Category Archives: communications in emergencies

Popular Logistics proudly adds link to Kirk Blattenberger and RF Cafe

In one of those amazing discoveries that makes one appreciate  the thousands of years of human information (and other) technology that have led us to the internet, which, admittedly has its share of chaff, it also has some golden wheat: in this case RF Cafe, an amazing reference website which will be of great use to neophyte and expert alike, from experienced had operators to Make: Magazine readers and confirmed addicts of Instructables, by one very smart and when you’re not looking very funny electrical engineer named Kirk Blattenberger. How many bloggers can get Marconi, Johns Hopkins (he scientist, not the university named after him) onto one page and quote Chico Marx without it being a non sequitur?

Two. Us, because we told you about him, and the other is Mr. Blattenberger. For those who aren’t sure, “RF” in this context means “radio frequency.” Which  can refer to many things, depending on the context, but is the over-arching category which includes wireless communications, garage-door openers, shock collars for dogs (which, in our experience. are only rarely a good idea, but as a philosophical matter, we believe in positive reinforcement training of dogs and children and even some adults, but that’s a longer conversation for another day), two-way radios which carry voice, data, medical data, help manage air traffic control, help rescue people in all manner of situations, and even provide entertainment and education and news in more languages than we can count. Plus all manner of serious and cool remote control from Predator drones to remote control toy boats. Mr. Blattenberger has well-researched information on these topics and more, and has also written software on related topics.

He’s also got a job board;

Pages (multiple) about renewable energy resources; one generally about green energy;

another principally about photovoltaic energy (think solar turned into electricity, rather than, say, heating water);

And one entitled “Solar Power/Energy Websites;” to use Mr. Blattenberger’s own words,

Solar energy is the radiant light and heat from the Sun that has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation along with secondary solar resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass account for most of the available renewable energy on Earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.

Solar energy is the radiant light and heat from the Sun that has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation along with secondary solar resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass account for most of the available renewable energy on Earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.

RFCafe is an outstanding resource;  as we try to build our own knowledge of RF technologies and to make useful information available here on Popular Logistics, we’ll try to resist actual plagiarism and instead properly credit Mr. Blattenberger. Which may mean naming any “Radio Communications” reference pages after him.

MetaFilter | Community Weblog – Simple Comms (sound announcing presence)

“It is startlingly loud,” he warns, “and it’s loud enough that you can actually feel the sound wave going through your torso.” On East Brother Island in California, lightstation keeper Peter Berkhout is caretaker to one of the last working vintage foghorns in the United States.

posted by Laminda at 8:48 AM – 28 comments

via MetaFilter | Community Weblog.

Why you need a "POTS" phone, and where to get them

“POTS” is phone-geek and industry slang for “Plain Old Telephone Service.” A P.O.T.S. pone is a telephone, rotary (that’s a “dial,” a big wheel on the front of the phone, for  our younger readers) or touch-tone, which doesn’t have a whole bunch of extra features requiring, usually, direct current (DC), which in the  United States, usually means an unwieldy black “power brick,” which is plugged into a wall socket or extension cord, converts the alternating current to direct current, powers the extra features (speakers, lights, answering machine)  but not the voice connection itself – which is powered by the telephone system at the nearest phone company facility, usually referred to as the “central office,” although, unlike regular offices, they’re often unattended. One can’t walk in and pay a bill, or request service; in that sense, it’s not an office at all. Think of it as  network hub. Better-run telephone companies, certainly including the company we now refer to as “Verizon,” but which others of us grew up thinking of as “New York Telephone,” have their own emergency generators.

So – when the power grid fails, assuming the copper wires which connect you to your central office haven’t been cut (more likely in suburban or rural areas where the cost of laying underground cable for a relatively sparse population is prohibited  your “POTS”  phone will still work in a power outage. You can still call 911, for instance.

However, if you have  a “POTS” phone but no one you care about does – not so good.

So – what we at Popular Logistics would like you to do is this: buy yourself a POTS phone, better yet, buy several of them, and then use  your powers of persuasion to make sure that the people you care  about and who care about you have them, too.

If you’re only going to have one, we suggest a touch-tone phone, because there are systems which will want you to enter data via the keypad.

Reasons for ignoring this advice, and why they don’t stand up to  scrutiny

“They don’t make them anymore.” That’s not true, and we’re going to show you here to get them.

“They must be really expensive.” Also not true – we’ve found reliable reconditioned touch-tone desk telephones for as low as $10 with shipping, and if you buy a few at once, the shipping costs get lower. And if we can get enough readers to do this, we might be able to work out a bulk purchase.

“They’re ugly.” We don’t think so. Neither do the Museum of Modern Art, which has telephone by the industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss in its Design Collection, as does the Cooper-Hewitt design museum,  which is part of the Smithsonian Institution.

“I’ve already got a mobile phone, and ‘regular’  service is an extra expense.” (1) If the power goes out your smart phone i s going to be hard to recharge; (2) depending on your plan, using a landline for outbound calls from home can actually reduce your mobile bill.

One last point – of the many  elegant features of telephone design, it’s worth noting two which make them exceptionally “green” devices. First, the older (and recent,  but better-made) telephones use so little power that they can be powered from the central office. They use much more power, in fact, to ring the bell than to carry two-way voice conversations.  Second, telephones designed in the 1950’s with a planned lifespan of 25 years are still in service. How many electrical or electronic devices do you own that have worked for that long and not ended up in a landfill? And when they do break, telephone enthusiasts both amateur and professional often scavenge the parts or fix broken parts, further extending their life. I have on my desk a green model 2500 ITT desk telephone which is nearly as old as I am, much older than my children both recently graduated from college with all sorts of honors, thank you very much – not that either has a POTS line. But if the test of good advice were whether one’s own children took it, we’d be living in an entirely different society.

So – in the hopes that we’ve persuaded you that this small purchase will reduce the risk of your being incommunicado in an emergency, and might also save you some money and reduce your carbon footprint – we will, in sort order, tell you about some individual phones and source.

My green desk phone, BTW, came from the excellent Jonathan Finder of OldPhones.com

 

Bob Hennelly/WNYC's "Stucknation: 911 Off the Hook"

In Stucknation: 911 Off the Hook, WNYC’s Bob Hennelly outlines the current problems – basic problems – with the nation’s 911 emergency telephone reporting/dispatch systems in coping with the proliferation of mobile phones:

Almost a decade after the attacks of September 11th the nation’s most essential emergency local lifeline — 911 — remains a local patchwork of antiquated technology vulnerable to failure when people need it most.

In 2010 the Congressional Research Service, CSR, reported the nation’s underlying 911 local call systems “operate exclusively on an analog technology using an architecture of circuits and switches” that date back to when ATT was the “regulated monopoly providing most of the nation’s phone service.”

That monopoly was broken up in 1984, 27 years ago. As we know, digital technology and cell phones have been dominant for years.

Yet even now, CSR finds 911 systems across the country are “unable to accommodate the latest advances in telecommunications technology and are increasingly out-dated, costly to maintain, and in danger of failure.”

Consider the tragic case of the Virginia Tech students in 2007 caught up in that grisly mass shooting. Many thought they could text 911. They could not. And yet even today the overwhelming number of Americans cannot text 911. The college kids must have thought that surely, by 2007, the grown-ups would have figured out how to make that possible and made it happen. Continue reading →

American Samoa received eight minutes warning before 2009 tsunami – Wikinews, the free news source

People in American Samoa were given only eight minutes warning that a tsunami, which killed 32 people in the unincorporated territory, resulting from the 2009 Samoa earthquake, was approaching. A report published by the United States Congress admits that the warning was issued sixteen minutes after the 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck Samoa. The tsunami killed nearly 200 people in American Samoa, Samoa and Tonga.

The report, written by the National Research Council, describes the length of time between the earthquake and the initial tsunami warning being issued as “relatively long”, and states that the standard time for such a warning to be issued to be around two minutes. The study also revealed that one third of tsunami sensors are not working at any given time.

John Orcutt, a seismologist and head of the committee that wrote the report, described the delay as a “major concern”, but he also said that “a large number of people” in American Samoa “didn’t understand and there were lives that were lost because people simply didn’t take the action to get away from the shore when they felt this huge earthquake. People have to understand the signs of a tsunami and head to higher ground.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose purpose is to coordinate the response to a disaster that has occurred in the United States and that overwhelms the resources of local and state authorities, and the Government of American Samoa did not respond to e-mails regarding the news.

via American Samoa received eight minutes warning before 2009 tsunami – Wikinews, the free news source.

Brad Horn: Alexander Kendrick invents low-frequency antenna which works in caves

We’re tempted to follow the editorial lead of others who’ve covered this story – emphasizing that Alexander Kendrick is 16 years old and won a science fair prize for his new low-frequency radio system. We agree that it’s more remarkable that he’s only 16 – but think this would be a remarkable achievement if he were 61.

It’s our impression, based on Brad Horn’s excellent coverage, that this system is lightweight, portable, easily assembled, and relies on relatively inexpensive components.  Check out Brad Horn’s piece on NPR, Texting Underground Can Save Lives And Caves.

Caves are some of the last places on the planet left to explore. Though caving is relatively safe, if something goes wrong deep inside the Earth, a rescue can take days — in part because cell phones and walkie-talkies don’t work underground. But a remarkable teenager in New Mexico has invented a device that may significantly speed that process with the ability to text from underground caves. The young man’s invention may have other applications, as well.

We hope to have an update with images and more information in the near future.

See also:

Brad Horn multimedia (some of his other work) and the Veterans’ Listening Project.


Drobo external storage devices

Via GDGT: This is one of a family of devices from DROBO – (DROBO page on gdgt.com) external

Data Robotics DROBO 2nd gen

storage arrays. The DROBO 2nd Gen, pictured at right, has four hot-swappable drive bays with a maximum capacity of 16TB (In/out ports include Firewire 800 and USB 2.0). Current street price about $200 USD.

The DROBO S, has five swappable drive bays, with capacity of up to 10 TB  total. FireWire 800, USB2.0 or eSATA connections. According to the
Data Robotics Drobo S specs page,

Accommodates from one to five 3.5” SATA I / SATA II hard drives of any manufacturer, capacity, spindle speed, and/or cache. No carriers or tools required.

In other words – this can be used to back up a 10 TB volume. It can accomodate five different drives, and drives from different manufacturers, reducing the risk of simultaneous failure due to design flaw (you may be chuckling – but there’s more than one church that’s had multiple light-van rollovers with same models, and we had dual contemporaneous Seagate external drive failures – same modeland design, and same power circuitry problem). Redundancy for risk reduction can require more than additional layers of the same material. At about $800 street – it’s a bit pricey at the moment – plus the drives themselves (e.g. this Western Digital Caviar 1 TB for $99 or a Western Digital Caviar Green for $299.

We’ll continue to look around – but the general trend of cheaper, hot-swappable, redundant devices is good news for organizations involved in disaster preparation and management – it means that with a little planning and a decreasing financial outlay – we can keep necessary information at hand – for instance, to restore or maintain installations.

Color-Alert system to be reduced – but neither scrapped nor made useful

Spencer S. Hsu writes in the WaPo that

[a] bipartisan task force recommended Tuesday that the Obama administration simplify and reset the U.S. government’s iconic color-coded terrorism warning system to the lowest of three new levels, if it keeps using levels at all.

U.S. Should Simplify Terror Warning System, Panel Says. (Washington Post, September 16th, 2009).

This should make deciding which tie to wear a lot easier; however, it’s not a substitute for a communications system which was silly with six vague messages – and a risk assessment/risk mitigation system which provides much more “security theater” than reasonable preparation for threats.

Homeland Security Advisory System (link to Wikipedia entry)

Homeland Security Advisory System (link to Wikipedia entry)

Bruce Schneier, who coined the term “security theater,” combines earlier comments in this post, Modifying the Color-Coded Threat Alert System, in which he points out that it could have been useful in the context of an otherwise useful system.

We suggest you read Schneier’s entire post, but certainly this passage, which gets to the heart of the matter:

The color-coded threat alerts issued by the Department of Homeland Security are useless today, but may become useful in the future. The U.S. military has a similar system; DEFCON 1-5 corresponds to the five threat alerts levels: Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, and Red. The difference is that the DEFCON system is tied to particular procedures; military units have specific actions they need to perform every time the DEFCON level goes up or down. The color-alert system, on the other hand, is not tied to any specific actions. People are left to worry, or are given nonsensical instructions to buy plastic sheeting and duct tape. Even local police departments and government organizations largely have no idea what to do when the threat level changes. The threat levels actually do more harm than good, by needlessly creating fear and confusion (which is an objective of terrorists) and anesthetizing people to future alerts and warnings. If the color-alert system became something better defined, so that people know exactly what caused the levels to change, what the change means, and what actions they need to take in the event of a change, then it could be useful. But even then, the real measure of effectiveness is in the implementation. Terrorist attacks are rare, and if the color-threat level changes willy-nilly with no obvious cause or effect, then people will simply stop paying attention. And the threat levels are publicly known, so any terrorist with a lick of sense will simply wait until the threat level goes down.

Modifying the Color-Coded Threat Alert System on Schneier.com

; if you’re looking for calm, thoughtful analysis, Schneier’s the go-to guy.

September 11th radio communications, revisited

We’ve not adequate addressed the questions – the lessons learned, or, more to the point, the lessons not learned, about communications from the 9/11 attacks. For the moment, we’d like to return to the issue of the non-functioning handheld Motorola radios used by FDNY members that day.

They didn’t work – in a number of ways, which we’ll demonstrate in a series of posts, this being the first. Please don’t assume it as proven; we’re confident that the record amply demonstrates that, and we’ll be providing excerpts and links from the record as we proceed.

From Radio Silence: FDNY, by FDNY Battalion Chief John Joyce and Bill Bowen:

There is another point that does not go unnoticed by the firefighters, officers and chiefs of the FDNY in watching that footage. ((Footage taken at or near Ground Zero on the morning of September 11th, 2001.)) At one point, after both planes had struck the World Trade Center you can see Commissioner Von Essen in the lobby of the building. As the Fire Commissioner, he had no command position at a fire scene, and was merely observing what was happening. Those he commands are all over the huge lobby making ready to go up into the towers. A person approaches Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen and says to him, “Tommy, there are reports another plane is on the way.”

Commissioner Von Essen can then be seen heading out of the building almost right away and in the remaining footage it is clear Von Essen made his exit. perhaps to the firefighters who already dislike Von Essen this is more significant than to the public. The firefighters, who were no doubt frightened and not sure what was happening made their way up into those towers to save lives and help people. Thomas Von Essen made his way out of the building after hearing a new warning, which the firefighters never heard.

Perhaps unfairly, to those firefighters who saw that footage and virtually all New York firefighters did see that footage, it was just one more item about Von Essen that lowered their opinion of the man.

Radio Silence FDNY (Page 142)

NB: From Motorola.com “The XTS®3500 portable radio is no longer manufactured, however accessories and replacement parts may be available.” From the page XTS® 3500 Digital Portable Radio – Motorola USA. ((Page accessed 3 September, 2009).

FEMA unveils nationwide phone tree

FEMA has unveiled a nationwide phone tree. From The Onion FEMA unveils nationwide phone tree:

WASHINGTON—The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Monday unveiled its new $48.2 million Phone Tree Response System, a program designed to alert every American in the event of a large-scale disaster. “The safety of our great nation is the responsibility of all 300 million of its citizens, so make sure you memorize the names and phone numbers of the three people you are supposed to call,” said acting FEMA administrator Nancy Ward, who assured reporters that, in the event of a chemical or biological attack, President Obama would be notified first so that he could inform Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Meredith Soto of Winslow, AZ. “Remember: If they don’t pick up, leave a message telling them there’s a national emergency, and then call the next name listed in the 176,935-page, 253-volume directory until someone answers.” According to FEMA officials, regular tests of the phone tree will be conducted on a semiweekly basis to identify any numbers that are no longer in service.

Via The Onion.

We’re relieved that this problem has been solved, allowing us to move onto the next pressing issue.

FastRadios.com

We’ve been casting about for two-way radio vendors – and sophisticated advice. And found, for our purposes, an amazing oufit in FastRadios.com – based in Naples, Florida – but they sell at very competitive prices and on very competitive terms (extended warranties, for instance, on batteries as well as radios). After a long conversation with Manzie Lawfer (purportedly their sales manager, but it seems that his function is more about finding configuration solutions). Lawfer was able to propose simple, elegant and inexpensive solutions to certain problems we’ve been having in designing a model comms system for community-based disaster response organizations. Being a natural-born cynic, and having spent most of my career cross-examining and interviewing all manner of fabricators and prevaricators – and being concerned about budget – I dropped several opportunities for him to propose more expensive solutions. Straight arrows, it seems, these guys. Look for several posts about solutions they’ve devised for clients – including using existing UPS systems in power failures and solar power in emergencies to keep comms up. Readers may want to start with their “Little Green Radio Book” (free).

Comcast admits paying attendees at FCC hearing | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/28/2008

Probably not illegal; but it doesn’t quite seem right, either. According to Bob Fernandez of The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Comcast Corp. admitted yesterday that it paid people to attend a government hearing. Company critics say the freelance attendees were there to crowd them out; Comcast says they were merely saving seats for employees.

The five-hour hearing Monday at Harvard University was organized by the Federal Communications Commission to address the issue of net neutrality, a hot-button topic for those who think there should be minimal restrictions on Internet traffic.

The topic has drawn wide interest from college students, media-reform groups, and Internet companies.

An official at Free Press, a nonprofit advocacy group that has criticized Comcast for limiting the amount of data some of its customers send over its network, accused the cable company of “stacking the deck” at the hearing with the 30 to 40 “seat-warmers.” An official at Harvard said dozens of real participants were left standing outside the auditorium with placards.

“They were taking seats away from other citizens who had a right to be there,” said Catherine Bracy, administrative manager for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School. “It was a PR thing. [Comcast] wanted more people in the room who were sympathetic.”

Comcast feared a loud and critical crowd at the hearing where executive vice president David Cohen was scheduled to testify. Comcast, which offers high-speed Internet to 48 million homes, has said it needs to manage Internet use so that a small number of customers transmitting very large video files do not clog the network for everyone.

Comcast admits paying attendees at FCC hearing | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/28/2008

Via Daring Fireball.

Communications Interoperability – "it's just too hard"

I remember saying this when, in school, I was trying to get the hang of adding and multiplying polynomials. (Full disclosure: I passed Calculus I, but apparently by virtue of lax standards and/or divine intervention). So when you hear government officials testifying about how difficult – how nearly impossible it is to make communications systems interoperable – be skeptical.

If you’re mystifed by how government agencies could manage voice/data wireless interoperability – take a look at Communications Applied Technology.

While the company is based in Virginia (for my nearby neighbors, Virginia is a state just south of Washington, D.C.; very scenic; for everyone else, just remember that New Yorkers are very provincial and ignorant of geography outside of the tri-state area), the intellectual engine behind this firm comes from the borough that brought you Jackie Robinson, Al Capone (yes, from Brooklyn, not Chicago), abolitionism, the Broooklyn Dodgers, Coney Island, Olmsted and Vaux’s masterpiece Prospect Park. and Stanley Kaplan – the man who put the lie to the notion that the SAT was a test of good breeding.

You don’t need to be a big gearhead to see that C-AT has already designed solutions that directly address comms interoperability problems. If we’d had this gear in the hands of the NYPD and NYFD on 9/11 our hearts might be a bit less broken.

icrinextel.gifThis is just one model in a series of “Incident Commanders’ Radio Interface(s)” – it can connect one wireless telephone – and, according to C-AT, “provides a rugged, highly-portable, radio cross-band (VHF, UHF, 800MHz), cross platform (digital/analog, trunked/talk-around, AM/FM) capability for mutual aid operations.”

In lay terms, this means that, in an emergency in, say, a tunnel, an incident commander can get the EMS, NYPD, Red Cross, and one or two federal agencies working together in two “talk groups.” I suppose the phone interface is best used to relay messages to entities not on radio nets (elected officials arranging photo ops; utility contractors like Con Ed whose radio frequencies might not be immediately available).

The interoperability problem is – we’re repeating ourselves here – not a technical problem – and, given the scale of our economy, neither is it a problem of cost.

The model above measures 10″x3″x7″ – and weights 3.5 lbs. By way of comparison – a single hand-held radio (the Vertex 920) weighs 13.0 oz with battery, antenna and clip.

Seeour earlier post on the Justice Department’s IG report on interoperability between DOJ,DHS and Treasury law enforcement units here.

We’ve finished readng the IG’s report. As we’d expect, given the recent work of the DOJ IG under Glenn Fine – it’s well-written, and to the point. It’s redolent of pre-9/11 interagency sniping and foot-dragging, and a very crass joke, well-known in law enforcement circles, involving three dogs – each a search dog working for a different law enforcement agency. If  you’re not familiar with this joke – and know someone in federal law enforcement or intelligence circles – ask them. If you’re really curious, e-mail me privately – with the understanding that’s it’s told for historical/allegorical purposes. I tell jokes badly in person – worse via e-mail.