[00:00:00] The following is a presentation of the Six Arrows Radio Network Ham Radio 360 Podcast Episode Number 87 We're talking Irma and some special announcements coming up MTCRadio.com presents Ham Radio 360, the podcast Brought to you by Elecraft Now, here's your host, Cale Nelson, K-4 CDN
[00:00:34] So welcome into episode number 87 of the Ham Radio 360 podcast As always brought to you by Mane Trading Company Our friends down in Paris, Texas Richard and Christine Lenore started their business In their garage with a pallet of surplus gear
[00:00:49] Now they're one of the top selling Kenwood, I-Com, Alinko, Yezu dealers in the United States Listen, I've said it for over three years now And if you haven't heard me, I apologize But it's gonna be the same thing You need something, you shop at MTCRadio.com
[00:01:08] Looking for some I-Com gear, the man sold more IC7300s than anyone He got them to win the big prize to take the trip, Ham's in Japan Had a great time over there And he did it because you guys were shopping with him That's a smart move
[00:01:22] You wanna save money on I-Com rigs? Check out MTCRadio.com As well as Elecraft.com Hands on Ham Radio, I tell you when I scroll through Instagram And I see pictures of folks activating summits on the air Every time it seems they're operating with the Elecraft KX3
[00:01:42] Or KX2 You wanna get your hands on Ham Radio You wanna get some Elecraft in your hands Check them out, Elecraft.com So just a week or so ago, Hurricane Irma attacked the United States How else do you say it, man? We've been ravaged in the deep south
[00:02:05] Over in Texas, all the way around the keys of Florida and up And we were really kind of thinking We were gonna be in the crosshairs, we being In Spartburg, South Carolina as the storm approached Not really knowing how to prepare for that necessarily
[00:02:19] Because the tracks were changing every five minutes I'll stop there for just a minute. I remember as a kid, as a younger man They would forecast a storm And usually they would get it right Unless it just completely changed track all by itself at the very last moment
[00:02:35] But you'd have a good idea Because you had news before you went to school And then if you had a job, you missed the news at lunch But old people got to watch the news at lunchtime
[00:02:45] And then there was news at 6 o'clock in the evening when you were home from work And then the 11 o'clock news right before you went to bed And then started this 24-hour news cycle and weather cycle Where now we name freaking wintertime storms And I still don't get that
[00:03:00] And I'm not even gonna say anything else about my confusion there But anyway, I think that this over saturation of news And weather has really kind of maybe hindered a little bit of the forecast And it just seems to me as just a regular joke
[00:03:16] You know, I'm watching these spaghetti models My spaghetti models page is top notch I've been watching that page for years by the way I'll put a link in the show notes if you're interested in spaghetti models But man, I mean they changed so rapidly
[00:03:28] And you know, you just never really know what the storm is gonna do I mean even when it was impacting or when Irma was impacting Florida Tampa was right in its crosshairs And it shifted east, went around Tampa and shifted back west I mean, that just doesn't happen
[00:03:44] How do you get ready for that? So the early models were showing it's gonna wind up in Kel's backyard On Tuesday morning, which would have really sucked Because that's a lot of water on the east side of the storm As many of our friends have found in Houston
[00:04:00] From Harvey impacting out there So we decided that as a family we would get ready Just in case, of course, you know, fuel the vehicles If you saw the pictures on the socials If you didn't, I'll put it up I had the Chinaman standing ready
[00:04:15] I think it was, I don't know, close to 20 handy talkies sitting here Ready to go charging I had DMR 6 meter, 2 meter, 440 Hand out kind of balfangs I mean I had them all in here It made for some great pictures
[00:04:29] And I had them all charged and ready to go Even had to take some of them out of the boxes Like brand new radios to put them on the charging stand here One thing that's missing from the picture And I didn't read it This is what was missing
[00:04:41] Yesterday morning going out to start the wife's car And noticed that the passenger seat was in a different position So I kind of moved it back where it normally goes I guess one of the kids had moved it Lo and behold, I found my Kenwood handy
[00:04:54] That is my favorite handy by the way And it had been missing, I could forget where it was It was under the seat of my wife's car on the passenger side Which is usually not a big deal Except for some reason somehow something happened down there
[00:05:07] And it sheared the SMA connection for the antenna I've got an email into Kenwood with hopes of getting that repaired That's my favorite handy by the way I've said it a thousand times But that was really a bummer So back to Irma and getting ready for her
[00:05:22] Had the handy's charged, had the batteries in here charged My comms to go box ready to go I've got some other SLAs that I keep floating Just trying to do everything I can To kind of be thinking about it I am a member of the local areas group
[00:05:35] I am an assistant emergency coordinator Thanks, Pokey Actually I told them I would help And I didn't know I was going to have to get a title to help So anyway that is actually kind of been fun But Aries was put on kind of notice earlier
[00:05:49] As Irma was approaching because nobody knew where it was going The EOC at the state level was not activated as of that point But we were having a kind of a once or twice a day Email conversation as it got closer
[00:06:03] And it began to impact the keys of Florida Once when it wasn't coming directly to the coast of South Carolina They did, the state, the governor actually Enacted a what do you call that emergency The words just escaped me This is what happens
[00:06:20] I really don't like this about me But a state of emergency is what I am trying to thank you myself For reminding me A state of emergency and I think a lot of it has to do with Of course preparatory things
[00:06:30] But it opens some funding, some emergency funding So you know the government whatever So anyway McMaster enacted a state of emergency The state went to an OPCON one at the state level They let us know up here in the upstate
[00:06:45] And across the state by the way that we needed to prepare To be able to deploy if we could And to let our emergency coordinator know to our local area If we could deploy what we could take with us
[00:06:55] And where and how far we could go and how long we could stay The day that the storm kind of began impacting The upstate of South Carolina was the day that We had been having hourly or by hourly every two hour nets
[00:07:09] On the local VHF repeater which is connected to a UHF system Which is connected to a huge just a spider web of repeaters Linked repeaters here in South Carolina Which work flawlessly by the way And we were contacting state level people State level people contacting us
[00:07:28] Well about 3.30 that afternoon they finally called us in Earlier in the day the water had begun flooding In Charleston South Carolina coming over the battery And flooding the downtown area which is not It's not as low down as New Orleans
[00:07:45] But it's very low so it didn't take a lot of water But there was a lot of water coming in that they didn't really expect Because of course the models change and change and change A lot of water on the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia
[00:07:59] And we were just getting some wind and rain pretty constant I think you know we were gusting 40 miles an hour But we had a good steady 12 to 15 mile an hour wind Pretty heavy rain throughout the entire day In about 3.30 in the afternoon they called us and said
[00:08:13] Hey we want to activate this is the local county level We want to activate the Aries Group we want to activate the EOC So we went into the EOC and made contact with the state level people And we stayed there I stayed there for about 3 or 4 hours
[00:08:26] And poked in some other folks stayed until about 9.30 So I guess it was all about 6 or 7 hours with the activation We didn't really do anything except we were there Which showed that we were dedicated to what we had agreed to do
[00:08:41] But additionally it gave us an opportunity as an exercise I guess you'd have to call it to be there in the EOC And to see how things are operated when there is a call For everyone or different parts of folks to come in
[00:08:53] We were there along with the city and county fire marshals As well as a representative from the county sheriff's department The county roads and bridges those are the ones who work on bridges When they flood or trees when they're in the road
[00:09:06] As well as the 911 supervisor who had his own 911 dispatch set up in there was pretty cool As well as the emergency directors for the county So we were there about 7 or 8 of us I think kind of came and went through those
[00:09:20] Really cool we had a lot of fun kind of got to hang out with some buddies And spend some time together my family's at home My power's flickering it's time for Kel to come home So I checked out they stayed a few more hours
[00:09:30] And we had constant communications with the state We also had a net called in the local area As well as interacted with the Skyworn local net So it wasn't for naught we didn't save anybody's life Which leads me to my next thing just a couple of days later
[00:09:46] We had the regularly scheduled Aries meeting for Spartanburg County And Pokemon buddy Poke he's the EC He was there Ray was there our net controller officer and myself And we were discussing what we had done
[00:10:01] I'll just explain to you there as well as some of the other things That we've got like the big grid X coming up And I think it's November the 15th is the big grid X exercise
[00:10:09] That we're going to be participating with the county and the state level folks So long story short is I stood up and very unashamedly Just let everybody know that I was not that guy
[00:10:21] I was not the ham who thinks that the Aries group locally is going to save the world I believe that Aries and amateur radio or you could say amateur radio And maybe Aries is going to impact
[00:10:34] Or has the capability to impact a local emergency through its communications capabilities Better than my brother and his CB radio right But are we going to save the world is the 800 system in the state going to crash
[00:10:50] And they're going to come begging and groveling to use our Titerra MD380 Probably not and I just wanted to express to the people there in the meeting That they may have that idea that that could be happening
[00:11:04] Or you know ham has that place or people out here listening may think that ham has that place I don't think it does in 2017 I mean unless it's something really bad like I don't know we lose the grid that would really screw things up big
[00:11:20] Probably for a lot of hams as well But you know past that I kind of look at what we're doing and training for To be a participant in and having the ability to complement our local first responders
[00:11:35] And even second responders I don't think that Kale's going to rush in with his portable UHF repeater You know and make everybody happy I'm not even going to try to play that part
[00:11:45] I'm just going to learn to do my thing learn to do it the best I can And be you know just be done with it from there So lessons learned from me from Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Irma
[00:11:55] I've seen a lot of news we've had a lot of conversation online There's a lot of people that don't have cell phone service right now There are some people involved in some different online forums I'm in
[00:12:08] That still don't have phone service who wish they had a ham radio license Who are listening to ham radio operators now talk about things that they wish they could participate in But without a license they can't so this is kind of encouraged them
[00:12:19] Showed them the value of their license Do those people even where they are now think that ham radio could save the world? Absolutely not No I mean it's a connection and that's really what I think that my goal in this is
[00:12:32] Is to provide a connection an alternate connection to the outside if it's needed So there's my soapbox on Irma I'm not going to keep you tied up with that anymore But just thought I'd get that out there and let you know that was my first Aries activation
[00:12:46] The first time that I've been in Aries since I've been in Aries that the EOC has been activated And you know it didn't go off without a hitch but we learned some things We got some things in place and we even had some time to program some radio
[00:13:00] So it wasn't a wasted time as we get our Aries frequency channelized around here To make it easier for everyone to communicate with one another So listen if you're still in one of those affected areas I don't watch the news a lot
[00:13:14] I mean I might flip by it but I'm not going to sit there for an hour and listen to those people On any frequency on any channel so any network I'm not interested But I know that they've moved on in some parts to other things
[00:13:29] I mean you know Donald said something stupid I'm sure that's got people riled up And you've got stuff happening something in Missouri and something somewhere else I don't know there's just a problem of fires and stuff So they're going to be covering other things
[00:13:42] But that's what you're seeing on television right But I want the people to know in Florida and Texas Mississippi Even George in Tennessee, Alabama that were affected from these storms Even the storms that are approaching us right now
[00:13:55] What you guys to know and gals that you know you haven't been forgotten I haven't forgotten about you I know my family has not forgotten about you I know many people just for instance today in church Folks had not forgotten about you
[00:14:08] So just because it's not headlining it's not the top story on CNN or whatever Doesn't mean that you have been forgotten So just hang in there man we're praying for you and we're rooting you on
[00:14:18] We know that you can overcome this thing and we are right here for you We'll be back in a minute here on Ham Radio 360 podcast Airspy.us bailed us out big time at HamVenture this past year Thank you Joe this is a great opportunity to share with you
[00:14:44] What I pick up when I'm going to use some SDR radio devices I grabbed my mini from Airspy.us It's a great little deal man it's very small compact It has great filtering It's created for you the amateur radio operator to utilize
[00:15:02] And it's going to work just better than those others that you've seen on Amazon and eBay You need some stuff call Joe let him know you heard about him here on Ham Radio 360 It's Airspy.us
[00:15:22] So as I mentioned there in the intro the show got some news for you And just going to toss this in here now there's no interview segment this time guys I'm sorry if you don't like me but it's what you got this time
[00:15:36] Hey I've been doing this for a little over three years probably three and a half years or so Show number 87 multiply you'll figure it out it's been a long time And I have I'm going to have to take a break
[00:15:48] I am going to press the pause and it's quite ironic that it's show 87 There's some of you out there that will appreciate that others have no clue and it's okay It's not a big deal it's not something kills hiding
[00:15:59] I didn't even realize it until I'm here but anyway I'm going to take a break. I'm not going to produce a show two weeks from today And I'm kind of thinking about coming back in 2018 in January 2018 I know gasp the air just left the room don't be mad
[00:16:18] The deal is I'm a busy guy my job is being a dad and I need to focus more on my dad job This takes a lot a lot of time and you look at John you look at Jeremy
[00:16:31] You look at George what they're doing takes a lot a lot of time And I've just gotten to the point where I don't have a lot a lot of time left over for me to do anything
[00:16:40] But create this podcast my HF radio sits here in the carton that it was placed in when I boxed it up at the end of Winterfield Day last year It's pitiful. I mean I'm on the repeaters I finally got packet and APRS running
[00:16:56] But you know I'm missing out on the hobby I talked to all these great guests and have learned about all these cool things that are happening out there
[00:17:04] And I'm not able to participate because what little free time kill has in life and whether you understand this or not I'm sorry It's used up with the podcast there's no hobby time right it's dad time husband time podcast time
[00:17:20] And I'm going to park this show right here for the next couple of months I've been podcasting over three years so I think that you know maybe a three month vacation will be nice
[00:17:31] We'll see where we're at as January approaches and maybe start this thing back up but until then I'm going to be going away So you're going to have the field radio podcast on Thursday and the following week you'll have the work bench show with George and Jeremy
[00:17:47] You're only just going to miss this show on the Tuesday the same week as the field radio show so I want to encourage you to make sure that you're getting the field radio podcast
[00:17:57] There's a different feed it's not in this feed right here right so you'll need to subscribe I'll put a link there it's all over the website
[00:18:05] handradio360.com, field radio podcast tab at the top click it it opens up subscribe I've done all but click it on your phone for you so you can do that
[00:18:14] But you know just a big shout out thank you to MTC radio to Ella Craft to Dan Romantic to Bridgecom Systems to let's see AirSpy.us
[00:18:25] We've had sponsors we've had people that have partnered with us on the website like Arden you know just you guys our patrons and I'm not going to call names because I'll forget somebody
[00:18:37] And I'm not going to do that but every one of you know that I appreciate you listeners I would not be here three plus years later doing this if it worked for you guys
[00:18:47] And it's not that I don't like you now it's just I like my family better and you'll just have to accept that right because you've got one too and I hope you're taking good care of them
[00:18:57] I don't really know what to say past that other than thank you again it's been awesome and I look forward to coming back next year and chatting with you and see where we're at
[00:19:07] Like I said my plan right now is a three month vacation leave of absence not going to put anything in here in the feed not going to have an alternate show not going to have a different host it's just going to be a blank spot
[00:19:18] And I want to continue to encourage you to listen to workbench to the field radio podcast everything ham radio QST QSO today you've got Ham talk live you got 100 Watts in a wire I'm going to make somebody mad because I just forgot to mention your podcast
[00:19:35] I see Q podcast I should have made a list before I started this and I'm sorry I didn't but I'll tell you what I've got your podcast linked on my website ham radio 360 dot com click on the links tab it opens up every known amateur radio podcast that I've ever heard about or seen is listed on that page
[00:19:54] And it's been there for months so you guys need to fill in some blanks go check them out there's a lot of great content out there it's been quite an honor to be a part of that matter of fact over the last three plus years
[00:20:04] I almost two or three quarters of a million downloads I mean that's stupid isn't it really if you don't know the story this was like a bad joke that turned into something that really was never supposed to be great help from George KJ 6 V you and Jeremy Kev 7 IJ Zed to to really keep the ball get the ball rolling good
[00:20:22] Gerald came in and out a couple of times that helped a bunch you know it's just there's so many people to think but since I'm not quitting I'm not going to start thinking people like you know I just won this award and I'm retiring taking a vacation with anticipation of coming back in January 2018
[00:20:39] So thank you very much to everyone thank you so much for the opportunity to connect with you I hope that if you haven't heard all the programs we've done that you'll go back and listen to those because there's a lot of great stuff back there
[00:20:51] matter of fact I'm going to start doing the same very thing the reason being is because there's a lot of stuff that I talked about was able to learn about but never have had the opportunity to put into play and there's some things I want to go pull out from that and go forward with them
[00:21:05] so I'm going to cut this really short it's going to be a short show maybe the shortest episode we've ever recorded and just say thank you
[00:21:13] thanks to every one of you again don't forget workbench is there field radio podcast is there ham radio 360 the website will stay there it's not going anywhere that'll be where the shows are updated just like they are now except I won't be doing a show to update
[00:21:28] still be on the socials I'll still be on email and whatever but I'm taking a break and I appreciate every one of you God bless you thank you so much for listening for have given me this opportunity to get to know you and to share this great awesome hobby ham radio
[00:21:43] I'm going to go enjoy some time with my family now wife turns 40 in a couple of weeks got a lot to get ready for that so God bless you guys we'll catch you next year on ham radio 360 the podcast 73 y'all
[00:22:00] thank you for listening to the ham radio 360 podcast brought to you by main trading company Paris Texas and by Ella craft dot com hands on ham radio to learn more about the show visit our website ham radio 360 dot com 73 y'all