GPS has replaced the need for WWV. It never was all that accurate; atmospherics are too severe.
Why don't emergency services have satellite phones? They're not very expensive.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Has anyone mentioned the Maritime Net yet?
... Our primary purpose now is that of handling legal third party traffic from maritime mobiles, both pleasure and commercial and overseas-deployed military personnel. We also help missionaries in foreign countries, and volunteer net control stations from throughout North America and the Caribbean maintain the network. Furthermore, these stations are assisted by relay stations to ensure total coverage of the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean & Caribbean Seas, and eastern Pacific Ocean. The network, in particular, has been formally recognized for it's work with emergency traffic by the Dept. of Homeland Security, the United States Coast Guard, and the National Weather Service, to mention a few.
The network acts as a weather beacon for ships during periods of severe weather and regularly repeats high seas and tropical weather warnings and bulletins from the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. The network is also part of the MAROB (MARine OBservation) program of the National Weather Service. We gather "real-time" weather and sea conditions, measured and observed, from maritime mobile stations and forward that information directly to the weather service via the internet. This information assists the meteorologists with upcoming maritime weather forecasts. ...
Maintain funding for NIST stations WWV & WWVH
-- Don, KB7RPU
We're getting TrumpPhones now so don't need any of that stuff. TrumpPhone destroys all that old-timey crap it's unhackable, unjammable and always works in any conditions. It's really great, does a really good job.
Currently at 19,400 signatures and needs 100,000 by Sept 15 to get noticed. I don't think it is going to happen.
Sad,,, very sad.
Rick C.
Perhaps Reagan's aphorism about a government bureau being the closest thing to eternal life will save it in the end.
It's eerie to be on the net when something like this happens:
On 5/12/17 at approximately 1825 UTC, Members of the Maritime Mobile Service Network assisted with a Mayday call heard on 14.300 MHz. Net Control Station Ken Porter, AC0ML with the assistance of fellow Net Control Station Scott Roberts, KK4ECR received the Mayday call from Brian Stipak, KF7QCX aboard the Sailing Vessel ?Ubiquity?.
Captain Stipak reported that he received a distress call on Marine Channel 16 from a 32 foot commercial fishing vessel named ?Free Spirit? approximately 50 miles from his position. The captain of ?Free Spirit? advised that he was quickly sinking with four persons on board and that they were abandoning the ship into life rafts. KF7QCX attempted to reach coastal stations via VHF Marine radio to no avail. He then went to 14.300 khz where he quickly gave a position report to AC0ML. The vessels were in Mexican waters in the Sea of Cortez at the time of the distress call.
AC0ML notified the United States Coast Guard in San Diego, California to relay this information to them. The Coast Guard also turned their transmitters on and attempted to raise the vessel ?Ubiquity? on 14.300 mhz but band conditions were changing rapidly and there was no further contact or updates. The US Coast Guard simultaneously relayed the information to the Mexican Navy who dispatched Vessels to the last position of the ?Free Spirit? ...
Sometimes the Maritime Net works out of water:
Tractor-Trailer overturned on Nevada Highway 318
... As George Molnar, KF2T states ?we were out in the middle of nowhere, where no cell carrier covered (I had three cell devices with me!), no OnStar, not even any highway department radio coverage. Truckers, CBs didn?t reach anyone outside the canyon. Only ham radio worked!? ...
-- Don, KB7RPU
Oh dear, someone told me that GPS' pinpoint accuracy was proof that Einstein was right and it can be different times at different places in the universe. I guess the letters after his name meant nothing.
And speaking of obsolete, what isn't ?
On a sunny day (Thu, 13 Sep 2018 21:23:40 -0400) it happened bitrex wrote in :
But does it float?
They don't need to, since sea level rise is false news.
All the police and fire and emergency medical radios in Roswell depend on one fiber link "to the outside"?
And the backup plan is to have a bunch of hams volunteer to show up and set up their gear and do all the communications? What if there was a hamfest in Florida?
Volunteering in an emergency is admirable, but that situation is insane.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
There use to be towers and rotators and big droopy HF beam antennas everywhere. I don't think I have seen one in years. HF ham radio seems rare, at least around here in a city.
Maybe hams are now more UHF with repeaters and stuff. That's probably mostly purchased push-to-talk rigs.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc lunatic fringe electronics
I don't think Hams were a backup plan other than if all else fails (which d oes happen in natural disasters) it is good to have something in place that can be used. I expect they never thought the fiber link would go down. B ackhoe breaks are very uncommon and I expect someone in the city got sold a bill of goods in regards to reliability of fiber. It may have a 99.999% u p time, but when that 0.001% comes along you need something else to fall ba ck on.
Rick C.
Again, talking through your hat. Why can't you just learn a little bit rather than speculating? All you do is show off your ignorance.
Rick C.
John Larkin
Those are still here in many places, it is easier maybe these day to hang some end-fed from a few trees, did something similar, also had a big vertical in the old house. You would not notice the thin wire... Yes 2 meters and 70 cm, we have a country wide repeater net on 70 cm, and an other one for the north-east part of the country. Germany has similar repeaters, I can hear them at times. We are connected to the UK, quite regular UK hams log in.
Yes for 30$ or so you can buy a made in China Baofeng, it will do FM radio too and can connect to the repeater network.
There are several types of licenses, for the HF bands you need a different one, one that also requires some electronics knowledge. Many just buy sets, some design their own.
If / when the geostationary Eshail 2 sat goes up, then you could work the continent here on 2.4 GHz uplink and
10.4 GHz downlink. That is what I want to try, that includes digital TV.All this does require you to have power in an emergency, I have a big solar panel, batteries. There are experiments going on with all sorts of modulation types, programs for kids to get involved (like building small board etc).
I remember in my street in Amsterdam, when I was very young and had a real interest in radio and TV, going to the home of a friend who's father was a radio ham. All big tubes you know, he moved a mains wire close to a tube, and a hum came out the speaker. I asked how can that wire (that does not touch anything) cause that hum? 'Electromagnetic field he replied'. 'Oh yes, I see' It is not the words, I just understood something by experiment, it is not the math, it is forming a configuration in the neural net that is called 'understanding'. You can do all the math you want to calculate where it goes, but catching a ball does not need any, and is so much faster and simpler. Hands on experience.
Kids aren't going to learn much electronic design by taking one test and buying a Chinese transceiver.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Again, the world revolves around JL.
Rick C.
That is true. Unfortunately some people who see the need to get new people in the amateur radio hobby have not understood that it is about experiments with transmitter technology and other electronics, and have looked towards groups who a more interested in communication than in electronics. As those are to be found in groups like CB'ers and radio pirates, they have proposed to and succeeded in lowering the standards of the tests and extending the allowed bands for the lower levels of license. This has resulted in a comparatively large influx of people not interested in electronics, and worse: of a relatively low social level. The unfortunate result is that working on the bands and managing a repeater is now more an excercise of dealing with the willful interference from the socially inept and the thoughtless rather than doing some interesting experiment. When you want to discuss and/or practice electronics, amateur radio is less and less of a place to do that.
Oh, it's not that simple. WWVB is good for many uses, and sips battery power. All the low-cost 'atomic clock' gizmos will go wonky if that transmission stops.
The shortwave WWV broadcasts at 5 and 10 and 15 MHz, are long-range (so a ship at sea can have seamless access) and accurate enough for a lot of purposes.
How many solar cycles have we been through since GPS went up? Three? Why would we shut down the redundant systems now? Cost of antennas is sunk, and a few small transmitters aren't a big expense: if you cut the whole bunch of earth stations, would it fund a single GPS satellite?
The clock in the town square, even if my cellphone beat it for accuracy, didn't become obsolete. An outage at the local cell tower is a LOT more likely than a gravity outage in the clockworks.
Emergency services are local, and Keep It Simple, Stupid applies. An unreliable third-party operating a satellite system is a bad partner when responding to the next five-alarm fire. As a general rule, avoid cloud services when you care about reliability: the other players in that game do not share your primary concerns.
Dispatcher-and-mobile is a better model than anything that involves nine-digit routing codes, when the riot starts.
Not sure, either, why you say 'not expensive' about satellite phone service. Or, do you just mean that the handsets aren't expensive to build?
John Lurkin wrote
It is bit sad that you cut the rest of the posting, just wanna be right Joh. so I have included it again, below.
I agree with Rob there is a lot of abuse on tge 70 cm repeater here, by the less inspiring so to speak..
But it is the same in traffic, in US politics, humanity in general.
OTOH in the NE repeater here things are quite normal.
A lot of work is put in by some very inspiring and active people to create the networks and keep those running.
There are several types of licenses, for the HF bands you need a different one, one that also requires some electronics knowledge. Many just buy sets, some design their own.
If / when the geostationary Eshail 2 sat goes up, then you could work the continent here on 2.4 GHz uplink and
10.4 GHz downlink. That is what I want to try, that includes digital TV.All this does require you to have power in an emergency, I have a big solar panel, batteries. There are experiments going on with all sorts of modulation types, programs for kids to get involved (like building small board etc).
I remember in my street in Amsterdam, when I was very young and had a real interest in radio and TV, going to the home of a friend who's father was a radio ham. All big tubes you know, he moved a mains wire close to a tube, and a hum came out the speaker. I asked how can that wire (that does not touch anything) cause that hum? 'Electromagnetic field he replied'. 'Oh yes, I see' It is not the words, I just understood something by experiment, it is not the math, it is forming a configuration in the neural net that is called 'understanding'. You can do all the math you want to calculate where it goes, but catching a ball does not need any, and is so much faster and simpler. Hands on experience.
I use my PC or cell phone to tell time. And I like this one on my desk, which uses a synchronous motor off the 60 Hz power line.
For frequency, we have a GPS-disciplined 10 MHz box.
Satellite plans aren't bad. Retail, about $500 for the phone and maybe $1.50 a minute talk. I'd expect a municipality can get a better deal.
You can't put a ham at every fire station, especially on short notice.
I expect that cubesats will change the satellite phone economics too.
Well, emergency responders are just the sort of people who should plan ahead.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
That's absurdly expensive for this use and it still won't do the job.
Is that what is needed? Oh, that's right, you don't know anything about it do you?
Hardly. They've been around awhile and even before then, if tiny sats were the right way to go for comms someone would have been doing it commercially.
Yet another job John Larkin can do better than anyone else.
Rick C.
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