Something bothers me about emergency P15

[radio8z]

I have studied the posts under "broadcasting in a hurricane" and thought since the thread was so long, I would post on a new one.

I am not aware that the FCC rules are suspended in an emergency. Though I am not presently inclined to research the rules, I recall that for amateur radio there is some mention of unlicensed control ops. permitted in an emergency. You are free to do the research and tell me that I am wrong, but that is not the point of this post.

From my days of working with ARES I recall that an emergency is an immediate threat to life or property. If you break the rules and get cited, you should have a good affirmative defense ready. The rules are one thing; more important is that you could cause problems by transmitting inaccurate information.

I have worked emergency nets in real emergencies as a base operator and as a field operator and can tell you that you don't just jump into this without training. If you do, at best you do no harm. I am not talking about alerting authorities or calling for help. I am talking about sustained operations where traffic directly applies to the situation.

Allow an example. During tornado watches and warnings, many communities have amateur radio groups organized as spotters. These folks are trained by the NWS and report threatening events. Without fail, well meaning amateurs will take emergency net time to report that it is raining where they are. This ties up valuable net time for meaningless traffic.

I don't discourage anyone from responding to an emergency. Just think before you act.

Food for thought.

Neil

 

[JasonW]

Neil, the emergency Part 15 "rule-breaking" I'm referring to is simply using a full-size (1/4 wavelength or 1/2 wavelength) wire antenna with a Part 15 AM transmitter instead of the 3 meter legal-size antenna, in order to reach listeners as far away as possible *ONLY* while licensed radio stations remain off-air. As soon as licensed radio stations return to the air in the affected community, the full-size antenna would be disconnected and the 3 meter one would be re-connected. At no time would the Part 15 station occupy a frequency used by a licensed local station.

During the time that the Part 15 AM station was the sole operating radio station, it could re-broadcast NOAA Weather Radio disaster recovery information (some Part 15 AM stations do this full-time) and make itself available to local officials so that they could speak directly to the public. Is using a full-size antenna with a Part 15 AM transmitter illegal? Without a doubt. Would the FCC bust someone who used one under the circumstances described above? Considering the mitigating circumstances, probably not. -- Jason

 

[radio8z]

Emergency preparation

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your reply. I will let others decide the legality.

I would like to focus on what will be transmitted. I have not been active in ARPSC (Amateur Radio Public Service Corps.) since relocating to my present home some years ago, but here are some of the things the ARPSC did.

In order to get training and establish a credible working relationship with police, fire, and civil defense agencies, we had liasons and contact people in these departments. We participated in practice drills with them, did public service communications at parades and public events, and associated socially with them. Thus, when the emergency situations came up, the working relationships were in place. I seriously doubt that unless this is done in advance that the emergency responders are going to know your capabilities and trust your competence.

I worked in a major city medical center for many years. Part of our disaster plan included how to deal with well meaning but "under foot" people who wanted to help. I won't elaborate except to say we recognized that they could interfere with our recovery efforts. You might be seen in this way by the responders.

A person who is going to set up a part 15 broadcast needs to know what they will be broadcasting. Affected people need to know how to find the signal. I am pointing out some things to consider in advance.

Neil

 

[JasonW]

I agree with you, Neil--the first rule we must observe is: "Don't get in the way of rescue and aid operations." Developing working relationships with the local emergency operations officials helps even more.

In this context, using an illegal-length antenna is analagous to speeding on an empty desert highway to get a badly-injured accident victim to a hospital. Breaking the speed limit is illegal, but there are times when the greater good is served by doing so.

In my own case, I've built a 1/4 wavelength antenna and counterpoise out of #19 gauge, stranded copper-clad steel "Invisible" stealth ham radio antenna wire (it's as thin as #22 gauge magnet wire, but much stronger and insulated with a black PVC jacket). If we have an earthquake here that knocks all of our licensed radio stations off the air, I'll deploy this antenna/counterpoise and re-broadcast our local NOAA Weather Radio station on 1600 kHz, which is nowhere near the frequencies of any of our local AM stations (the closest is 1170). I'll monitor the AM band during the emergency, and as soon as I hear even one of our local stations again I'll go QRT, disconnect the big antenna, re-connect my legal-length 2.6 meter whip antenna, and resume normal Part 15 operations. I can't see anything wrong with doing this, as it won't interfere or compete with licensed stations (how can you interfere with dead air?), and it will enable people without Weather Radios to hear official news and information. -- Jason

 

[radioboy]

> Neil, the emergency Part 15 "rule-breaking" I'm referring to
> is simply using a full-size (1/4 wavelength or 1/2
> wavelength) wire antenna with a Part 15 AM transmitter
> instead of the 3 meter legal-size antenna, in order to reach
> listeners as far away as possible *ONLY* while licensed
> radio stations remain off-air. As soon as licensed radio
> stations return to the air in the affected community, the
> full-size antenna would be disconnected and the 3 meter one
> would be re-connected. At no time would the Part 15 station
> occupy a frequency used by a licensed local station.
>
> During the time that the Part 15 AM station was the sole
> operating radio station, it could re-broadcast NOAA Weather
> Radio disaster recovery information (some Part 15 AM
> stations do this full-time) and make itself available to
> local officials so that they could speak directly to the
> public. Is using a full-size antenna with a Part 15 AM
> transmitter illegal? Without a doubt. Would the FCC bust
> someone who used one under the circumstances described
> above? Considering the mitigating circumstances, probably
> not. -- Jason
>

Jason and I have corresponded before and there is a similar thread to thos one over on the Engineering board.

I am in Florida, and during 2004, my Part-15 station broadcast through all of them..however, I'm in North Florida, an area that was not hit as hard as other parts of the state.

During Hurricane Frances, however, much of the area was without power. Traffic signals were out, everyone was irged to stay off the road and shelters were opened. Clear Channel's 1270, Independents 1330 and 1450 and Cumulus' 1410 were all off the air. Christian 1070 stayed on but mostly played preaching shows.
My Part-15, on 1160, stayed on the air throughout the entire six days. However, I did not make any changes to the antenna. The overall range was about two miles, but with the ground so saturated, we were picked up about 5 miles out.

The state EOC, the local Red Cross, etc. all had me on their contact lists way before the hurricanes ever occurred. They were emailing critical information out as one way of getting it to the stations and I used this method. I was able to give out up-to-date shelter openings and closings, traffic information,
weather updates and such as well as interspersing music in between when nothing was really changing.

I should add that I have worked in the broadcast biz for many years. Most of these people already knew me and knew of the work I had done previously for local radio.

My broadcasting enterprise still exists, and is meeting a niche market need in the classic country area. There will be an article about it in the Nov. 23 issue of Radio World. The stream I run is more music-intensive, but in emergencies the same info would be webcast as well. I ran WWL overnights for the first three weeks following Hurricane Katrina.

Also, I've never had any problems with the FCC at all.

I've been looking at the new LPAM petition and hope maybe some day the FCC will grant us enough power to do some good. I know a good number of people on this board are responsible broadcasters!


<P ID="signature">______________
Proudly remembering the days of the hometown "country giant" radio stations now at
http://www.live365.com/stations/alanmccall</P>

 

[radio8z]

reply to radioboy and jasonw

Hi,

I appreciate both of your responses and your stories. I think they reinforce my original post regarding being prepared. RadioBoy's comments about being on the EOC call list is what I was talking about. Jason's description of his antenna also shows that emergency response requires planning and preparation. Both of you understand what I was saying because you have done it.

One of the main reasons that amateur radio exists and is granted so many bands is that a trained and prepared pool of radio operators has been seen as necessary for national interests during communication emergencies. I wonder if Part15 AM could not be promoted in this way with eased restrictions on antenna length and station configuration (ie allow the use of a transmission line to the antenna and a realistic grounding scheme).

Unfortunately, as was learned the hard way in NO, the specialized and extremely efficient communications we enjoy are still vulnerable and can be gone. Even police and fire rely on repeaters which are also vulnerable. The public takes their cell phones for granted and doesn't realize what can happen when the infrastructure is lost. The land line network gets overloaded in emergencies.
Hams can fill the need for point to point and health and welfare messages, but the link to the public is not there.

Is part 15 radio a good way to provide this?

Neil

 

[JasonW]

Re: reply to radioboy and jasonw

Hello Neil,

I think a partnership between hams and Part 15'ers is a great idea. In a community, representatives of the two groups could get together and formulate a plan of action.

At the very simplest, a Part 15 station could have a Short Wave receiver with a BFO (to receive ham SSB voice transmissions). The local hams would pass message traffic to each other as they normally do in emergencies, and the Part 15 station could either directly re-broadcast the ham transmissions on the AM band or (if that's not legal) record the transmissions or write down the information and then read it over the air.

If re-broadcasting ham transmissions on the AM band is legal (on our end, we Part 15'ers have *no* program content restrictions other than not to broadcast profanities or obscenities), a ham or hams could transmit "straight" plain-English messages (rather than the word-coded traffic) at pre-arranged times, and the Part 15 station would re-broadcast this news on the AM band.

Also, Part 15 AM encompasses Carrier Current systems, which use 10 watt - 50 watt transmitters injecting RF into power lines or (more commonly) building electrical wiring. In an emergency, these higher-powered Part AM transmitters could really get signals out if used with full-size antennas. I think the FCC could effectively accomodate all of this by simply issuing a conditional authorization that could read something like this:

"During an emergency situation in which all licensed radio stations in a community are silenced due to damage or lack of power, Part 15 AM and Part 15 FM radio stations may operate using any ground system and full-size antennas mounted at any height above the ground. As long as such operations cease as soon as at least one licensed AM or FM radio station in the community resumes operation, the FCC will take no action against such Part 15 AM and Part 15 FM radio stations."

What do you think? -- Jason

 

[radio8z]

Jason re: rebroadcast ham transmissions

> Hello Neil,
>
> I think a partnership between hams and Part 15'ers is a
> great idea. In a community, representatives of the two
> groups could get together and formulate a plan of action.
>
> At the very simplest, a Part 15 station could have a Short
> Wave receiver with a BFO (to receive ham SSB voice
> transmissions). The local hams would pass message traffic
> to each other as they normally do in emergencies, and the
> Part 15 station could either directly re-broadcast the ham
> transmissions on the AM band or (if that's not legal) record
> the transmissions or write down the information and then
> read it over the air.
>
> If re-broadcasting ham transmissions on the AM band is legal
> (on our end, we Part 15'ers have *no* program content
> restrictions other than not to broadcast profanities or
> obscenities), a ham or hams could transmit "straight"
> plain-English messages (rather than the word-coded traffic)
> at pre-arranged times, and the Part 15 station would
> re-broadcast this news on the AM band.
>
> Also, Part 15 AM encompasses Carrier Current systems, which
> use 10 watt - 50 watt transmitters injecting RF into power
> lines or (more commonly) building electrical wiring. In an
> emergency, these higher-powered Part AM transmitters could
> really get signals out if used with full-size antennas. I
> think the FCC could effectively accomodate all of this by
> simply issuing a conditional authorization that could read
> something like this:
>
> "During an emergency situation in which all licensed radio
> stations in a community are silenced due to damage or lack
> of power, Part 15 AM and Part 15 FM radio stations may
> operate using any ground system and full-size antennas
> mounted at any height above the ground. As long as such
> operations cease as soon as at least one licensed AM or FM
> radio station in the community resumes operation, the FCC
> will take no action against such Part 15 AM and Part 15 FM
> radio stations."
>
> What do you think? -- Jason
>

Hi Jason,

I hadn't really thought of a ham part15 alliance but I bet the ham groups would participate.

Broadcasting of ham radio transmissions is legal as long as the hams do not make any reference to the broadcast in what they say. I don't have the rules handy but you can look it up for details {Part 97}.

I was involved with this during the snow emergency in Cincinnati in 1977 and 78. One of the jocks at a station was a ham. He patched his receiver into their board and put us on the air. The way this worked is he would ask on the ham band for reports. When a ham answered, he just talked to him as if it was a conversaton between two hams while it was being broadcast. Everyone knew that we were "on the air", but no mention was made during the conversations. Thus it was legal.

As far as just monitoring the ham communications and broadcasting is concerned, it might fall under the general rule of non disclosure of radio communications, and if so, would not be legal.

I think anyone who is considering Part 15 emergency work would be well advised to consider ham radio as a programming and information source. Start by contacting a local club, or the ARRL and find out what they say.

People can get amateur radio licenses now with no code test, therefore the number of hams is growing. I would think that one who can put a Part15 transmitter and studio together would not have difficulty getting a ham license. Just some theory and rules to review.

Neil

 

[JasonW]

Re: Jason re: rebroadcast ham transmissions

> People can get amateur radio licenses now with no code test,
> therefore the number of hams is growing. I would think that
> one who can put a Part15 transmitter and studio together
> would not have difficulty getting a ham license. Just some
> theory and rules to review.
>
> Neil

I've been "threatening" to get my ham ticket for many years, but something always came up to sidetrack me. I'll get it (I'd love to get on HF and MF) one of these days--it and Part 15 would go great together.

My only fear is that of sitting down in front of my Viking HF transceiver and thinking: "Now what do I say?" At least on Part 15 AM I can run other people's programming! -- Jason

 

[radio8z]

Jason ham radio

> My only fear is that of sitting down in front of my Viking
> HF transceiver and thinking: "Now what do I say?"
>
That has never been a problem on ham radio. Just like posting here, you will think of something.

Neil