HRN 359, EmComm Extra #18: Force of Two

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Can you tell the complete story of ham radio in the recovery effort on Puerto Rico following hurricanes Irma and Maria in two and a half hours? 

Well... no. OK, you probably could if you spend a couple months producing a highly edited documentary. Maybe somebody's going to do that. But right now you can listen to our guests, Jeremy Dougherty NS0S and Michael Smith N5TGL recount their experiences. They each spent almost three weeks on the island, mostly in the field (in separate locations), mostly with just one other ham, in areas that had zero communications with San Juan or the rest of the world until they arrived. 

This is not the story you'll hear on Ham Nation, and probably not the one you'll read in QST. If there was a plan, it was barely a plan. And it fell apart immediately. There was a lack of leadership and coordination, and little understanding of what the hams would face once they left San Juan. Both Jeremy and Michael were frustrated, yet they carried on with the mission, improvising both their interaction with local authorities and the technology they had to work with. In some cases they had to battle bureaucracy to get the job done.

We probed Jeremy and Michael for details, and we got a lot. Jeremy in particular has a bitter story of his final experiences. That begins at an hour and fifty minutes in, so if you can't listen to the whole program, skip down to that. And note that there are two sides (at least) to that story, and we're only presenting Jeremy's side here. HamRadioNow is open to presenting the counterpoint, or maybe you'll hear that on another show.

Here's the link to Jeremy's Extreme EmComm document.

Radio Rating: A. This is a talking-head show. We'll look at Puerto Rico on Google Maps some, and if you're not familiar with the island, it'll help to look at the map a bit.

Michael took a lot of pictures – some of the general island devastation, and some of the amateur radio activity. You can look at them here on his Flickr feed.

Another deployed ham, Wey Walker K8EAB, posted a 35-minute video on YouTube showing both the area of the island he headed to, and amateur radio there and in San Juan. It's very much an 'amateur' video, but it will add to your understanding of what hams did there.

HRN 358: Tim Shepard KD1KY 'Thoughts on Regulation' 2017 DCC

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Tim Shepard KD1KY will give you a different perspective on why the radio spectrum needs regulation... or doesn't. Tim rounded out the Friday sessions at the 2017 ARRL/TAPR DCC in St. Louis.

Radio Rating: B+. Tim's slides have a few charts, but mostly text, and he does a good job reviewing them. 

HRN 357, EmComm Extra 17: Shake & Bake

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They've got a sense of humor out in Earthquake County. Gallows humor to the rest of us, maybe, but they call the statewide preparedness drill The Great California Shake Out.

Ham Radio is right in there, of course, and HRN host David Goldenberg W0DHG, an EC in the Los Angeles area, took us to the middle of it, live. Until he got called away to go do some actual communicating.

A few hours later, safe and sound in the ARVN West Coast Bureau (aka David's garage), he recaps the event and reviews lessons learned (like 'Don't try to do a TV show when you're supposed to be paying attention to the radio...').

Radio Rating: B-. The video is a little rough and not all that important, though David does show the Comm trailer and the surrounding area. What you'll miss most are David and the other ops ducking and covering as the klaxons go off initiating the actual event. That's sort of what you see in the bottom of the poster. for this episode (assuming you see that). On the other hand, the audio is kind of rough, too, with a lot of competing voices hitting Davies microphone.