[Asterisk-Users] civil emergency comms: Asterisk + HAM

Sun Sep 11 21:05:06 MST 2005

I can understand that.  I'm a KL7 call so comms could mean the matter of
someone getting picked up or freezing to death.

It troubles me that radio site owners (the ones who hold the pink slip
on the tower and hilltop) are not providing power.  In AK, most of these
sites are multihomed
with fed, state and local radio systems so money is provided to maintain
backup power.

That being said, in that given area, maybe taking a cue from the
Emergency Call boxes along the I-5 and I-15 and use solar panels to
charge a battery backup system.  That plus some power-stingy equipment
could maintain a reliable radio network.  Knowing that all of us on the
west coast are just || close to the big one when sites like this loose
power to the cellular equipment, guess who's still going to be
operating? :)  (not that they would be working well anyways since lines
jam up)

Anyways.  A resiliant recovery plan that has been practiced and works
will trump a "all-hands" effort anyday.

-Don

________________________________

From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Michael D
Schelin
Sent: Sunday, September 11, 2005 2:46 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] civil emergency comms: Asterisk + HAM

Don, I agree with you on many fronts. I come from a radio background and
here in southern cal unless we fall into the sea nothing will take out
all of the communications here including ham because we are not in low
lying flat land and were too diversified, over 150 miles and as many
mountain top sites. 
BUT,
let me tell you about how bad the southern CA. radio site owners are
becoming. We had a 4 day outage at a very large site where one of my
radios is located. None of them care anymore about backup power. This
happened this past week.  We took up our own Generator because the site
owner (a national site company) won't maintain an old one.  My friend (a
microwave isp ) fixed the site owners by adding oil and a new battery.
That will take us out!

Don Fanning wrote:

	Time and time again, emergency action drills take place in
cities to target where their weaknesses are in "crisis" handling.
Usually they involve planes crashing or explosions (mock of course).
Obviously they were never prepared for this sort of disaster in their
recovery plan.  I've participated in a few ARES/RACES drills and have to
say that much could be done to improve upon the "HAM" infrastructure.

	Most of the time, communications is coordinated through 1
repeater system.  When this repeater goes down, of course people would
switch comms to another but in a case like this, where all the repeater
systems go down except for maybe one, there needs to be a better plan.

	In Amateur Satellite Service, these orbiting "Repeaters" employ
a system called RUDAK where a chunk of spectrum is repeated.  Obviously
this isn't feasible in terrestrial repeaters but they do have the
ability to turn off radios and switch bands at will depending on
operating conditions.  With software controlled radio and Asterisk, the
repeater system could be made to be more resilient to disaster by
linking to other repeater systems via radio where it could connect
outward.  

	If you figure the overhead of a repeater's transmitter and
receiver plus the controller, replaceing the controller with an asterisk
based unit (integration) would make more sense as it would give the
repeater system much more capabilities in the same footprint and power.
Additionally, these repeater systems are located on hilltops with other
radio systems so they should have emergency power available (if you've
ever been to a hilltop repeater site, you'll know what I mean).  

	I think the biggest thing that hurts ham radio's ability to
react to a crisis is the lack of equipment and operators.  Most of the
traffic we pass is "Health and Welfare" with "Logistics" being the
second to it.  What defeats this is that in a disaster where local/high
band long haul capabilities are diminished, is simply the one repeater
that is functional because everything is squeezed onto one VHF/UHF
repeater.

	Where I could see thing being improved?  Installation of
802.11b/g WLAN under Part 97.  It would allow for more users into the
system, there are less hardware and power components and allows the
system to be dynamically configured.  Asterisk could play a huge role
then as it's made for IP based traffic and could re-route in a split
second.

	-Don

________________________________

	From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Michael D
Schelin
	Sent: Saturday, September 10, 2005 10:20 PM
	To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
	Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] civil emergency comms: Asterisk +
HAM

	The two best forms of communications in a real disaster and one
always has been is #1 Ham radio. and #2 satellite telephone. Ham radio
is global and has proven time and time again to be the most reliable
when the infrastructer has been damaged.  The U.S government is the
biggest user of satellite telephones which is also becoming a valuable
tool again when the communications infrastructure is down.  It would be
nice If Asterisk could be used but in this case but it's useless.
People are displaced and most of the communications infrastructure for
the city is unusable.  I don't mean all of the telco's systems. It's the
flood that wiped out  most home and business systems.  For us, The best
thing that a provider can do is to have redundant servers in different
cities.  This should remind us all how fragile our lives are.  

	Chris Travers wrote:

		Mark Phillips wrote: 

			Hold on here folks, 

			I'm guessing that the original poster of this
thread isn't a member of his local RAyNet team. 

			Whilst I don't profess to be an expert at this I
have been doing emergency radio for quite some time and have seen
service at the Lockerbie bombing, Docklands bomb, Ground Zero (I'm sure
I'm a terrorist target y'know - they seem to follow me everywhere) and
soon I'll be in Louisiana. 

			In all of these events the KISS principle must
and does prevail. We need a system that is a simple and energy efficient
as possible. 

			Building a network of * servers and Wi-Fi links
is all very well but how are you going to power them? 

		These are excellent points.  I have a few interesting
suggestions here....  The first is that the only obstacle to any sort of
longer-range point to point line is merely power.  This is true whether
you are talking HAM or fiberoptics.  Note that if you have the power, it
would take disruption of the physical line to disrupt a fiber line.
Note that DirectNIC in New Orleans remained operational without *any*
downtime or loss of connectivity with the rest of the world. 

		The suggestion that I have is for various areas to have
dedicated civil emergency com units with strategic reserves of fuel (3-4
weeks worth), battery backups, etc.  These units would have links
(fiber, microwave, and/or satellite, better to pick 2 of 3) to areas
outside expected disaster zones.  Asterisk could then run across these
links.  (Sattelite links would best be POTS-type). 

		The point is to a disaster-tolerant communications
infrastructure which could then be used to to provide additional
communications services to the relief workers.  With various point to
point wireless capabilities, it might be possible to use them to provide
cell service to relief workers etc through the installation of GSM
microcells (which could be brought in after the fact). 

		See where I am going? 

			Generators require fuel which is always in short
supply and batteries die out quickly. Adding Ham Radio to the picture
doesn't really add much when you are trying to do something like a *
network. The radio gear just isn't designed to integrate with the *
server. 

			Ham radio is being used down in the Katrina
affected area with great results for both emergency and heath/welfare
related traffic. They are using both "phone" (that's when one talks in
to the radio) and data modes and can be heard all over the 75 and 40
meter bands here in the US. 

			Power for most of these stations comes from
batteries they loot (with Police approval) from abandoned cars or a
combo of solar and batteries. Many stations are only hear on the air
after dark so that they can put as much sunlight into their batteries as
possible. 

			Yes, electricity is available in some places
either all day or across the peak hours (allowing the workmen to restore
power to other areas). 

			Yes, there are radio to phone interconnects but
these really are a single phone to a single radio. Think of it as a
cordless phone in that the radio user can be anywhere within reach of
the base station. 

			Such technologies, whilst legal here in the US,
may not be legal elsewhere. When last at home (UK) I was not able to
connect my radio to the phone system by law (this may have changed
recently - not been home for 8 years). Many countries have such
restrictions and as we saw during the Tsunami, rules don't get relaxed
just because there's a panic on. 

			Without question a phone system would be much
better than a radio station. As such I'll be taking a portable * server
I've built, all the IP hard phones I can find and 5 DirectTV style
Internet systems. 

		How do IP hardphones work with satellite internet?  I
always thought people had real trouble getting them to work at all..... 

		Best Wishes, 
		Chris Travers 
		Metatron Tecnology Consulting 

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