trak All In One (MT-AIO). 15 MT-AIOs would equip each trip group team of counselors with a selectable signal automatic transmitter that they could use to summon help from their home camp and/or from public safety responders. Just one more thing that we are looking for money to implement.

Tom Horne

We have learned a great deal about the Garmin System. I am happy to share what we have learned. Prior to purchase most of my learning about the system were posts from long distance through hikers that use them on The Pacific Coast Trail and other long trail systems. We gained a lot of valuable information from them.

 

[mightysparrow]

That rule 97.403 only covered stations, not individual operators, they seem to revoke what they have not given in a first place, not to mention it is only their rules not a law, still not illegal to own a radio.

Rules issued by government agencies are laws.

 

[TD-Horne]

This is something that a lot of people do not understand. No government agency, at any level, can issue enforceable regulations in the absence of enabling legislation that empowers that agency to do so. The regulations can not go into effect until after a public comment period which allows members of the elected legislative body and that government's executive to object to the regulation as written and demand changes. If a sufficient number of legislators want a change or withdrawal of the regulation they can vote to refer it to the committee or other body, responsible for oversight of the issuing agency for hearings and possibly legislation that will forbid the enforcement of the regulation or take other action that the legislature wants to apply. If the executive will tolerate the interference in the executive agency's action he will sign the bill and the corrective action by the legislature will take effect. Absent such legislative action the regulation becomes enforceable as law pursuant to the original enabling legislation. Any government regulation adopted pursuant to law is then enforceable as law because the original legislation says so. The regulating agency is functioning as the legislatures agent and as such they exercise the power that the legislature gave them in the original enabling legislation.

The long and short of all that is that whether you or I like it or not claiming that the regulation is not law once the elected legislature enabled its adoption and enforcement and did not exercise their oversight power over the agency to change or cancel the regulation It is law. How on earth would the FCC be able to levy fines in multiple thousands of dollars without the legislator having given them permission to. The courts would simply enjoin enforcement permanently if the regulation was adopted without the authority conferred by the legislature and excepted by the executive.

Tom Horne

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

When the cell towers are out, I would like to communicate with friends and family within a five to ten mile radius reliably (within hilly territory) and perhaps up to fifty miles away. I would like to be able to limit the distance so as not to hear conversations hundreds of miles away.

It would be good to hear the local police and maybe, be able to communicate with them.

Recommendations?

@Poppy Have everyone you want to communicate with, get a landline phone. As I understand it, regular LL phones have battery backup through the phone company. So even if cell towers are down or overloaded, you may be able to get through. I say maybe, because official traffic has priority, and you could be bumped and have the call drop. I highly doubt if you had fiber optic internet with VoIP that that would happen though, due to the high volume capability.

To listen to public safety agencies, contact scannermaster.com, and they can tell you whether or not you need a trunk tracking analog or digital scanner, and what digital systems to plug into the radio. They can pre-program it and set it all up for you.

 

[M@elstrom]

@Poppy Have everyone you want to communicate with, get a landline phone. As I understand it, regular LL phones have battery backup through the phone company. So even if cell towers are down or overloaded, you may be able to get through.

This may be purely a regional consideration but our local Telecomunications network publically advised they would no longer be maintaining the old copper line networks and directed everyone to change over to the VoIP (which fails during a power outage), in contrast mobile phone towers have (I believe) battery back up so are a better option, alternatively local radio communications would be an excellent choice as they are not reliant on local infrastructure (but communications traffic is not secure), the standard desired will be determined by the willingness of those involved to obtain equipment and/or licensing.

In Australia you're lucky if you can hear much on a standard scanner these days as most of the services have transitioned to digital (with Police going fully encrypted), I believe America has significantly more options but a digital trunking scanner will maximise your options/flexibility.

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Probably the easiest way to solve the communication scenario would be with a GMRS repeater on the highest point in the area of interest, and have everyone involved get GMRS mobile radios and handie talkies. I believe each household would have to purchase a GMRS license, but all can use the repeater with the repeater owner's permission. If all involved chipped in they could form a group to purchase and maintain the repeater.

 

[snakebite]

The best thing you can do is get your amateur license. Second best is get your GMRS license. Lots of capabilities there even if infrastructure is compromised. Some amateur repeaters are fully backed up and can operate independently of Grid power or internet

 

[raggie33]

When the cell towers are out, I would like to communicate with friends and family within a five to ten mile radius reliably (within hilly territory) and perhaps up to fifty miles away. I would like to be able to limit the distance so as not to hear conversations hundreds of miles away.

It would be good to hear the local police and maybe, be able to communicate with them.

Recommendations?

love ya freind i dont wanna talk to them when the towers are up lol . unless there giving free taco bell and flashlights

 

[snakebite]

As you can see some of these commercial radios can be used as scanners too. The harris is monitoring ohio marcs-ip. It does vhf,uhf,700,800,fm,p25 phase 1 and 2. The motorola on the right is on the miami valley p25 votescan system. This is built from public safety gear and each node is in a high profile public safety agency site or broadcast facility. These always have power and backup connectivity. Another group in dayton has built a wide area 2m system with similar capability. covers about 8000 sq miles of west central ohio and the columbus area. I can drive almost to indianapolis ,in and into n ky.

 

[fuyume]

Within hilly and mountainous terrain, if you want to be able to communicate, you best bet is going to be Amateur Radio on HF (high frequency, 3-30 MHz) bands using an NVIS (near vertical incidence skywave) antenna. An NVIS antenna is designed to send signal straight up and bounce it off the ionosphere, so that it comes straight back down in a local area radius. This will allow you to communicate over mountains. VHF (very high frequency, 30-300 MHz) bands and higher are limited to line of sight only, which is why cellular telephony communications in mountainous terrain are so difficult.

However, it's also possible that every one in your area might be able to use a local VHF Amateur Radio repeater system, you'll have to investigate your area yourself.

Under no circumstances will you be able to communicate with police using their operational radio systems. Some (very few) police departments may have Amateur Radio communications capability. You'll have to contact your local police agencies and ask.

Everyone you want to communicate with in your family and among your friends will also need to hold Amateur Radio operator licenses and have Amateur Radio transceivers and antennas capable of transmitting and receiving the same frequencies.

There is really no way to limit the distance of radio communications other than by careful selection of frequency, antenna, and transitting power, and even then, atmospheric and space weather conditions can conspire to make radio waves travel much further than is intended.

Citizen Band (CB) radios do not require a license and can operate over very long distances in the 11-metre band, but are legally limited to communications only with a 150 mile range.

Family Radio Service (FRS) radios do not require a license, but are only good for short-range, line of sight communications. General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) radios require a license, and can use repeaters, but such repeaters are not common. Note that many FRS radios have GMRS capability, but you cannot legally transmit on GMRS channels without a license. You could, if you wanted, set up your own GMRS repeater, but this isn't particularly valuable unless you have access to high ground and/or a radio tower.

Amateur Radio is really your best bet, in most cases.

 

[DRW]

Rules issued by government agencies are laws.

Supreme Court has a big problem with this and convictions of rule violation are getting overturned.

Only people elected to be a legislator make laws.

 

[TPA]

@Poppy Have everyone you want to communicate with, get a landline phone. As I understand it, regular LL phones have battery backup through the phone company. So even if cell towers are down or overloaded, you may be able to get through. I say maybe, because official traffic has priority, and you could be bumped and have the call drop. I highly doubt if you had fiber optic internet with VoIP that that would happen though, due to the high volume capability.

Landline used to be the gold standard. Not anymore. Telcos simply aren't maintaining them. When they get damaged, they're not replacing them.

We always kept a land-line at our beach place for this exact reason, with an old-school analog line-powered wall phone mounted in the coat closet. It served us well for many years. BUT, when Hurricane Ian's 20ft storm surge came to town, the Centurylink building was toast, as were all of the land lines since the phone cans were now submerged with at least 6' of salt water over the top of them. It's been almost 2 years, they've still not restored service yet. I'm being told it's going to all be replaced with fiber + VoIP...so it'll require power.

The local cell networks were battered, but still partially functioning. We had to go on the balcony to make phone calls, but they'd go through. Audio quality was dodgy at times, but again, the calls still got through. SMS worked well. Data was overloaded.

I've since changed our strategy to using multiple cell carriers with multiple phones. Large USB battery packs + solar panels. These models have the ability to choose between 4G/3G/2G. Often if the 5G or 4G towers are overloaded, the 3G and 2G are pretty quiet, even during non-emergency times.

 

[snakebite]

Same here. POTS not being maintained. A friend had no choice other than dsl and the local(frontier) Could not find 2 good pairs to get him reliable service.
And had the gall to try to enforce a contract where they could not provide service!
That and trotwood oh being high on taxes and a police dept that did nothing led to him moving and me not even considering buying property there.
No internet in a large city is ridiculous today.

 

[TPA]

I know multiple people who continued to be billed by CenturyLink after the hurricane. Even though I ported out my phone #, they STILL continued to bill me for 3 months. Each time I'd call in, they'd want to roll a truck to "fix your no dialtone issue." It was more like no-more-telco-building issue since it got blown apart by the storm surge. A guy in a truck wasn't going to fix that. I ended up firing off complaints with the FCC (slamming) and the state's public service commission who made quick work of the mess.

 

[snakebite]

How could they not know the exchange had been destroyed?

 

[TPA]

How could they not know the exchange had been destroyed?

How did they not know? Very easily. Have you ever dealt with CenturyLink?

Fwiw, they didn't lift a single finger to do anything to restore service for 15 months. https://beachtalkradionews.com/centurylink-says-the-cleanup-begins-monday/

Don't let the generator there fool you...it isn't functional. All of the damage you see was caused by storm surge. Guessing it was ~15-18' of surge in that area.

 

[snakebite]

Sounds like a total loss.
Will they even rebuild the landline system?

 

[alpg88]

Rules issued by government agencies are laws.

Nope, Laws are not issued, they are passed by legislative branch, agencies are executive branch, they do NOT make laws, nor their rules are laws.

 

[alpg88]

I have noticed that lately some gmrs repeater networks are being shut down by fcc. I wonder why

 

[alpg88]

As you can see some of these commercial radios can be used as scanners too.

YEp, even UV5R is pretty good at it, even better when you unlock 200 band. I got a new uv5r unit not that long ago, it has greatly improved, spurious emissions and harmonics are much better than early units, well below 40db. I test them with my tiny SA ultra