[amsat-bb] Re: Amateur Satellites and the emergency

Wed May 22 07:17:51 PDT 2013

Hello,

About the topic of satellites and emergencies I think satellites are an option very important to consider when there is no more available. In case of HF propagation blackouts or poor conditions and when local VHF and UHF repeaters fails, satellites can bring help, specially from light weight battery run portable stations.

Here in Cuba we do every year an emergency rehearsal exercise named "Meteoro" which is organized by Cuba's Civil Defense to simulate catastrophes and other actions relevant to the upcoming hurricane season.

This weekend (May 18th and 19th) was held the 2013 Exercise, like always Cuban Ham Radio Operators are invited to participate as an important asset during emergencies. But by first time ever on the Civil Defense National Headquarters were is installed amateur station CO9DCN we do a short and simple satellite demonstration to the Civil Defense authorities.

The short demo was just a simple "hello" exchanged between CO6CBF (Hector) in Cienfuegos Province and CM2ESP/Portable (Raydel) in the Headquarter's backyard. Hector had done previous years demos for his province's civil defense authorities, but this was the first time a demo was done at the National Civil Defense Headquarters. As HF propagation was terribly bad that day due to the recent solar flares the Civil Defense Authorities were very pleased with our short demo proving that satellites can be an alternative when ground and ionospheric propagation are disrupted.

The Press publish a short report about the amateur radio importance on emergencies and there is also a short mention in paragraph three of the very first satellite contact.

The news report can be found here:
http://www.ain.cu/2013/mayo/19ya-meteoro_reduccion_desastres.htm

It is in spanish only, but google translator works fine:
http://translate.google.com.cu/translate?hl=es&sl=es&tl=en&u=www.ain.cu%2F2013%2Fmayo%2F19ya-meteoro_reduccion_desastres.htm

On the picture featured on the news report from the Cuban News Agency you can see CO9DCN Club Station (Defensa Civil Nacional - National Civil Defense) being operated by CO2OT in digital modes and CO2JC in voice communications. The satellite demo was done portable on the backyard on Sunday at 14:10 UTC during a SO-50 pass, the press arrived one hour after the satellite pass so unfortunately there is no photo available.

73,

Raydel, CM2ESP
GROS Coordinator

---
PS: GROS is the Cuban Satellite Group.

----- Mensaje original -----
De: Jeff Griffin <kb2m at comcast.net>
Para: 'i8cvs' <domenico.i8cvs at tin.it>, 'AMSAT-BB' <amsat-bb at amsat.org>, 'M5AKA' <m5aka at yahoo.co.uk>
Enviado: Wed, 22 May 2013 08:36:36 -0400 (CDT)
Asunto: [amsat-bb] Re: Amateur Satellites and the emergency on tornado	in	Oklahoma and Texas

 I remember at least two times the LEO's were used for emergencies, on one
occasion, I actually transferred some health and welfare traffic. The one I
participated in was during the bad ice storms along the northeast coast
during the winter of (1998 ?). I personally forwarded health and welfare
traffic from two Canadian satellite stations who were in an area where there
was no electricity for over a month. As poor HF propagation and marginal
portable antennas weren't getting out the only way to communicate was via
the LEO FM birds. I remember passing information via AO-27 at least twice. I
also remember the difficulty of getting out the information that the
satellite was being used for an emergency :-) . The second occasion(as
noted, in another post) was during the Pacific Tsunami disaster (around
2004?) it was proposed that the store and forward digital PACSAT's were to
be used to pass health and welfare traffic out of some islands in the
Pacific Ocean that were devastated by the Tsunami. If one was to search the
AMSAT archives there were threads started both times.

73 Jeff kb2m   

-----Original Message-----
From: amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org [mailto:amsat-bb-bounces at amsat.org] On
Behalf Of i8cvs
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 8:02 PM
To: AMSAT-BB; M5AKA
Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: Amateur Satellites and the emergency on tornado in
Oklahoma and Texas

Hi Trevor, M5AKA

I agree with you.

I remember that only the HEO satellites OSCAR-10,OSCAR-13 and AO40 were used
during the emergency when necessary.

My opinion is that we satellite operators we are not actually organized to
use the LEO Amateur Satellites during the emergencies so that we only
collect grids and QSL's with them as well we receive only telemetry.

I'm also not aware of any LEO amateur satellite having ever been used for
Emergency Communications but read please the following address of AMSAT and
you will surprised to read that even the LEO Amateur Satellites are built by
AMSAT to provide communications during emergencies and calamities.

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/satellites/sat_summary/hamsat.php

VO-52 is India's contribution to the international community of Amateur
Radio Operators.
This satellite will play a valuable role in the national and international
scenario by providing a low cost readily accessible and reliable means of
communications during emergencies and calamities like floods , earthquakes
etc.

73" de

i8CVS Domenico

----- Original Message -----
From: "M5AKA" <m5aka at yahoo.co.uk>
To: "i8cvs" <domenico.i8cvs at tin.it>
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 10:14 AM
Subject: Re: Amateur Satellites and the emergency on tornado in Oklahoma and
Texas

Hi Dominic,

An interesting question. I'm not aware of any amateur satellite having ever
been used for Emergency Communications, do you know of any ?

Yes announcements were made that amateur satellites were available for
emergency communications in both the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the 2011
Japanese Tsunami but as far as I'm aware they were never actually used.

I think the problem is two fold:
1) The lack of satellite operators, only one to two thousand world-wide
2) The initial complexity of satellite operating e.g. Doppler, Tracking,
which means those without satellite experience cannot rapidly pick it up
when an emergency strikes.

A 100 watt HF station with a dipole on 40m is far easier to set up in an
emergency and will give you a range comparable with satellites and freedom
from the restriction of a 15 minute pass time.

73 Trevor M5AKA

--- On Tue, 21/5/13, i8cvs <domenico.i8cvs at tin.it> wrote:
> Date: Tuesday, 21 May, 2013, 4:35
> Hi All,
>
> I am interested to know if someone in BB has used or is using the 
> actual Amateur Satellites during the emergency occurred in Oklahoma 
> and Texas because of the actual tornado's.
>
> We know from TV that almost 50 peoples died and if the Amateur 
> Satellites were used with success that will be a useful opportunity to 
> demonstrate worldwide to the autorities that our satellites are useful 
> and necessary during the emergency.
>
> The call letters of the Amateurs partecipating as well the FM and 
> linear Amateur Satellites used to help into the emergency will be 
> appreciated.
>
> Thanks for any info.
>
> 73" de
>
> i8CVS Domenico
> _______________________________________________
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