MARA NEWS                                       August  2010

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President’s Corner

            Good turn out at the meeting.  Thanks to everyone who came.  Our program was to be a new service Borough Emergency Services has requested, and a briefing by the Road Supervisor, Ed Strable.  Ed couldn’t make it up the Emergency Manager and KL7GS/George filled me in on the program.

            The borough is broke down into Road Service Areas.  Once we get the map of the areas of interest, we would like to assign a ham liaison to the individual of that service area, so if he looses regular communication on phone or cell phone, he can contact the ham assigned to that area so he can pass the road status into the EOC.  We have done this in the past during floods or road outages on our own, but by linking up with the Road Superintendents for each area, we can give the borough the official info they need to make decisions on status and assistance that may be needed in that area and the status of the bridges.  There will be occasional meetings of the Road Service Area group that we can attend to allow us to become more familiar with the area assigned and the individual you will be working with.  We can run practice nets as part of the training to get the hang of the operation.  This is a very important tasking we have been given and folks that live farther out of the main road system, know how important these reports can be.

            The trailer committee, completed maintenance on the Support Trailer and she is looking sharp. Thanks to KL1XM, N9RNL, KL7LL, and NL7TZ who also provided his garage to complete the maintenance.  Both trailers are up to speed and ready for the next mission.

            The 4^th of July parade was a great success.  We pulled the Main Commo Trailer and displayed sign boards in KL2FA’s truck referencing Ham Radio as a Hobby and a Public Service.   We were well received, thanks to KL2FA and KLXL for walking most of the route handing out candy and Club Pamphlets.   We had a great review by the reviewing stand and we had 500 pamphlets, 475 were handed out and the people along the way were very interested in them.  Seems small but it resulted in several emails and phone calls about ham radio.  Hopefully next year we can get a few more folks to assist.  We had a great time at the community picnic and talked to more folks about ham radio

            Our next training session will be the SET Exercise (Simulated Emergency Test), which will be conducted 2 Oct Sat., at Station 61.  This is our annual emergency test.  The Statewide ARES Staff is putting together a scenario.  It will include formal message training on SSB, Winmor and Winlink, and CW if folks would like to do that mode.  The training will include theory and hands on.  We’ll start setup at 0900, operational by 1000 and wind down about 1600.  Also this would be a great time to bring you GO-Box along and test it out.  Please contact me at dbush@arrl.net or 746-6845 if you can assist. We can use all we can get whether you’re an ARES member or not.  If you’re interested in joining ARES, we’ll have the registration forms there for you, as well as ARMY MARS Applications.  But even if you don’t want to sign up that’s fine, this will be good training and exposure to Emergency Communication.

            John/AL7LA is starting to set up the Tech and General training classes, please contact him if you are interested or know some folks that are, contact him at littlejohn@gci.net or 745-6835.  Currently we have scheduled a Tech/Gen class in Willow on three weekends in Sept.

            Our next public demonstration will be Sat, Sept 18^th at the MATSU College.  We will be setting up the trailers.  This is for the Annual Emergency Preparedness Fair.  There will be a lot of booths set up around the halls of the college and seminars.  We’ll need about 6-8 folks from 1000-1600 to setup talk to the public and tear down.  Please contact Don at KL7JFT.

            Anyone who knows of or would like to present a program at the meetings, please bring it to the Board Meetings, the 3^rd Wed of the month for consideration and/or inclusion at the meeting or contact any of our board members with the info prior to the board meeting.  Our Aug program will be about Tsunami and Earthquakes by a representative from the Palmer Warning Center.

            John/KL7IE and George/KL7GS are doing well and both are at home.  We will still need to have a couple of work parties to give them a hand to prep for winter.  George is waiting for the swelling to go down a bit more on his feet so they can determine the next course of action to get him back together.  Give him a call or send a email to him, and he also may be monitoring 147.33.  John is getting stronger but can’t lift anything yet.  And I’m afraid, I’ll be out of commission for a couple of weeks or so, finally got scheduled to jack up the old frame and put a new wheel on the left hip.  They say their giving me the heavy duty model made of stainless and titanium so I can handle the towers again.  Boy, where are the bionic parts when we need them. HI HI HI!

            For those folks who always assist the Anchorage Club at the State Fair, it won’t be there this year, due to budget restraints and Anchorage Club Support.  The Anchorage Club did pass on their thanks for the MARA groups support and participation in the past. So Tim, you won’t know what to do with yourself this year so let’s all go to the fair and have some fun.

            We’re taking orders for the large Club patches; we need 18 orders and payment to place an order.  They are $37 each.  I have one order at this time.  It will take about 4 weeks for them to get here once the order is placed.  Also any cup orders just let me know and I’ll put them on order and will have them at the next meeting after the end of that month.  They are $18 each.

73s & 88s

Don Bush

KL7JFT

MARA President

PHUZZIE SIGHENCE  OUR MOTTO = PSI ARE ROUND/ CAKE R SQUARE

   Greetings all! Though Summer seems to be skittering along at a rapid rate you still have time to play catch up on all those projects that require the attention that are associated with warmth, calm winds, and dare I mention sunlight? It’s the same game every Summer, work like crazy to prepare for Winter. If you follow the media weather reports you can apply the weather inverse factor that says here in the far north is the exact opposite of what is happening on the East Coast of the lower 48 States. The people there can’t cope with what I as a child having grown up there used to be called Summer.  Three digit temperatures were not that unusual and provided a great excuse for the local youth to seek out some of the greatest pleasures available like swimming in an old quarry pit that was shared with contaminates and scaly creatures that bumped against your legs or a rocky footing that tended to become snapping turtles if you weren’t lucky. Another grand adventure consisted of trips to the New Jersey sea shore to fish for striper blues, beach combing, or crabbing. Who cared if it was hotter than Hades? There was fun to be had ! That area was also noted for it’s amusement parks where a dollar or two could give you a whole day’s thrill of your life with rides that would make grownups queasy. But then again, kids seemed to be able to handle almost anything thrown at them. Enough of the trip down memory lane!

   Lot’s of stuff in the media in the month of July. The big story of course was the oil spill in the Gulf. As I type this they seem to be getting a leg up on it but there still will be lots of clean up to do. The beaches and bayous will have some long term damage but mother nature will take care of any residue that was missed. I told you about trips to the Jersey shore where we had a similar problem. Not from a blown out well but from something called WW2. My old man used to carry a jug of kerosene and rags in the old Plymouth to wash off our feet at the end of the day.

I’m not sure what they are doing with the tar balls but technically speaking they are the basis of cut back oil which is used to make asphalt, sealants, tire rubber, and may even be exported to Canada to make hockey pucks. That old saying about Necessity being the Mother of Invention just might come into play. Hey those oil slicks in the Gulf should help keep that mosquito and West Nile Fever problem in check.

   The other really hot news tidbit concerns what is called “The Death Grip” on certain cell phone products. The manufacturer states that it is a software problem or maybe even a design flaw and have offered a quick fix with a rubber grommet that covers the antenna on the device. Of course anyone with just a tad of hammyman knowledge would have just dug out that handy roll of duct tape and if not available {a likely story} reach under the kitchen sink for that pair of rubber gloves used for jobs a plumber would shun ! It gives the phrase Research and Development a black eye. The board room meetings they convened during that fiasco sounds like a good plot for the Fall TV season. “Finger Pointing Follies.”

   There was some good news emanating from the medical world. M I T has released a paper claiming success in the treatment of Alzheimer Disease. This is based on gene manipulation and a possible new drug.  A break through in the area of lice control has been announced. A drug to be released soon with F D A approval seems to rid people and pets of lice and fleas which could eliminate that Hazmat method people have had to rely on in the past. They are still working on dosage strengths at this time due to in some test subjects it caused them to try to scratch behind their ears with their feet.  Gee that will probably even make a change in the English lexicon by eliminating the taunt about little girls having cooties! Time will tell.

   Once again the people who want to tell us what food is good for us are in the news. They are promoting the elimination of certain foods that are served at sporting events. Peanuts, Popcorn, and Cracker Jack will be banned from that age old song “Let’s Go Out To The Ball Game” Can foot long hot dogs be far behind? May I suggest that these folks run a test by posing as food vendors at any sporting event and try to sell Tofu, Celery, and Brussels Sprouts? They’d escape with their lives maybe and resemble something like a float in a Harvest Day Parade. By the way, the officials of this group say they are only trying to prevent obesity and feel insulted when referred to as Fat Heads!  I think they are the same folks who tried to sue a well known fast food chain about offering toys along with the kid’s menu. Gee gang, toys in kid’s food is American as apple pie! Some of us are old enough to remember that unless there was a prize in every box or a box top to mail in we felt abused. The food chain responded by telling them to stuff it and if the food nannies tried to pursue the matter they would send over some folks from the chain’s public relations department to handle the matter, no not lawyers, clowns, no not that famous trade mark clown, the other clowns, Bruno the Brazier and Mack the Slice!

   Another health warning has been issued. This time it’s for a problem that was supposed to have been fixed forty years ago. P S A announcements are flooding the air waves about LEAD PAINT.  As far as I know most regions in the USA have banned the use of lead based paint in living areas since the 1970s. This falls under local building codes. In fact to use you’d probably have to special order lead based paint from your local dealer and maybe even have to sign a controlled substance form. They say that years ago, kids exposed to these materials developed mental and physical problems. It seems strange that so many kids grew up in tenements in big cities where lead paint was the norm, went on to produce the very life style we enjoy today. Maybe it was only the kids who ate lead paint had the problem but then again the problem may have existed prior to consumption . Betcha those kids ate the toys in those food packages too! Today in those tenements, it’s not the lead paint you have to worry about, It’s the lead backed by a hot load of smokeless powder!

    The last item we have for this month points to the suspicion that the folks in some governmental departments have way too much time on their hands. Several months ago the E P A filed a ruling that the use of leaded aviation fuel in Alaska was to be discontinued. Please keep in mind that Alaska is so vast that any air pollution that would be created by the use of this vital fuel would be like one person flatulating from the top of the Empire State Building effecting someone at street level. As many of you know most of Alaska is sparsely populated and the only way to supply isolated areas here is by airplane. The majority of these aviation companies providing this service are low budget affairs that use WW2 through Korean War era surplus aircraft.

For the most part that means big powerful round engines that require leaded fuel. The new ruling would force the companies to retrofit their equipment or obtain newer planes. Maybe even something in the jet propulsion category. The other alternative is to shut down the supply services to bush communities because the cost of doing business would be too high. Imagine paying $20.00 for a loaf of bread! Now here is the icing on the cake. The latest ruling under the clean air supposition, all marine shipping to the state must be done with vessels using low sulfur diesel fuel. Pay no attention to the fact that local volcanoes spew more pollution and sulfur into the atmosphere with one brief eruption than all of the deep water shipping creates in one year. Alaska gets it’s supplies three ways, Trucking up the Alcan Highway, Air Freight, and the bulk by Marine Vessels. Can you say higher prices all around? In state shipping via rail is part of this mix too but the A R R only reaches the biggest communities along that corridor we call the rail belt. It has no connection to the rail system in Canada and the lower 48 States. Do you sometimes get the feeling that the political wonks down there do not have our best interest in mind? Dig out your old Alaska history book and find that picture of the gold seekers struggling over the Chilcoot Pass, or shots of four masted sailing ships that might be the future supply line for the state. Gee maybe the ghost of Soapy Smith is running things.

    Well that’s all for this month folks. Some of this information is tongue in cheek but with just enough truth to stimulate your thought process to what is fiction or fact. The lab gang is working on a solution to the weed problem faced by the rail road who are constantly under fire for using chemicals to defoliate the rail bed. Gee, I can remember when one of the only problems they had with pollution was the stuff you found between the rails before they started using rest room holding tanks!

One possible fix would be pulling an old steam engine out of moth balls and by attaching high pressure discharge nozzles to the boiler that would cook all those pesky weeds.  A diesel locomotive {Using Low Sulfur Fuel} could drag the old steamer and it’s fuel { Using Low Sulfur Coal } with water tanker to complete the job. Hey it might generate some revenue by selling rides to tourist!  See you next month folks.

                                                                                 De Tim Comfort NL7SK, CUL  73.

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The ARRL ARES E-Letter

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/safety/Amateur-Radio-Operators-Communications.html

AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS PROVIDE A CRITICAL COMMUNICATIONS LINK DURING EMERGENCIES

by Corey McKenna on June 23, 2010

Immediately after the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti that killed 230,000 people, injured an estimated 300,000 more and destroyed much of Port-au-Prince, medical teams from the University of Miami Project Medishare program had sporadic communication with the United States and the nearby U.S. Naval Ship (USNS) Comfort’s Medical Treatment Facility — until teams of amateur/ham radio operators arrived, that is.

“They had already lost one satellite link. The other one was not reliable,” said Julio Ripoll, an architect for the University of Miami Medical School, who coordinated amateur radio communications during the disaster. “So they were worried that they would not be able to communicate to Haiti from Miami in case they lost their other satellite link.”

What was initially designed as a backup system soon handled all local emergency communications. Before Ripoll’s teams of radio operators arrived, the field hospital had very little communication directly with the USNS Comfort. “They would send an e-mail by using a BlackBerry,” Ripoll said, “and sometimes it would sit there for quite a while before someone saw it.”

The amateur radio station became a critical communication link. “When we had patients who would come in and needed emergency surgery that we couldn’t handle, we called the Comfort,” he said, “and then we would coordinate either the helicopter medevac or [transport] a few times by speedboat if it was in the middle of the night.”

That’s just one example of how amateur radio operators, who use various types of radio communications equipment for nonprofit purposes, can provide a valuable resource during a disaster.

Links With Emergency Responders

Volunteer radio operators assisting emergency personnel fall into two groups: Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) and Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) members. Many people participate in both organizations, but the main difference between the two is that ARES members provide emergency communications before an emergency has been officially declared, while RACES operators, which are registered with state and local governments, are activated after an emergency declaration. RACES members may operate from state emergency operations centers (EOCs).

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL), a U.S. organization of amateur radio operators, has memorandums of understanding with numerous organizations, including FEMA, the American Red Cross, National Weather Service and the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International. As a result of those agreements, the ARRL trains with and works to develop these organizations’ amateur radio communications capacity. It also builds relationships with these organizations to collaborate during disasters.

About 156,000 amateur radio operators are ARRL members. The best way for these ham operators to connect with local responders is to participate in their local Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT). “We may, in our case, probably connect with CERT, and so we’ll probably be linked up close with the fire department,” said Charlie Lum Kee, founder of the Virgin Valley Amateur Radio Club in Mesquite, Nev., and leader of the local CERT program. “We do have a little bit of a plan for our area as to where we would locate individuals [in an emergency].”

Amateur radio operators can also get special license plates displaying their call signs, which identify them to emergency crews, getting them past roadblocks and into the affected area to provide communications assistance.

In Oregon, about 1,800 RACES volunteers are authorized to work in state and county EOCs facilitating communication during disasters. For example, during the Great Coastal Gale of 2007 that knocked out communications to the state’s Columbia, Clatsop and Tillamook counties, ham radio operators used a radio frequency messaging system called Winlink to transmit the counties’ requests for assistance to the state’s Office of Emergency Management. “Monday morning the governor came in and we were briefing and later on called amateur radio operators ‘angels’ because that was the only source of communication we had to the coast,” said Marshall McKillip, the Emergency Management Office’s communications officer.

Following the storm, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski funded improvements to the state’s amateur radio infrastructure with a $250,000 grant for Winlink systems in each of the state’s 36 county-level EOCs. “We bought the appropriate equipment and then organized the delivery, the set up, the training and everything with amateur radio resources,” McKillip said. “It was quite a task for the amateurs to take on, but they did a great job.”

Assorted Roles

Amateur radio operators can play a variety of roles that allow public safety officials to maximize their resources, including facilitating communications; providing emergency managers with on-scene situational awareness; and helping manage large-scale events, such as state fairs and marathons.

Earlier this year as blizzards blanketed Delaware, RACES members manned ham radio stations at the Sussex County EOC, and 60 ARES members drove around the county’s 958 square miles reporting what they were seeing and confirming reports from the National Weather Service. “While [the police and emergency medical services] were moving around, they had better things to do than stop and measure the snow,” said Walt Palmer, public information officer for the ARRL in Delaware. “So that’s where amateur radio’s guys were coming in.”

At one point during the storms, the county set up two shelters for approximately 70,000 residents, all of whom were without electricity, and deployed an amateur radio operator to the larger shelter to facilitate communication with the EOC. “We were able to get good information back from the shelter as to how many people were there, were they making out OK and that kind of thing,” said Sussex County EOC Director Joe Thomas. “We actually tried to get an operator in the second shelter, but we never did get to that point because of the snowstorm.”

In the aftermath of a disaster, amateur radio operators are often the first to report what happened to emergency managers so they can start formulating a response. “Let’s say up the street a nuclear facility has an issue, and we start losing power here. The ham operators would start reporting that because we would be the ones on the ground,” Palmer said. “Our job is to communicate that to public officials. Our mantra for that is, ‘Provide the right information to the right people at the right time so they can make the right decisions.’”

Communities countrywide have signature large-scale events like state fairs, marathons and food festivals during which amateur radio operators can work with public safety personnel so the departments can maximize their resources. “Rather than use police or other county or state officers, ham radio operators will come together and we’ll get assigned to different points around, let’s say, a 26-mile race course,” Palmer said. “We’re there just to observe. If somebody has a problem, if a runner goes down or a bicycle falls apart or whatever, our guys are there and they’re able to report back so a proper response can be orchestrated to help that runner.”

If Delmarva Peninsula — a popular resort area on the East Coast with a winter population of 700,000 that can swell to 4 million in the summer — needs to be evacuated, ham radio operators can monitor traffic or facilitate communications between shelters and EOCs.

“While the Red Cross does a terrific job with the shelters, they’re there helping to prepare food and taking care of the residents of the shelter,” Palmer said. “They don’t always have the communication needs to get information back to the EOC — we have this many special needs people; we need more insulin because we have a problem here with a lot of diabetics. Amateur radio folks will be assigned to shelters to move that kind of traffic.”

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AMATUER RADIO NEWS YOU CAN USE

from The ARRL Letter & other ARRL sources

FCC RULES THAT AMATEURS MAY PARTICIPATE IN NON-GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED DRILLS BY EMPLOYERS

In a Report and Order (R&O) released Wednesday, July 14, the FCC stated that under new guidelines, amateurs employed by non-governmental agencies, such as hospitals, may participate and operate in drills sponsored by their employer. Specifically, the FCC will now permit Amateur Radio operators "to transmit messages, under certain limited circumstances, during either government-sponsored or non-government sponsored emergency and disaster preparedness drills, regardless of whether the operators are employees of entities participating in the drill." More information will be posted on the ARRL Web site.

PUBLIC SERVICE:

FCC TO ALLOW GOVERNMENT DRILLS WITHOUT A WAIVER AS OF SEPTEMBER 3

In July, the FCC released a Report and Order (R&O) that amended Part 97 -- more specifically Section 97.113 -- stating that government entities sponsoring disaster and emergency drills will no longer need to apply for a waiver to hold these drills. Additionally, employees who wish to participate in non-government-sponsored drills and exercises may do so under certain conditions. Part 97 is the portion of the Commission's rules that govern the Amateur Radio Service. In the August 4 edition of the Federal Register, the FCC issued a summary of the R&O entitled Amendment of the Commission's Rules Regarding Amateur Radio Service Communications During Government Disaster Drills --noting that the effective date of these new rules will be September 3, 2010.

First Half of 2010 Sees Upswing in New Amateur Radio Licensees

With more than 18,000 new Amateur Radio licenses issued in the first half of this year -- 18,270 to be exact -- 2010 is shaping up to be a banner year for Amateur Radio. So far, the number of new licenses issued by the FCC in 2010 is outpacing the January-June 2009 totals by almost 8.5 percent; at this time last year, the FCC had issued 16,844 new licenses. As of June 30, 2010, there are 694,346 licensed Amateur Radio operators in the US, an almost 1 percent rise over all of calendar year 2009. Broken down by license class at the end of June 2010, there were 16,299 Novices, 342,064 Technicians, 154,284 Generals, 60,059 Advanced and 121,640 Amateur Extra licensees. Read more here.

SB QST ARL ARLB019
ARLB019 Vanity Call Sign Fees to Decrease August 17
On July 19, the Federal Communications Commission announced via the Federal Register that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will decrease 10 cents, from $13.40 to $13.30. The new fees take effect 30 days after publication, making August 17, 2010, the first day the new fee is in effect.

In FY2010, the FCC expects to grant 14,800 vanity call signs, bringing in $196,840 from the vanity call sign program. Earlier this year, the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Order (NPRM), seeking to lower the fee for Amateur Radio vanity call signs.

The notice in the July 19, 2010 edition of the Federal Register -- entitled "Assessment and Collection of Regulatory Fees for Fiscal Year 2010; Final Rule" -- includes all FCC regulatory fees; these fees are expected to recover a total of $336,712,213 during FY2010, encompassing all the Services the FCC regulates.

The FCC is authorized by the Communications Act of 1934, As Amended, to collect vanity call sign fees to recover the costs associated with that program. The vanity call sign regulatory fee is payable not only when applying for a new vanity call sign, but also upon renewing a vanity call sign for a new 10 year term.
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PUBLIC SERVICE: FCC MODIFIES RULES TO ALLOW LIMITED EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION IN DISASTER AND EMERGENCY DRILLS

In a Report and Order (R&O) released Wednesday, July 14, the FCC amended Part 97.113 to allow amateurs to participate without an FCC waiver in government-sponsored disaster preparedness drills on behalf of their employers participating in the exercise. The FCC also has amended the rules to allow employees to participate in non-government drills and exercises up to one hour per week and up to two 72 hour periods during the year. The effective date of the R&O is to be determined and will be 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register. Read more here.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES INTRODUCE USER-FRIENDLY FEDERAL REGISTER

While the Federal Register may be the ultimate record of the business of the USA's Executive Branch, it can be difficult to navigate. The Register publishes approximately 80,000 pages of documents each year in the form of Notices, Proposed Rules, Rules and Official Documents; this is where all new and amended rules to Part 97, the Amateur Radio Service, must be published before they go into effect. On Monday, July 27 -- in an effort to make things a bit easier on the thousands of people who access the Federal Register each day -- the US Government Printing Office and the National Archives' Office of the Federal Register launched a new and improved online Register. Named Federal Register 2.0, it is an outgrowth of President Obama's first executive order that mandated greater federal government transparency. The launch of the new site coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Federal Register Act, which became law on July 26, 1935. Read more here.

That’s all for this month.

Your editor Douglas ‘Woody’ Duncan, KL0TS