01/31/2012
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PHUZZIE SIGHENCE , FEBRUARY 2012
OUR MOTTO = PSI R ROUND / CAKE R SQUARE
By the time you read this column Groundhog Day will be but history. I'm sure that the media pumped it up as much as they did the political debates in the waning days of January. We call these events The Days of Whine and Poses. Most people will not be sorry to see winter burst into Spring but we are stuck with those office seekers for quite awhile. The folks who predict the weather said we were going to have a cold and dry season, well they got it half right. One method for surviving severe winter weather suggest digging a snow cave similar to an igloo. Mother Nature, this winter, saved a lot of that shovel ready stuff by providing vast amounts of flakes to cover you if standing in one location for more than an hour. We are just entering our snowy season and if we get much more of it there will rescue missions based on infra red devices. The record weather has all the experts puzzled and they are desperately in search of an explanation. The old timers say they could not use that time proven method of measuring the brown band on wooly caterpillars because they were hard to find prior to printing the Farmer's Almanac. Some say the little crawlers were harvested by the groundhog to use for weaving sweaters. Beavers, instead of collecting twigs for their larders have been accused of burglarizing local wood stove stores for those processed wood pellets. These of course are urban legends or Irvin legends if told by that guy at the senior center. The fall back way to predict the weather, ask one of those guys where they hurt today. With today's economy we really shouldn't complain. Lots of people found useful employment dealing with the winter excess. Think wood cutters, snowplow operators, shovel manufacturers, public transit, the list is endless. Maybe some new products will emerge from these events. Surplus jet engines to use for melting snow. How about motor driven skis equipped with dual crawler tracks? Maybe some solar panel powered coveralls too ? Oh well, mankind has been fighting the weather since they fell out of the trees probably after being stunned by a heavy frost ! Maybe we should just accept it. I hate to think what a bunch mad scientists would devise. I'll have to research in old my Science Fiction library where I'm sure there is something concerning this topic.
On another subject, have you been keeping track of all those new medicines being promoted on radio and television ? You know what I mean, the ones that have a label list of side effects longer than your local telephone book. They are usually followed by some legal firm that wants you to enter a class action suit about said drugs.
It was another bad hair day for the Russian Space Agency a few weeks ago. The loss of their most recent Mars probe has many of our space scientists nervous. Remember that the RSA is the main transport system for the ISS. Their probe reentered our atmosphere somewhere over South America like so much fairy dust and to my knowledge no debris has been found. Perhaps no one is willing to investigate this failure farther because our own space program is in a state of decay. Alas for the good old days of Tel-Star, Moon Landings, and Mars Rovers that worked. One of these days a child will ask their parent " Dad, is the Space Shuttle some kind of teen dance you did when you were kids? "
On the local scene, the State has a lot on it's plate for large construction projects. Gas Pipelines, Dams to generate electrical power, and Bridges to somewhere. During one of the talk shows, a caller discussing the pros and cons of the bridge kept referring to the bridge builders as architects while another caller insisted that they were engineers. Maybe we need a new reference for the folks who create those span connecting structures. How about Arch -a- Tec's ? No matter what, they could never get anything done with out the so it seems most important part of the equation. We call those folks the Spec-u-Tec's who study a project to death until the need and projected cost are no longer feasible.
In closing I want to remind you that February this year is a leap year. It has 29 days. For you folks not over the hill in age can ask your grandparents what that entails. There used to be celebrations called " Sadie Hawkins Days " where girls reversed roles and would chase the boys. Dances and parties were held. Sadie Hawkins was a creation in a popular cartoon called Li'L Abner by AL Capp.
February also is chock full of holidays such as Groundhog Day, President's Day, and of course that heart throbber Valentine's Day.
For many of us it's time to inventory our seed growing supplies and browse those seed racks in the box stores for new additions to our gardens. Hey you have to do something before the seasonal antenna maintenance begins, weather permitting of course.
The gang in the under ground super secret laboratory were planning to impress the local news service by launching the groundhog on the 2nd via a home made potato cannon but had second thoughts when an animal rights zealot was seen in the crowd. He would have been perfectly safe. The little critter was to wear a helmet, a cape, and a vest that said " Ballistic Billie ", what could possibly go wrong ?
DE Tim Comfort NL7SK, 73
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MATSU ARES AK SHIELD PLAN
Our mission will be 2 fold, support of state wide long haul traffic via HF and short range VHF traffic for the MATSU EOC and Red Cross.
Friday, 10 Feb plan is to setup VHF Station at Station 61 to support the EOC and interface with the SEOC at Ft Richardson and a VHF station at the alternate EOC at Matsu Animal Control. HF long haul will be setup at Bushmaster Operations, at KL7JFTs location, by Colony School. Saturday 11 Feb we will be in general support of the Red Cross and Matsu Regional Hospital. This will be mainly VHF traffic.
Friday’s operations per SEOC (State Emergency Operations Center) will require long haul traffic supports and SSB Nets to support outlying communities that will be exercising loss of all commercial communications and internet for 2- 4 hours during the exercise. The SEOC is will try to have an HF station on the air to interface into the net. MARA ARES will be Net Control for the statewide net per our published Comm Plan. We will establish SSB Cmd net on 3920 KHZ primary and back up on 7093 KHZ backup. Winlink will be used as much as possible to send traffic were available. Any base stations between Southeast Alaska to Fairbanks, should standby for possible relay to Net Control. 14.292 MHZ will used if necessary for long haul as needed. We will use 3933 KHZ for alternate traffic handling frequency if required.
Stations should be ready to handle ARRL and ICS 213 message format. The AK ARES Sitrep form also will be in play. We will begin setup at the Station 61 and Animal Control at about 0800. We will require 2 VHF Stations, JPOLEs, and our portable tripod mast setup at the rear door of the Training room where we will establish the radio station using the MARA VHF Go Box. All logs will be maintained on ICS 214. All operators will sign into their assigned locations on IC211 forms. Per our current comm plan Cmd will be maintained on 147.33 VHF/443.9 UHF. Backup will be on 147.27 MHZ, and the Resource net on 146.85 MHZ. The alternate EOC at Animal Control may require a mobile rig with an outside antenna or cross band into a vehicle at that location. I will be confirming that Wed as to what we may need. We may need a couple of mobile rigs to dispatch from the EOC per their requirements to establish commo up the highway. We will require about 5-8 folks on hand at the EOC for setup and operation during the day, we should be secured by 1600-1700, bring a lunch. We will need 2 operators at Animal Control. We will need 3-4 operators at Bushmaster Operations.
Saturday, we will be setting up shelter operations at various locations and an alternate care facility at Colony Middle School. This will be approx. 6 hour operation. KL1IL will setup at Colony Middle School and will need one other operator to assist during that evolution. We will need one operator at Matsu Regional with hand held and/or cross band capability. We will need 2 operators at Wasilla Red Cross HQ off Cursey Street in Wasilla. We will need 2 operators at Wasilla High School and 2 operators at Sunshine School in Talkeetna. We may need an additional operator or 2 depending on other Red Cross requirements. Senior citizens and ROTC Cadets will be the folks in the shelters. All operators should have remote antennas, hand helds and or cross band capabilities to be as flexible as possible during the operations, we do not know the extent yet of the support we may be required to provide. 147.33/443.9 will be Command and Control with 147.27 as back up. 146.85 will be in reserve. All sites should have log sheets and note pads as required. We should try to use ICS213 message forms and ICS 214 radio logs. Have spare batteries for your handhelds and bring a lunch. The Red Cross is planning on having there communications van but we do know its status. The hospital will attempt to use their ALMR hand helds but have not tested them between their sites and with the large hills between the hospital and Colony School, may not work.
MARA has trained on several of these scenarios and actually conducted Shelter operations. One item to remember is that the info you pass can be critical. We have been informed that HEPA information will not need to be passed on this operation, in the past to do that we needed to operate packet or Winlink if available, but not in the clear. If you would like to exercise your portable packet equipment and can connect to the Valley node we will monitor that. The Red Cross van has VHF Low Band, Ham VHF and Red Cross HF on board. They may try to establish commo between Wasilla and Anchorage with that van. If operators have FRS radios, bring them along they can always become handy to talk between the officials at the various sites back to where you may have your station setup. VHF will work inside most of the schools, UHF may work better. I have cross banded out of all sites between a UHF portable and my vehicle in the parking lot so that is an option.
All the forms you may need are up on my website in the MARA Emergency plan that you can download and copy. I’ll try them available at the EOC locations. All logs and messages should be turned into KL7JFT after the exercise. We will be having an AAR, Hotwash after the exercise, so please let us know how things went, suggestions for improvements or recommended changes. Normally the EOC is operated with our Comm Center, but we are still working on getting it operational, but portable operations are an excellent training opportunity to see how we can work at various locations.
Please let me know as soon as possible as to what sites you interested in manning and any requirements you may have. I would like to firm up the operation by the Club Meeting 38 Jan.
Thanks
Don Bush
KL7JFT
MATSU DEC
907-746-6845
dbush@arrl.net