The Wilderness Protocol is where a Ham Radio operator would monitor the simplex calling frequencies for emergency traffic on the top of each hour. When ever I am in my vehicle mobile or in my shack I have my radio or scanner on scan and have the frequencies that the radio will cover programmed in.
I do the same thing with my CAP and even my work radios. I monitor when I am near them.
There are a couple of problems though. Some Hams don’t monitor the calling frequencies for what ever reason. Others simply don’t exercise common courtesy when they make a contact and QSY to another frequency to rag chew. There are Hams in this area that meet up on 146.520 and then sit there for hours. You cant get a word in edge wise if you had to.
When ever an emergency strikes, I turn on my rig and tune to the calling frequencies as well as the repeater frequencies. In both the Ice Storm and the Inland Hurricane there was traffic on 146.520. Repeaters were down etc and people were calling. You never know when someone might not have the tones programmed in or not know the repeater frequencies if they are not from the area and are in need of assistance.
Program those frequencies into your radio or scanner and listen when you can. You might save someone’s life.
Something to think about…………….
Here is a radar picture of the May 8 storm that hit the region so hard. It is easy to understand why it got named “inland hurricane”. The circular motion of the storm had people fooled to some extent because the “eye” was calm and you thought you were out of it when it hit you from the other direction.
Every person in S. Illinois should keep this as a reminder of why it is important to be prepared. Every Emergency Manager should also keep this posted to remind them to keep vigilant that emergencies do happen.
At the same time, the damage that was done as a result of this storm would be nothing compared to the damage that could be done by the New Madrid Fault if it goes off like it is predicted to do some day.
And most agencies have the area hit hardest by this storm as their forward base in the event of a shake by the New Madrid. Maybe they should think about that.
This was a test. And we passed, but we sure found our weak links.
Side Note: Best Radio Traffic of the Storm.
EM Base from EM1
EM1 this is EM Base, Over
EM Base get our auxiliary fuel cans out and have them ready for deployment to fuel up the generators.
EM1 we loaned our auxiliary fuel supply to Alexander County during the ice storm, remember?
Long pause of silence………..
EM Base from EM 1, maybe we should call them and see about getting them back.
Well got my parts in…………….and it was time to do some work to bring this thing to a close and begin to get ready to test it out.
But after W9FX gave us a class on emergency power with generators and battery backups and inverters, I decided I needed to protect my investment a little better. So this began the hunt to make sure that every thing had a fuse, or two along the way. This is something I have not been very good at up until now.
So I remembered a web page I had visited a long time ago that had a lot of good info on Anderson Powerpoles and I looked it up again. There is was at the home page of KB1DIG and KB1GTR and I found the projects I was looking for to being my quest to be better prepared to go it “off the grid”.
In particular was a project where they had used a battery and a fuse block to provide emergency power. I wanted to do something similar for the Cutting Board Portable, so I went in search of parts. And I found my parts I was looking for at Wiringproducts.com and placed and order and waited. When the parts cam in, I spent my rain delayed weekend at the bench.
I started off with a four place fuse block from WiringProducts as shown above.
I had already made a couple of similar type applications using a cigarette plug and two fuse holders I picked up at Rural King. I used some of the tricks I saw on DIG’s website to make them up. I cant tell you how much I love the Powepoles. I have put them on everything in the shack and now am using them on the farm.
The beginning of the project. I had to shop around three different stores to find the 10-12 gauge female disconnects. Everyone was sold out. Must be a run on them for some reason around here.
The beginning of the project was to set up the output side of the fuse block. I had to make sure that I followed the ARES “standard” for how the Powerpoles hooked up and at the same time how they came off the fuse block.
Then used a bit of shrink wrap to keep things from going sparky and attached the plastic connector holders.
The completed output side of the fuse block.
Side view of the ground and positive input to the fuse block. I used the same 10-12 gauge female disconnect procedure on the input side.
The completed assembly. It is now ready to be mounted to the cutting board. My 857D, Tuner and meter will now plug into this, and will be fuse protected, again in some cases, from the power sourse.to beat the rain.
More when I have time.
To protect the identity and location of these fields, they will be referred to like the guy who always wears a mask in a pro-rassling match, “from parts unknown”.
I love this video, it makes you think. He reminds me of my Stats Professor in Grad School.
Enjoy
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Well here is Part 2 of my “Go Kit” radio project, or Operation: Cutting Board Portable. (Came up with that name today, and like the last song you hear on the radio, it stuck in my head!).
Anyway……….When we were last at the work bench, we had finished attaching the radio mounting bracket. Next we mounted the radio and then position the Z11-Pro and marked it.
Then I had to make a decision: Did I want to screw the tuner to the board, in which case if I were to want to use it else where I would have to take it apart to get if off the cutting board, or did I want to mount it in a way that it could be moved if necessary? Answer: Velcro. Yep, had a ton of this stuff left over from mounting my patches and insignia on my flight suit for CAP. So we started on the bottom of the tuner with the fuzzy side of the Velcro.
Not to dull up your reading, I did the same procedure with the Signalink on top of the 857D.
All this leaves is the grounding, putting Anderson Powerpoles on all the power leads, and mounting up the LDG 857D Meter. Then it will be time to test this out.
I have started on many occasions to build one of these ARES type go boxes for my radio in the event that I would ever get called out for EmComms. Two or three times I have build something that I really didn’t like because it took up so much room and really didn’t suit my thoughts of what would be needed.
Hey, I didn’t notice but last nights post was my 100th. That’s 100 times I was able to come up with something to put up here. Some were better than others, but at least they stuck to the wall when thrown at it!
On the old Johnny Carson Show, Johnny would start off a joke by saying something along the lines of “it was so wet today”… and the audience would respond in unison “How wet is it?” Then he would finish with a bad joke.
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