2021-04-10, 14:54:59
VE3WI DaveThanks Dave, for your very well considered thoughts and ideas. With respect to the dead horse, I respectfully submit that we just need a new horse. Even three people with an interest in EmComm can make a difference. There's a lot of projects we can tackle. I think ARES can be revived and make entirely relevant to local agencies and regional municipalities if the right approach is used. Loss of spectrum is a serious potential problem and so anything we do to make amateur radio an "essential service" beyond welfare traffic is what should be done, IMO.
I totally accept that one of the most pressing common threats to communications in this area will routinely be winter storms. However there is another which is dramatically underrated and generally ignored. On this point I have done extensive research. A direct cyber or physical attack on the power grid is not only entirely possible but as been said to be inevitable. Such attacks occur daily but are largely thwarted. Such attacks are a combination of generalized hacking by individuals or probing for weaknesses by professionals.
I also understand that any genuine successful attack on the power grid would be considered a terrorist attack but might well be organized by foreign "actors". In either case such an event would be an act of war and so other factors may then come into play. In any such situation our ability to be useful to anyone, including ourselves, for emergency communications would be immediately evident. For this reason I firmly believe that aside from all else we need repeaters which can operate independent of grid power or the internet.
Finally, I entirely agree that helping EMOs or making a mesh network are not mutually exclusive. In point of fact my mesh network project, if successful is intended to fuse those two functions together. A simple but robust "hybrid" network would allow information to move in an out of communities to and from EMO's and so greatly enhance local communications by EMO's and so directly impact their ability to function in a semi-normal fashion.
Well here I go again!
Assisting municipal EMOs, and community mesh networks, are not mutually exclusive. Both kinds of functions may well be needed in a major emergency scenario.
IMHO, the two most likely major emergency scenarios Grey-Bruce residents might be faced with are:
Scenario 1: A major winter storm (e.g. ice-storm) affecting a large region, bringing road & air movement to a halt, downing power lines, and impairing telephone service as sites run out of diesel fuel. Read up about the 1998 ice-storm in Quebec & you will see how bad it can get. Texas just experienced something similar.
Scenario 2: A big accident at one of the Bruce nuclear plants requiring extended sheltering and/or evacuation of nearby residents. (In reality this is many orders of magnitude less likely than the storm, but drastic public measures could be ordered by panicky local or provincial officials in response to a perceived threat. Sadly, it is the only scenario routinely practised by local EMOs.)
In scenario #2, There will be no shortage of official communications I guarantee! I think the most value hams could add would be the Welfare traffic role I described earlier. Landline and cell comms will get log-jammed very quickly by ordinary people trying to communicate in and out of the incident area. This has happened in all the recent natural disasters like Katrina and Sandy, and a "nuclear disaster" will be worse. Ham radio traffic nets would be a valuable adjunct to the official response, if only we had the capability. The issue is mostly not infrastructure, as many municipal EOCs have some kind of ham radio station already, and there are lots of hams with backup power capability. The issue is engagement (that "critical mass" I mentioned), organization and training. I don't think ARES is "outdated", the real problem is that most of us simply don't care enough to make it work.
In scenario #1 all bets are off. Hams may be needed to help with more than just welfare comms. I mentioned earlier a couple of events where hams were even tasked with tactical comms. In 2013, hams in the High River AB kept first responders going for about 4 days until their repeaters were put back I/S. In 2017, hams on St John island in the USVI provided ad hoc ATC for helicopters into the local hospital. I think the issues for us here similar to above, just potentially much more demanding. There are some infrastructure issues like long term backup repeater power supplies, but these are easy to solve - compared to the issues of engagement, organization and training. Also in Scenario #1, local person-to-person comm will be impaired, meaning people can't help each other, in addition to the first responders being impaired. This is where the community mesh net would be needed. Infrastructure is clearly added to the issue list here, and we are way behind compared to "traditional" ARES comms.
As Adam said, only 3 members expressed interest in emergency comms. Not a single person replied to the forum saying they were going to do RAC CEC or EMO IMO-100. The Grey Co. EC isn't on here & I don't know whether the Bruce Co. EC is following this thread (my bad, I should have informed him). Forum posts and emails back and forth among ourselves will not develop any emergency capability. I don't know how to reach and engage hams in GB, but I do know it's essential if we are ever to progress past forum posts and emails.
I really feel, as Adam said, that it's like beating a dead horse & I'm going to shut up now (wow I can hear the applause even with the rig off!), but I remain ready to help with anything.
73
Dave, VE3WI
I totally accept that one of the most pressing common threats to communications in this area will routinely be winter storms. However there is another which is dramatically underrated and generally ignored. On this point I have done extensive research. A direct cyber or physical attack on the power grid is not only entirely possible but as been said to be inevitable. Such attacks occur daily but are largely thwarted. Such attacks are a combination of generalized hacking by individuals or probing for weaknesses by professionals.
I also understand that any genuine successful attack on the power grid would be considered a terrorist attack but might well be organized by foreign "actors". In either case such an event would be an act of war and so other factors may then come into play. In any such situation our ability to be useful to anyone, including ourselves, for emergency communications would be immediately evident. For this reason I firmly believe that aside from all else we need repeaters which can operate independent of grid power or the internet.
Finally, I entirely agree that helping EMOs or making a mesh network are not mutually exclusive. In point of fact my mesh network project, if successful is intended to fuse those two functions together. A simple but robust "hybrid" network would allow information to move in an out of communities to and from EMO's and so greatly enhance local communications by EMO's and so directly impact their ability to function in a semi-normal fashion.
Well here I go again!
Assisting municipal EMOs, and community mesh networks, are not mutually exclusive. Both kinds of functions may well be needed in a major emergency scenario.
IMHO, the two most likely major emergency scenarios Grey-Bruce residents might be faced with are:
Scenario 1: A major winter storm (e.g. ice-storm) affecting a large region, bringing road & air movement to a halt, downing power lines, and impairing telephone service as sites run out of diesel fuel. Read up about the 1998 ice-storm in Quebec & you will see how bad it can get. Texas just experienced something similar.
Scenario 2: A big accident at one of the Bruce nuclear plants requiring extended sheltering and/or evacuation of nearby residents. (In reality this is many orders of magnitude less likely than the storm, but drastic public measures could be ordered by panicky local or provincial officials in response to a perceived threat. Sadly, it is the only scenario routinely practised by local EMOs.)
In scenario #2, There will be no shortage of official communications I guarantee! I think the most value hams could add would be the Welfare traffic role I described earlier. Landline and cell comms will get log-jammed very quickly by ordinary people trying to communicate in and out of the incident area. This has happened in all the recent natural disasters like Katrina and Sandy, and a "nuclear disaster" will be worse. Ham radio traffic nets would be a valuable adjunct to the official response, if only we had the capability. The issue is mostly not infrastructure, as many municipal EOCs have some kind of ham radio station already, and there are lots of hams with backup power capability. The issue is engagement (that "critical mass" I mentioned), organization and training. I don't think ARES is "outdated", the real problem is that most of us simply don't care enough to make it work.
In scenario #1 all bets are off. Hams may be needed to help with more than just welfare comms. I mentioned earlier a couple of events where hams were even tasked with tactical comms. In 2013, hams in the High River AB kept first responders going for about 4 days until their repeaters were put back I/S. In 2017, hams on St John island in the USVI provided ad hoc ATC for helicopters into the local hospital. I think the issues for us here similar to above, just potentially much more demanding. There are some infrastructure issues like long term backup repeater power supplies, but these are easy to solve - compared to the issues of engagement, organization and training. Also in Scenario #1, local person-to-person comm will be impaired, meaning people can't help each other, in addition to the first responders being impaired. This is where the community mesh net would be needed. Infrastructure is clearly added to the issue list here, and we are way behind compared to "traditional" ARES comms.
As Adam said, only 3 members expressed interest in emergency comms. Not a single person replied to the forum saying they were going to do RAC CEC or EMO IMO-100. The Grey Co. EC isn't on here & I don't know whether the Bruce Co. EC is following this thread (my bad, I should have informed him). Forum posts and emails back and forth among ourselves will not develop any emergency capability. I don't know how to reach and engage hams in GB, but I do know it's essential if we are ever to progress past forum posts and emails.
I really feel, as Adam said, that it's like beating a dead horse & I'm going to shut up now (wow I can hear the applause even with the rig off!), but I remain ready to help with anything.
73
Dave, VE3WI