Ham Radio

[Many thanks to Bill Seidel of Revanche, a long-time ham operator, for his infinite patience in explaining ham and RF operations. We're going to try to keep reporting on ham operations in, to, and from Haiti.]

KE2YK’s Random Oscillations reports on ham radio efforts in Haiti. From ARRL Sends Ham Aid To Haiti:

Even though the communications infrastructure in earthquake-ravaged Haiti is being rebuilt, there is still need for Amateur Radio communications. To assist in this effort, the ARRL’s Ham-Aid program is providing equipment for local amateurs to use.

On Friday, January 22, the League sent a programmed Yaesu VHF repeater with a microphone, as well as ICOM handheld transceivers, Yaesu mobile 2 meter rigs with power supplies and Kenwood mobile 2 meter rigs. Comet antennas, Larsen mobile antennas with magnet mounts, coax and batteries were also included in the package that was shipped to the home of the President of the Radio Club Dominicano (RCD) for distribution. All items were donated by their manufacturers.

Haiti

“In the horror of this tragedy, there still are stars and the cooperation between the ARRL, IARU Region 2 and the Radio Club Dominicano and has been bright,” said ARRL Media and Public Relations Manager Allen Pitts, W1AGP .

“It was donations from our members and friends that began the Ham Aid program in Katrina’s aftermath. Now once again, that sharing between hams will provide help in another worst-case incident. ARRL members and donors need to know that their gifts will be used very well indeed.”

How You Can Help in Haiti

The ARRL Ham Aid Fund welcomes your contribution! In 2005, the ARRL established the Ham Aid Fund to accept contributions in support of Amateur Radio’s response to Hurricane Katrina and hams responded generously to help ARRL send equipment to the affected area.

“Now we are facing another devastating event in Haiti and Amateur Radio is ready to respond,” said ARRL Chief Development Officer Mary Hobart, K1MMH .

“With equipment contributed by our generous industry partners, the ARRL invites contributions to the Ham Aid Fund from hams who wish to help ARRL deploy equipment where it is needed most. Contributions from Amateur Radio clubs and individuals in any amount will go directly to supporting Amateur Radio’s response efforts in Haiti.”

watch yogi bear the movie

Donations to the ARRL Ham Aid Fund can be made via

https://www.arrl.org/forms/development/donations/basic/

Original Post – Southgate Amateur Radio News

We’ve been told by a reliable source that immediately after the earthquake, Haiti had only one ham in operation. Initial research suggests that prior to the earthquake, there may have been well under 100 ham operators in the entire country. Compare that to the two countries with the largest total numbers of ham operators, Japan and the United States:

Haiti, with a population of  9 million ¹  =The International Amateur Radio Union²  (IARU) Status Summary by country for 2000 (latest available) has no listing at all for Haiti. It does list the Radio Club of Haiti as a member organization as of 2008, with three officers with call signs:

President: Victor Lemoine, HH2V

Secretary: Jean-Robert Gaillard, HH2JR

IARU liaison: Vice President Bernard Russo, HH2B

Japan 127 million³ IARU lists 129,600 operators. It’s about 1:979 population.

United States – 307 million⁴ 679,000 ham operators, according to IARU. a ratio of 1:452.

The Haiti total – if we’re to assume 100 – is 1:90,000. If we go further and assume 1,000 operators in Haiti – 1:9,000.

This doesn’t take into account how few operators had emergency power available.

UPDATE:Gary, a/k/a KE2YK, operates a ham e-commerce store at ehamstore.com.

2ND UPDATE: Nina Criscuolo, of KOAM-TV in Joplin Missouri, has published a list of eleven (11) ham operators known to have been on the air within the last year:

1. HH2AW
2. H2DMJ
3. HH2DZ
4. HH2GM
5. HH2FJM
6. HH2JR
7. HH5HK
8. HH3AR
9. HH6JH
10. HH2B
11. HH2LX

See Ms. Criscuolo’s excellent piece 4-State amateur radio operators helping connect Haiti to the world on the KOAM-TV  website, which includes links to organizations assisting in Haiti, and good coverage of how ham radio operators are helping in Haiti.

1. Source: CIA World Factbook.
2. See alsoWikipedia Entry for IARU.
3. Source: CIA World Factbook.
4. Source: CIA World Factbook.

Ethics in the Workplace Improved During the Recession,

“A national employee survey shows that like the Enron era, ethical conduct improves temporarily during periods of economic stress.

“Arlington, VA – Do Americans in the workplace behave better in a down economy?  Apparently yes, according to the Ethics Resource Center, which today announced the results of its sixth National Business Ethics Survey® (NBES). The full report, Ethics in the Recession, is available here.

“Seventy-eight percent of U.S. employees say they or their colleagues experienced the impact of the recession.  Yet key measures of ethical behavior – the amount of misconduct observed, the willingness to report misdeeds, the strength of ethical cultures and the pressure to cut corners – all improved since ERC’s last survey in 2007, shortly before the recession started. Only retaliation against those who reported misconduct ticked upward by 3 percentage points.

How do I interpret the data? People realize that there is more to life than money and material goods. Or -

1. There is less money to steal.
2. People watch more carefully.
3. The smart crooks hide.
4. Some of those who would steal if given the chance choose not to because they can’t afford the risk.

So if the crooks steal less and do so less brazenly then the general level of dishonesty is lower and the general level of ethical behavior is increased. But, an ethicist might say, for the wrong reasons. They don’t “sin” out of the fear of “Hell” not out of the joy of “Heaven.”

Popular Logistics Congratulates President Obama on the Nobel Prize for Peace, 2009.

Popular Logistics is a Policy Blog, not a Politics Blog. We don’t really have to answer “Why Obama?” We are not on the Nobel Committee, we don’t know anyone on the Nobel Committee, and the Nobel Committee does not answer to us.  However, since I’m diving into this head first, here’s how I see it.

Watching the election results in Athens, Greece

No other world leaders come close. Not Gordon Brown, not Nicholas Sarkozy, not Angela Merkel, and not the Pope.  And certainly not Putin, Medvedev, Castro, Kim Jong-Il, Chavez, or Achmadinejad, altho I am sure that the Nobel Committee could have awarded the prize to a dissident or a journalist in Russia, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, or Iran.

Step-Grandmother Sarah Obama in Kenya

It has been speculated that the Nobel Committee wanted to influence Obama to de-escalate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If so, maybe that would be a good thing. If more world leaders act with history in mind, if they compete to make the world a better place for all, not only a better place for their friends and family, then the world would be a better place.

In Jerusalem, Israel

And look at these photos. These are Obama supporters around the world from the day after the election. This is why Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. With his focus and eloquence, his intelligence and education, his humble origins and demeanor, Barack Obama inspired a strong majority of American voters in the election of November, 2008. Prior to the election he inspired a small army of supporters, mostly volunteers, who took his campaign to the streets of all 50 states.

Sydney, Australia

He has inspired people of good will all over the world who see in him, and in the America, and the Americans who nominated, elected, and inaugurated him the America and the Americans who climbed out of the Great Depression with public works not a military rebuilt for an invasion, who fought and won World War II, who put men on the moon, and brought them safely home.

At his school in Jakarta

We see an America in which, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, we are “judged by the content of our character not the color of our skin.”

The America in which President Kennedy said “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

“

Senator Robert F. Kennedy said: “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were and ask why not.“

And Senator Edward M. Kennedy said: “It is better to send in the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.“

Dancing Naked On The Bridge – While You’re Building It

Part 3 in a Series.

Robert Quinn describes wresting with uncertainty as “Building the Bridge as You Walk Across It” (ISBN 0-7879-7112-X Amazon / City Lights)

I just spent a day configuring an iPhone to “talk” to a Microsoft Exchange email system, to transmit “packets of data” back and forth. We humans call these “packets of data” “email messages.”

The Blackberry, by Research In Motion , is really easy to configure, even if you’ve never done one. Blackberries have been around for about 10 years, and have been tightly integrated with MicroSoftOutlook and Microsoft Exchange for all that time. Most implementations use a Blackberry Enterprise Server, aka a “BES” or “BES Server.” They are really easy to configure. Apple‘s iPhone is very new. Apple looks forwards, not backwards, so configuration with Exchange 2007, the “current” release is easy. Implementation with Exchange 2010, the next release, will also be easy. Implementation with Exchange 2003, the most recent release, is easy – after you’ve done it. The first one is a gangbuster, humdinger, man-eater, meat-grinder. I spent hours on the phone with network security people, Apple tech support, and email gurus.

First of all, don’t use the iPhone’s “Exchange” configuration. That just won’t work. Period. Configure it instead as “other,” then use the IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol, Defined in RFC 3501.) The other major wierdness is users authenticate as “domainuseruser” not “domainuser”. That makes no sense, it borders on magic, but it works. If you’re having trouble, contact me. My consulting rates are reasonable.

So the bottom line is – I do this naked bridge building thing every day. It actually can be fun.

Uncertainty, as it applies in Quantum Mechanics, and first described by Heisenberg, the more you know about one property of an object, for example, its momentum, the less you know about another property, like its position.

It may not keep you sane – but if you let it drive you nuts you just might as well quit. Thing is, there’s no jobs where you’re certain of anything, other than the sun will rise in the east, and set in the west – as long as the north pole and south pole don’t move too much. If you’re a doorman you don’t know who’s gonna walk in the door. If you’re the First Violin in the Philharmonic and every note is written on the page you don’t really know what the Conductor is going to do. Your conductor may pull a Victor Borge.

That’s why Howard Hughes retreated to his mansion. He couldn’t deal with uncertainty. And he had the money to retreat. Others – Steve Jobs at Apple, Bill Gates, formerly at Microsoft, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt at Google, and Yvon Chouinard at Patagonia, surf the wave. I’d rather be Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sergy Brin,  Eric Schmidt, Yvon Chouinard,  than Howard Hughes. Hughes is gone. His money didn’t keep him alive.

(That’s why the most important thing for Jobs to come up with next, is his successor. That’s what Disney, GE

, IBM, HP – the best of the companies profiled by Collins and Porras in Built To Last do so well.)

“What,” you ask “if, unlike Hughes, you can’t afford to reatreat into a (well appointed) cave?”

You can cry, drink, whine, or grit your teeth and wing it. But if you’re gonna wing it, you may as well focus your gritted teeth into a smile. Take Chouinard’s advice, and go surfing.

And remember the Boy Scout motto: “Be Prepared.” So while you’re dancing naked on the bridge to tomorrow, bring some sunscreen.

Observations on society and civilization

Part 2 in a series.

John Muir once told Edward Harriman that he was “wealthier” because while he had much less money, he knew exactly how much he needed to live comfortably.  Stepping back and looking at society and civilization from the perspective of a John Muir …

Aerial view of northern Manhattan, showing the Jackie Onasis Resevoir, Central Park, the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side, and southern Harlem.

I commute, on a daily basis, to a job in New York City, some 45 miles north of my home in New Jersey. This commute is accomplished via car and bus, at an average speed of 30 miles per hour. If I was to I leave my home at 6 AM, and travel as Thoreau might suggest, by walking, I could cover the distance in 15 hours, and arrive at 9 PM. This would not be practical, since the purpose is to arrive, work, and go home, not travel, enjoy the sights, and learn. I could make the trip on a bicycle in 3 to 4 hours. While bicycling 6 to 8 hours each day would be terrific cardiovascular exercise, this would not be practical in conjunction with the need to work 8 hours per day.  The cars and buses are heated and air conditioned, so I and other commuters are comfortable year round, despite the air conditioning that is so cold that in the summer that we need sweaters, the heat that is so hot that in the winter we perspire, and the traffic that cuts our average speed from 50 or 60 mph to 30 on a good day.

The Lizzie McGuire Movie video

During my commute I read, sleep, listen to music, write, or work. I can be productive with a laptop computer or hand-held cellphone, email device, or book. Sometimes I non-productively talk to strangers I encounter on the way. If I listen to music, it is on a hand held battery powered device with the capability of storing and playing back 10,000 songs, and a smaller but similarly astounding number of videos. The capacity is such that I could listen to the device 24 hours per day, non-stop, awake or asleep, for a month, without hearing the same song twice. Yet the device, including headphones and battery charger weighs a few grams. Similar devices make phone calls, take pictures, can browse the Internet and transmit and receive e-mail messages while playing music or video.

This essay was drafted on a small portable hand held computer while riding the bus. That device can also browse or “surf” the Internet, and send and retrieve e-mail, and make telephone calls. It can be used almost anywhere in the world. The bus drives past Newark Liberty International Airport, a way station used by 835 thousand people in 1949, its first full yearof operation, and 36 million people in 2006, the most recent year for which I have statistics,1 to travel to and from destinations all over the world.

If I walk home from the bus most of the lawns by which I walk are manicured, watered, fertilized, and sprayed with pesticides. They are a uniform deep green, but if you look beneath the surface, unhealthy and unnatural. You also don’t want to look too closely at the surface – there are pieces of litter – at least one piece every 5 or 10 square meters (approximately 50 or 100 square feet) on the major streets. These include cigarette boxes, plastic water bottle, metalized plastic ‘juice boxes’, foam, cardboard, and plastic single-use coffee cups, soda cans, beer cans, newspapers.  There are also shredded strands of plastic, originally from shopping bags, dangling from trees. All of this stuff is considered “disposable.” Almost nothing is biodegradeable. Every day there is more.

From the north, probably from the Bronx, with the George Washington Bridge in the background.

Manhattan, where I am employed in this process called “work,” for which I am paid in stuff called “money” and “benefits” is terrific and fascinating. It is vibrant, hectic, and crowded. Except for 136 acres of forest and salt marshes of the Shorakapok Preserve, Manhattan is considered “completely developed,” which means paved and covered with buildings. There is no “undeveloped” land. The open space is either park, gardens, or the site of a building that no longer exists and will be redeveloped as soon as the plans can be finalized and resources mobilized  These structures range from small one-story structures to skyscrapers that are 30 or 50 stories tall, or in the case of the Empire State Building, reach 86 stories and 1250 feet into the sky.  The “Freedom Tower,” which will be built on the site of the World Trade Center, will be taller.

An island, Manhattan is bounded by water; the Harlem, Hudson, and East Rivers to the north, west and east, and New York Harbor to the south. While there is ample rainfall, there are no natural streams outside of the Shorakapok.  Even the Jackie Onasis Resevoir, Turtle Pond, Conservatory Pond, The Pond, The Lake in Central Park are fed and drained by pipes. Rain water that doesn’t soak into what little soil remains unpaved and exposed flows along the streets into storm sewers, and then flows out to sea in underground pipes. Clean water for drinking, cooking, bathing, etc, flows into the city and each home, office, and store via underground pipes. Dirty water flows out via the sanitary sewers.

Like water, sewage, and electricity, people travel underground. We use a complex system of tunnels wide enough for four railroad trains to run past each other, each with 8 to 11 cars that can each carry 240 people. This system is cut through the bedrock of Manhattan and interconnects Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx.

I work on the 28th floor of a 35 story building. To get to my desk I walk into an elevator, push a button, wait, and about 32 seconds later emerge approximately 400 feet above the point at which I started. Taking the steps upstairs would take a whole lot longer than 32 seconds.

My job is to manage and maintain a set of computers so the other people in the firm can respond  to matters of law and questions of liability. Some of us effectively write by speaking into a microphone which is attached to a personal computer. Software on the computer translates the sounds into words.

Impressive, yes. Natural, not really.

Google asked “How will we read in 100 years?”

Here’s what I think.

If we reinvent our economy to run on solar, geothermal, and kinetic energy, we will get our news and technical information electronically. We will still read classics on paper and mount on our walls images of loved ones and special places. If we don’t those left will struggle for survival.

George Carlin observed that what they called “Shell Shock” in World War I, was called “Combat Fatigue” in World War II, “Operational Exhaustion” during the “Korean Conflict” and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” in Viet Nam.  It’s now called “PTSD.” Carlin also observed that the words we use to describe a thing influence the way we react to it.  “Shell Shock” is vivid.  When you hear someone suffers from “‘Shell Shock” you want to help, provide first aid. The Boy Scout training kicks in. Someone’s in shock. Find a blanket. Keep him or her warm. Elevate their head. When it’s “Combat Fatigue” it’s  like they are tired. They just need some rest. No big deal.  When it’s “Operational Exhaustion” it’s abstract. Tired of the operations. OK, what’s your point? Really tired. OK. What’s your point?  When you hear someone has “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” your reaction is different.  It’s out of my hands. It’s a disorder. They need a therapist, not first aid. Now of course, it’s “PTSD” and it’s totally devoid of any emotional triggers or context. Which means we don’t have to worry about it. We can let the experts handle it. 

But as Carlin observed, if we still called it “Shell Shock” we would want to treat poeple who have it, and maybe even try to prevent it. Maybe he was on to something. Maybe we should call it what it is. Shell Shock, and try to help people, and prevent it.

“There’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all.”

Failure is not only an option; it is a fact of life. But giving up is not an option. When you’re ready to give up, it’s time to retire or better yet, go work for the competition. So understand that sometimes you will fail. And when you fail, try something else. Because failure to succeed, and then failure to try something else; that’s giving up.

Popular Logistics needs several laptops and laptop drives.  We need Macs running OS X, Linux machines, or netbooks running Windows or Linux. Non-operational machines that can be used as spare parts are also of interest. If you would like to donate, e-mail Larry at “L Furman 97 ‘@’ gmail . com”.  Donations to Popular Logistics are not tax deductible.