What A Ham Radio Is And How Experienced Preppers Use It

[survivopedia 167]

People think of ham radio as just a way to talk to people in far-away lands, but it provides a means for preppers to communicate with family or other preppers.

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[MBR 224]

On 10/24/2019 at 2:00 AM, survivopedia said:

People think of ham radio as just a way to talk to people in far-away lands, but it provides a means for preppers to communicate with family or other preppers.

View the full article

Hams pride themselves in providing emergency backup communications, but in most cases they cheap out or rig their communications systems and then they fail when the STHF. 

 

Our local Ham club here consists of some real nice people, when Irma came our way most of them abandoned their stations and went to shelters.

 

Our local EOC with a very good manager, but being managed by politics, finally put out a last hour call for help from the club, we got them 7 people, they needed 11, but too bad. 

 

For the club it worked well politically, a nearby town lost their 800 MHz trunking system and one Ham at the EOC and I being in the middle took over fire dispatch for the nearby town.

 

However because of the internal backbiting within leadership we lost a few loyal members, one of our youngest members left a shelter without permission from leadership, his handheld was dead so he couldn't ask for permission, so he went home to make sure his home was secured and not damaged and his pets had food and water.

 

He was thoroughly chewed out for not following protocol, he quit that day.

 

As for emergency out of 70 members, we had 7 at their stations who could help out, I have over the years learned Hams are a lot of talk, but when it hits the fan they cannot do the walk, nor do they properly plan for it.

 

Hams are cheap, too cheap and all too willing to Southern Engineer anything, as such they should not be relied on for critical communications.

 

I have been involved with the local club as their engineer for just a little just over three years now, I resigned last week.

 

Why?

 

I was asked by leadership to help engineer the installation of a DMR repeater on a tower that was going to provide us with free space up tower for our antenna. 

 

One of the first tasks I wanted to complete was get access to the site and sweep the existing coax we where going to use, there is going to be a tower crew on site on 08/021/2020 and i wanted to make sure the coax was ready to go, I was advised to contact the towers engineer, I did and was told to go eff off, he was in charge of the job and believed he had a 6' fiberglass dual band antenna from a friend to place up tower.

 

I advised this person a dual band Ham antenna was unsuitable to work with a duplexer and at 300' up it was a stupid antenna to use for the application, one tickle by lightning and it would dust on the ground, I tried to explain to the Hamhole the club has on hand a $2500 commercial antenna stored in my garage for the project, I was advised to go screw off, he was in charge and I shall step aside.

 

So I asked leadership in intervene and was advised this offer by Glades Media was to too important for them to intervene and just let the other Ham have his day.

 

The other Hamhole failing to understand tower crews do not supply any hardware really believes they will have on hand all that is needed to complete the install, failing to understand they do not do that, they expect everything to be on site so they can set rigging and install the antenna, and the Hamhole, like leadership failed to understand I have collected or built everything here to make it happen, but being told to stay away from the job, that's not happening anymore.

 

So I resigned as the clubs engineer.

 

I wish them the best, but I am 100% sure this project will fail to be completed as expected and since the club lacks the $3K to $5K to pay a tower crew to come back, once they cobble up what they need, have really shot themselves in the feet,

 

And I still have the hardware he to do the project, but no one wants it anymore.

 

Very effed up and too political for me to put up with.  

 

 

       

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[Recon Prepper 39]

sounds like you just got a crappy club is all. Sorry about that. I wish there weren't clubs like that but there are. Luckily where I live we have good clubs three to be exact and they all take the pros and cons from everyone and work together. The clubs own over 30 repeaters and they all work together to make things work. We are also fortunate that our county ema directors and fire chiefs and police chiefs all work well with us as well as several area hospitals we have repeaters at. So I guess we are blessed. Many of the clubs repeaters have battery backup as well as generator backup. The ones at the fire houses, ema departments, and hospitals are all on those networks and use their generators to back up power them.   Locally owned repeaters by one ham operator owner are battery backup and small generator backed up. So we rarely have more than one or two repeaters down at a time for a repair, lightning, etc/ Even if two go down at the same time there are enough others in the area we can switch traffic to those and keep operating.

[MBR 224]

3 minutes ago, Recon Prepper said:

sounds like you just got a crappy club is all. Sorry about that. I wish there weren't clubs like that but there are. Luckily where I live we have good clubs three to be exact and they all take the pros and cons from everyone and work together. The clubs own over 30 repeaters and they all work together to make things work. We are also fortunate that our county ema directors and fire chiefs and police chiefs all work well with us as well as several area hospitals we have repeaters at. So I guess we are blessed. Many of the clubs repeaters have battery backup as well as generator backup. The ones at the fire houses, ema departments, and hospitals are all on those networks and use their generators to back up power them.   Locally owned repeaters by one ham operator owner are battery backup and small generator backed up. So we rarely have more than one or two repeaters down at a time for a repair, lightning, etc/ Even if two go down at the same time there are enough others in the area we can switch traffic to those and keep operating.

There are good clubs and there are not such good clubs.

 

When I first joined up with the local club it was running in the correct direction, the reason being while everybody in the club had a title (more about that later), the club was more than less being directed by the local Emergency Manager, he knew what he was doing and he was respected by many and disliked by a few, he had a semi-military style whereas he would take responsibility for everything, but would deligate tasks, he did things that needed to be done without a lot of meetings to discuss what needed to be done ad nauseam. 

 

But like I stated, everyone in the club would get a title, some of the upper members felt by giving everyone a title it would give them a sense of belonging, a prize for winning the race to nothing.

 

Well the EM moved on and his replacement wasn't interested in anything Ham radio, he had no clue what he got into and being in way over his head was very insecure, so if you where not employed by him you needed to go away and a lot of did.

 

Upper management took over, both very nice people but one goes out of his was to not make anyone unhappy and the other trying to keep his part time job at the EOC was trying to build a bridge to nowhere.

 

Cracks began forming, endless meetings where scheduled and they would rehash what they where going to do again and again.

 

Then it hit the fan for me, we where offered free tower space on a FM stations tower, the stations engineer advised me there was a 1 5/8" hardline from the transmitter hut up to 300' where we could place our antenna for a DMR system.

 

I asked if the hardline had been tested lately his answer was, no, I advised I was going to go out ahead of the tower crew and do a sweep of the hardline with my SiteMaster, he felt that would be an excellent idea.

 

So I contacted the person who set up the grant of the tower space advised what I was going to do, he barked back who are you, I explained I was the clubs engineer, he advised me in no uncertain terms this was his project and I can mind my own business, I politely asked if anyone has tested the hardline and the answer was, it's been up there for 3 years since it was disconnected and there is nothing wrong with, I would suggest you go work on something else.

 

Ok, I let him know he needs to stop by my home because I have a $1500 CommScope base station antenna that is part of that project and a set of tower offset tower mounts I built to side mount it on another tower that we where supposed to place it on, I have been storing this material for no charge and since this is no longer my project, it needs to be off my property now because I am no longer responsible for it, the guy explodes and orders me to deliver it to his home (almost 70 miles away) right now, my signal faded and the call disconnected. 

 

Fifteen minutes later I get a call from the clubs VP, he lets me know don't worry about the repeater, he wants to install it let him install it, I was then asked to deliver the antenna and mounts to his home, my answer was, the job is his, that's fine with me, but I am not driving 140 miles to deliver a antenna that I have been storing and built custom mounts for free and since the club has no money the answer is no, let him pick it up, but call ahead so I can make sure the gate is open or he will not get in. 

 

That created a problem, that antenna is going up this Saturday, and it's still here.

 

Then it dawned on me, I am helping people who don't understand what I am doing and then I get pulled out because someone else came along and offered them something they considered to be worth more than what I have already done or could do going forward.

 

I respectfully resigned from the club, I wish them the best.