You may not be interested in disasters
But
Disasters are interested in you.
QuartzFest 2014 will create a week long GRID DOWN experience. Using this material and the week long GRID DOWN Comms seminar, you will learn proven techniques and get hands on training using your own radios.
Drawing on my 50 years of communications disaster experience and similar experiences of others, you will be guided through the creation of your own Communications Plan so that you will have a well thought out course of action.
Then 5 Communication Conditions that provide “trigger points” to let you know when to do what, will be explained. These 5 trigger points will give you the confidence to know when to take specific actions and know that you are not overlooking some detail.
An area communications system will be deployed using off the shelf, remote controlled cross-band radios. You will use this system throughout the GRID DOWN week.
You will learn how to create a selective calling system that provides a local voice network.
You will see good engineering practices & well developed techniques used to quickly erect a temporary mast to provide area VHF/UHF coverage. You will see how high is high enough, and some unique and very useful antennas will be demonstrated.
You will practice various communication techniques, and gain practical knowledge about real world coverage patterns.
You will enhance your skill set to use your radio more competently. These advanced skills include programming your radio for specialized techniques including cross-band operation, Selective Calling and sophisticated scanning methods.
You will create an instruction sheet for your radio to guide you through its programming and operation, something you can tuck in your pocket as a ready reference to combat that “brain dead” feeling so common under stressful situations.
You will learn to program your radio to take control of our local communications system and make calls to specific groups or to everyone in the event of an emergency.
You will learn to switch the settings on your radio for Day or Night operation so you can be connected 24 hours a day but only hear what you choose to hear.
We will introduce the concept of Near Vertical Incident Sky wave (NVIS) Antennas. A proven method that provides solid HF coverage out to 500 miles with no reduced signal level between the end of the ground wave and the first skip point. I do solid S9+20 repeatedly with stations at 90, 175 & 315 miles, with a wire antenna. But NVIS is not just an antenna. The complex issues surrounding "which band when" will be explained.
Not everyone possesses an amateur Radio License so the various Personal Radio Service options, GMRS, MURS, & FRS will be explained and some little known but very useful techniques will be demonstrated. The flood of cheap commercial radios open up great opportunities for non-ham communications on GMRS, MURS and FRS personal radio services.
You will see a GMRS repeater which cost about $300 and can be broken down into two 35 watt mobiles.
There are a bewildering number of “app's” for smart phones. Some will be demonstrated and many recommended.
There are some very exciting “app's” in the works. Like the latest state of the art Mesh Networks that change any un-modified wi-fi enabled smart phone into a mesh network member allowing direct dial calling to any other member, as well as tablet to phone file sharing, all without cell towers.
And it will all be available for “take home” in a free PDF manual which will be available for download before QuartzFest 2014 for use in the seminar and afterwards as a reference.
