RIGHT-click here - Monitoring Times

More documents

Recommendations

Info

WX4NHC: The National Hurricane Center’s Vital Radio Link By Ken Reitz KS4ZR Julio Ripoll WD4R has lived in Miami, Florida for some 45 years and received his introduction to the power of hurricanes as a kid in 1965 when Hurricane Betsy pounded his family’s home, an old-fashioned, L-shaped, wood frame structure, built on concrete block pylons. “Right at the L, the valley of the roof cracked in half,” Ripoll remembers. But, it was 30 years ago this month in 1982 that he remembers Hurricane Andrew, a category five storm that tore into the south Florida coast. “I was about 15 miles north of the eye, which had gone over the Florida Power & Light nuclear power plant they call Turkey Point,” Ripoll recalls, “We lost half the roof of my house and it was scary and noisy with water pouring in from everywhere, light fixtures, ceiling fans, everything falling down from the soaked drywall ceiling including the insulation in the attic.” After the storm passed, all the roads were blocked by trees and downed power lines; street lights were gone. “The whole landscape changed,” Ripoll said, “everything was completely different. It took me three days to be able to secure the house, move the family to my in-laws’ house, and get to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to handle the emergency communications. At the EOC a lot of people from the U.S. Army came down and we were able to do a radio link by putting hams in helicopters, ambulances and police cars, because the various agencies couldn’t communicate with each other. If you lived in Miami, Homestead or anywhere in south Florida, you mark time from before and after Andrew.” Hurricane Season Opening Day June 1, 2000 with Max Mayfield, then NHC director (front), Julio Ripoll WD4R (left) and John McHugh then KU4GY, amateur radio coordinators for WX4NHC. Amateur Radio comes to NHC In 1980, Dr. Neil Frank, then Director of the National Hurricane Center, was looking for a way to contact areas of the Caribbean affected by hurricanes. Few meteorological stations would stay functional in those locations during hurricanes because they were dependant on local power lines and phone service. There were long periods when vital information about storm development was hard to come by. It was thought that amateur radio might be a way to relay this information, so Frank contacted the Dade County Amateur Radio Public Service Corporation for help. The NHC told the group they were looking for someone who could set up a station at the hurricane center at a moment’s notice. At the time, Julio Ripoll was an architecture student at the University of Miami, president of the university’s ham radio club, and happened to live in one of the dorms on campus, right across the street from NHC headquarters. Ripoll became the NHC’s first amateur radio coordinator. “We would take our equipment in a cardboard box across U.S. 1 to the Hurricane Center on foot and we would set it up on the desk of one of the hurricane forecasters and that’s how we did it for the first few years.” At the time, the NHC was on the sixth floor of a twelve story building, and on top of that building the NHC had a 60 foot Rohn tower with several antennas mounted on it. The hams strung up a dipole from the tower to the roof. “We only had three volunteer operators, besides me,” Ripoll recalled, “and we would take shifts sometimes for twelve hours straight. Now we’ve grown to 30 volunteers, so our shifts are three hours.” At the end of July 1980 Dr. Frank called Ripoll, and asked him to bring his equipment to NHC. He told Ripoll, “I think this is going to be a major hurricane.” The storm, named Allen, was the first named storm of the 1980 season, originating around Cape Verde and becoming the second most severe Atlantic hurricane up to that time. According to NHC records, Allen reached category 5 strength three times during its life Hurricane Allen just before landfall at Brownsville, Texas August 10, 1980. (Courtesy: NHC) and obtained the lowest pressure ever recorded in the eastern Caribbean at 911 mb on August 5 over Puerto Rico. Later, reconnaissance aircraft would record a pressure of 909 mb, the lowest pressure to that date over the western Gulf of Mexico. Ripoll remembers it well, “It was the first hurricane I had ever worked, the first time I’d ever done any kind of emergency communications and I think we sat there around the clock for about three weeks.” Luckily for Ripoll, it was summer and he had some time off from school. “We were still using ‘radiograms’ and people on the islands didn’t know what the heck a radiogram was, but we had incredible communications. “When Allen hit the island of St. Lucia it did major damage and in the aftermath there were a lot of injuries suffered by those on the island. A ham on the island called in saying they were in desperate need of medical assistance. By coincidence, a British hospital ship, called the HMS Glasgow, came on frequency, identified itself and advised that they could provide medical assistance with hospital beds and helicopters and that it was about one day out from the island. But, since St. Lucia had recently achieved its independence from Great Britain, the ship would need formal approval to land. The ham in St. Lucia told the Glasgow, ‘Don’t leave Dr. Neal Frank, NHC Director, with Julio Ripoll, then WD4JNS, taken August, 1980. The station featured a Yaesu FT101, a Heathkit SWR meter feeding an inverted- V antenna, a standard VHF HT and a bottle of aspirin. (Photo by Andy Clark W4YT, courtesy: WX4NHC) 8 MONITORING TIMES August 2012
the frequency; I’m coming back with the Prime Minister.’ Minutes later the Prime Minister got on the air and granted permission for the ship to land.” Hurricane Allen tracked through the Caribbean and into the Gulf of Mexico with a final landfall August 10 at Brownsville, Texas. Luckily, the 15 foot storm surge would occur over the least populated part of the region, but it was not without drama. Each year WX4NHC launches the hurricane season with a well publicized test of the station’s HF and VHF/UHF capabilities. June 2 was the test date for 2012, and the station racked up 200 contacts which included 60 contacts on EchoLink/IRLP (EchoLink allows amateur radio stations to contact each other via Internet connection and IRLP, Internet Radio Linking Project, uses Voice-Over-IP custom software to link various amateur radio systems such as repeaters with the Internet). For the last nine years WX4NHC has had a Hurricane Net that cross-links EchoLink and IRLP so that it can also be linked to the Internet through repeaters. During this year’s test, the main computer that controls EchoLink and APRS had an overheating problem and shut down. Within ten minutes their backup computer was put into service and operations continued. It’s why they run the test: they never know what will go right and what will go wrong. Though the station has the capability to use BSPK31, a low-power, weak-signal mode, they don’t use it because most stations in affected areas during a storm don’t operate that mode. WX4NHC assistant coordinator Julio Ripoll WD4R explains, “Due to our limited manpower and equipment during most hurricanes that are in the Caribbean or making U.S. landfall, we have at most three operators at a time. The operator priorities, in a non-local landfall are HF (Hurricane Watch net on 14.325 MHz or night-time 40 meter backup 7.286 MHz); VoIP Hurricane Net (EchoLink WX_Talk Conference / IRLP), and computer operations (including ON-NHC Online reports, HF-VHF APRS Reports, CWOP Mesonet Weather Data, WX4NHC e-mails and HWN Net Coordination Chat Room). “You can see how busy three operators can be during a hurricane in the Atlantic, Caribbean or Gulf, which can last for over a week, with three hour shifts. During a local landfall, our operations change to a more localized mode using all the above methods and modes plus local VHF and UHF to local hurricane shelters, local ham nets and local governmental agencies while maintaining HF links outside of our local area.” Ripoll explains how EchoLink can serve as a vital tool, relaying timely information from place to place. “People think, ‘EchoLink, well, it’s Internet-based so, once the Internet goes out it’s gone,’ but that’s not true. First, the Internet stays up much longer than you would think. Secondly, they link other stations that could not be reached any other way. For “It was at night and I remember we were in the offices where the specialists were housed; we had one desk, the room next to us had about 30 Teletype machines and we were separated by one wall which was all glass. The machines were just rattling away and the hurricane forecaster on duty and Dr. Frank came in and said, ‘Look at this.’ It was the last Teletype message from the chief meteorologist at the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Brownsville and it said, ON THE AIR AT WX4NHC example, in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan, we did not have any propagation from Miami to Georgetown University in Grenada, where a station was located. But, there was a station in St. Lucia talking to Grenada on 40 meters and he was on EchoLink, so he was able to take all of the reports from Grenada and retransmit them on EchoLink which got back to us. “During one hurricane that hit St. Croix, a local ham, John Ellis NP2B, whose antennas and everything else went down, found that the only thing that was operable was his FAX machine. So, during the eye of the storm he was FAXing his reports.” Station equipment is not new. Their main transceiver is a Yaesu FT990 that’s about 17 years old. Ripoll reports that it still works great and, even though they have a newer FT100 as a backup, they still use the FT990. The station also has seven antennas on the roof including HF, VHF/UHF verticals, beams and wire antennas, including a multiband dipole strung up as a sloper to favor the Caribbean. They even have an extra hundred feet of copper wire in a desk drawer along with an antenna tuner that they can take out and string up in the event they’re hit with a Category 5 hurricane and lose all the antennas on the roof. When a storm with tropical storm force winds is pending, the entire NHC building gets locked down. “Once the steel shutters roll down,” Ripoll says, “whoever’s in, stays in and you’re there for the duration of the event whether it’s eight hours or a whole day.” In the event of commercial power failure, the building can be “Getting ready for landfall, God help us all.’ That’s when their communications link went dead.” Dr. Frank asked Ripoll if there was a ham in the area and if it would be possible to get him on frequency. “We were able to locate one and get him to the Brownsville Weather Service office and the chief there was able to talk to Dr. Frank, relaying weather data throughout the whole landfall. It showed me the power of ham powered off the grid by two massive diesel generators for up to two weeks. WX4NHC HF Frequencies 20 Meters: 14.325 MHz Hurricane Watch Net (Main Frequency during hurricanes) 40 Meters: 7.268 MHz Water Way Net (Secondary frequency) Maritime Mobile Net 80 Meters: 3.815 MHz Caribbean Net (Alternates: 3.950 North Florida/3.940 South Florida) VHF/UHF Frequencies 147.470 MHz Simplex (Coordination Frequency for NHC operators: Official use only) 147.000/147.400 Repeater (146.925 backup repeater PL 94.8 Hz) 444.600/449.600 Repeater (PL 94.8 Hz) APRS Mode Frequencies HF 30 Meters: 10.151 MHz (LSB) VHF 2 Meters 144.390 MHz Simplex Amateur Radio EchoLink/IRLP EchoLink Conference: “WX-TALK” Node 7203 EchoLink Alternate Conference: “VKEMCOMM” IRLP Node 9219, Alternate Node: 9508 or 9123 The WX4NHC home page is here: www. wx4nhc.org/ An online hurricane weather report form is found here: www.wx4nhc.org/ WX-form1.html You may email WX4NHC here: wx4nhc@ wx4nhc.org You may contact the WX4NHC coordinators directly here: John McHugh K4AG k4ag@arrl.net Julio Ripoll WD4R wd4r@arrl.net August 2012 MONITORING TIMES 9
Page 1 and 2: www.monitoringtimes.com Scanning -
Page 4: C O N T E N T S Vol. 31 No. 8 Augus
Page 7 and 8: ISBN 978-0-945053-50-7 Study with t
Page 9: SATELLITES Spy-Sat Crumbs fall to N
Page 13 and 14: every week and they had teams back
Page 15 and 16: The Arabs Zanzibar was one of the m
Page 17 and 18: department. While this can be harml
Page 19 and 20: The Road to New LPFM It seemed an i
Page 21 and 22: equires significant planning and or
Page 23 and 24: feature motivated Rick Parrish to w
Page 25 and 26: ASK BOB GENERAL QUESTIONS RELATED T
Page 27 and 28: 12788.0, and 17144.5 kHz USB. The s
Page 29 and 30: DIGEST DIGITAL MODES ON HF Rivet an
Page 31 and 32: compensate for “other issues” i
Page 33 and 34: Wolverine Radio has a theme to thei
Page 35 and 36: clear channel Toronto radio station
Page 37 and 38: English Language How to Use the Sho
Page 39 and 40: 0200 0300 Sat/Sun USA, WBCQ Montice
Page 41 and 42: 0700 0800 Canada, CKZN St Johns NF
Page 43 and 44: 1200 1300 Bahrain, R Bahrain 6010me
Page 45 and 46: 1600 1630 Vietnam, VO Vietnam/Overs
Page 47 and 48: 1945 2000 DRM Vatican City State, V
Page 49 and 50: MTXTRA Shortwave Broadcast Guide AR
Page 51 and 52: 0230 0300 China, Qing Hai PBS 4750d
Page 53 and 54: 1100 1200 Guam, KTWR/TWR Asia 9910a
Page 55 and 56: 5xx NAS Fallon NV 381.0125 381.1750
Page 57 and 58: ❖ QSL Woes Bob Combs wrote from N
Page 59 and 60: other aircraft are - as well as the
Page 61 and 62:
Video streaming, and free “borrow
Page 63 and 64:
Station sign and beacon ZWG/287 kHz
Page 65 and 66:
An uninformed person might have att
Page 67 and 68:
A somewhat modest system of ground
Page 69 and 70:
A number of novel technologies are
Page 71 and 72:
❖ Snaking your antenna around obs
Page 73 and 74:
Circuit Architecture And Technical
Page 75 and 76:
Software Library for Hams. This lib
Page 77 and 78:
new ones on sale right now. Thanks
Page 79:
Join ARRL and Discover the Exciteme
show all

RIGHT-click here - Monitoring Times

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?