Congressional Quarterly Article

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY – LOCAL RESPONSE
June 7, 2007 – 5:46 p.m.

Major Terrorism Exercise to Include ‘Hams’ in Oregon Portion

By Eileen Sulliivan, CQ Staff

Amateur radio operators — known as hams — are keying up for the next major counterterrorism exercise to be held this fall.

They have participated in previous TOPOFF exercises and have been invited to take part in the Oregon portion of the exercise in October.

TOPOFF is the federal government’s largest counterterrorism exercise. This year it will be held in Arizona, Guam and Oregon and will include dirty bomb scenarios.

The Department of Homeland Security, which coordinates the TOPOFF exercises, does not include amateur radios in its exercise participants. Instead, states invite hams to participate, said DHS spokeswoman Marlene Phillips.

Hams have served critical roles during emergencies such as the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, so it should come as no surprise that they participate in these types of exercises, said William Morris, the American Radio Relay League’s section emergency coordinator for amateur radio in Oregon.

“It isn’t just a bunch of guys B.S.-ing over the radio because it’s fun,” Morris said of the 722,000 licensed amateur radio operators in the U.S. “While we do that, the reason is so we can provide emergency communications when it’s needed.”

In fact, the House report on the failures during Hurricane Katrina, released in February 2006, specifically sites amateur radios as part of the response that was actually successful.

According to the House report, the National Communications System used nearly 1,000 Amateur Radio Emergency Services volunteers to provide communications for government agencies, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

In Mississippi, the Federal Emergency Management Agency dispatched hams to hospitals, evacuation centers and county emergency operations centers for 24-hour emergency messaging needs. Hams were especially helpful in providing situational awareness after the hurricane, House investigators were told. And hams also tracked evacuees at airports in Texas and Louisiana and helped notify families of their whereabouts.

“We can come in with all our own communications equipment and provide the service . . . at no cost,” Morris said.

The key to the services hams can provide is planning ahead of time, said Dan Henderson, the regulatory information specialist for the American Radio Relay League. “The preparation end of it should never be overlooked,” and that’s why participation in exercises like TOPOFF is important, he said.

As for the upcoming TOPOFF exercise, Morris said the hams, who are all volunteers, are limited in how they can respond to the dirty bomb because they do not have personal protective gear. As a result, any help they offer will be limited to the “cold zone,” which is not radioactive, he said.

Eileen Sullivan can be reached at esullivan@cq.com.

Source: CQ Homeland Security
© 2007 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Broadband Enhances Emergency Communication

From WashingtonTechnology.com 06/12/07:

Wireless broadband valuable for emergency agencies

By Alice Lipowicz

Deploying a wireless broadband network successfully enhanced first responder communications in Washington, D.C., according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

An NTIA report shows results from the Wireless Accelerated Responder Network (WARN) demonstration project that operated in the District of Columbia and its surrounding suburbs from January 2005 to December 2006.

The wireless Internet Protocol network operated on 2.5 Mhz of spectrum in the 700 Mhz band under a special license from the Federal Communications Commission. It enabled police, fire and other public safety agencies to quickly access streaming video and remote databases from laptop computers in their vehicles.

The WARN allowed federal, state, local and private agencies to share information more effectively. That was particularly helpful during the January 2005 presidential inauguration, Fourth of July festivities and International Monetary Fund public demonstrations, the report said.

“WARN demonstrated a critical value in supporting federal and non-federal agencies as they work toward a spectrum-sharing solution to meet the increasingly complex, public-safety, wireless, broadband communication needs in the coming decades,” the report said.

However, the project also showed that 2.5 Mhz of spectrum may not be enough to fulfill the needs of public safety. The District of Columbia did not use a commercial broadband network because the available networks did not meet their needs, the NTIA report said.

Nonetheless, the NTIA report recommends that public safety agencies consider utilizing commercial broadband networks if they meet their requirements.

“It was the District’s decision not to use commercial services for a broadband network because user requirements (reliability, coverage, security and network management) could not be met. However, in some areas, commercial services may be the only solution in the near term for affordable broadband services,” the NTIA report said. “Public safety agencies are encouraged to appropriately use commercial services for broadband applications should their requirements

PopularWireless.com Thoughts on GMRS

GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) is more popular on the East Coast than it is here in California, but several Community Emergency Communications Groups are considering GMRS and GMRS repeaters as part of their comm plans. FYI.

Moderator

June 9th, 2007

(Huntingtown, MD) Monitoring of the General Mobile Radio Service in the North East United States here at PopularWireless HQ is raising some serious concern about how some repeater owners, that are also Amateur Radio licensees, allow their GMRS systems to be used. It raises concerns because Amateurs who own and operate GMRS systems should hold themselves to a higher standard but from what we hear some Amateurs take full of advantage of GMRS to use it in ways they would never tolerate on their own repeater bands. The behavior also does not bode well for GMRS generally since it leads the general public to believe that this is what GMRS is all about when some of these Hams are not at all good examples.

During the first two years of the PRA Enforcement Team Program the PRA has forwarded GMRS complaints to the Federal Communications Commission involving Amateurs including:

1. Failure to identify with GMRS call signs
2. Unlicensed use of GMRS. Listen to GMRS at ANY ham fest.
3. Beacon repeater identification
4. Using modified amateur radio equipment on GMRS and FRS. A great place to observe this is at any ham fest
5. Amateurs employed by or that own radio shops putting commercial intruders on GMRS or FRS. This has included building FRS repeaters.
6. Using a personal GMRS license to cover employees that are not related to the licensee to conduct the licensee’s business.
7. Setting up buff groups on multiple repeater pairs and discouraging family use as “unprofessional.”
8. Declaring GMRS frequencies as emergency channels chasing off family users.
9. Using Amateur Radio call signs in the GMRS.
10. Engaging in deliberate acts of interference on FRS.
11. Amateurs, that are also public safety employees, that use GMRS systems for official purposes without licenses.

Clearly, at least to PRA members, the behaviors of some Amateurs that own and operate or just use some GMRS repeaters is way out of line and does not speak well of the Amateur Radio Service. These Amateurs behave one way in the Amateur Radio Service and enjoy letting their hair down in GMRS. They also do not mind deceiving others into believing their way of using GMRS is the accepted way rules be damned. These Amateurs have established what has become a dangerous double standard. It is a standard that is attracting attention.

Given that the FCC has been considering for more than a decade of de-licensing GMRS through license-by-rule and perhaps even terminating repeater operation completely — it does not help build our case that family repeaters are still a viable communications option.

Granted, not every abuse of GMRS or FRS is by someone that holds an Amateur license and there are quite a few very good GMRS systems owned or operated by GMRS lciensees that happen to be Hams, but far too many of the complaints we see involve Amateurs. It is enough to be very concerned. Amateurs that own and operate GMRS systems had better start behaving according to the FCC Rules or their bad behavior may be one big reason we eventually lose the service as we know it. PopularWireless also encourages every licensee to subscribe to the Personal radio Association’s GMRS Code of Conduct.