Boulder County and the floods

[hatidua]

FEMA is fucking worthless

That pretty much covers it. I've watched them here on my street and I'm beginning to think being a FEMA employee is a rather cushy job...

[streetglideok]

Red Cross has a business model in what they do. Salvation Army works as a charity group in contrast. I would put my support with the SA, and business that help out in these times first, rather than that "certain" group. We got lucky down here with only moderate flooding. It would have been a real calamity to have the flooding up north, and down here at the same time. Maybe its time to check interest in another meeting Singlestack?

[Singlestack]

I'd be up for another meeting if we can define some useful objectives. After the last meeting, I was hoping we could all hit a common repeater and perhaps have an occasional net. However, the geographical dispersion seemed to nix that. Maybe a discussion on what we each have and other ways of staying in touch, perhaps using the internet to bridge the gap?

[GrumpyMedic]

That pretty much covers it. I've watched them here on my street and I'm beginning to think being a FEMA employee is a rather cushy job...

I was in Estes Park when FEMA showed up, they sent US&R teams, who specialize in building searches and whatnot, those folks just didn't have a mission. They deployed to a flood with no personal flotation devices (life jackets) and are not allowed to operate in or near water without them. We had to shuttle them across 1/2" high water running over a road so they could stand around for 8 hours and watch the fire department shuttle folks out of little valley on ATVs.

The number one contributor to rescue and recovery up there were the local volunteer Fire fighters, the volunteer search and rescue teams from Larimer County and the regular citizens helping each other out.

As this is in the preparedness forum, I will say that the best advice I can give after spending 7 days on flood recovery is to have at least a month of any meds stored up, have a "bug out bag" with clothes, a bit of food and all your important papers ready to go at all times, and have a good method for transporting any pets you have (carriers for cats, muzzles and harnesses for dogs). Rolling suitcases are worthless if you need to hike out 3 miles from your house to a drivable road.

if you winterize a seasonal home, have all the stuff to do it on hand, people having to hike in and out of pinewood springs carrying antifreeze and whatnot was really tough to see.

[streetglideok]

I'd be up for another meeting if we can define some useful objectives. After the last meeting, I was hoping we could all hit a common repeater and perhaps have an occasional net. However, the geographical dispersion seemed to nix that. Maybe a discussion on what we each have and other ways of staying in touch, perhaps using the internet to bridge the gap?

Hey have you tried to hit the 146.970 repeater in the last week? They revamped the antennas, so you may have luck hitting it again. Echolink(computer program you run on your PC that lets you connect to thousands of sites around the world) may be the easiest way for some of us. I know if I got everything configured on my end, I could talk with all of you in the metro area via that. Otherwise, the linked repeaters would be another way. I have a little more capability since the last meeting as well. If we had yards( I don't ugh), there is a way to use HF for somewhat close communications(NVIS antenna). To do that, you need a general or extra class ham license though. Though I have no first hand experience in using NVIS, I can give you or anyone else some info on it. It's a 80m-40m band proposition.

As you said, discussing what we have, and have access to would be a good idea. Even if not everyone had everything, some ways to communicate would work locally, and at least one or two people in each region would have capability to talk to another region to relay info. The flooding in your neck of the woods is a good example of the need for something like that IMO. By region, I mean C/springs region, Denver metro region, Boulder region if you are too far out to share assets, Ft Collins region, etc.

If you want to try and put a meeting together, lets do it. Can see who may have gotten their license since last march, what everyone has, and try to form a basic plan?

[hatidua]

After the last meeting, I was hoping we could all hit a common repeater and perhaps have an occasional net.

I'd be up for that if anyone else in range is.

[streetglideok]

Let me know when either of you guys in Boulder want to try, I see there are three echolinked repeaters there. Otherwise we can see if you can hit the 146.970 repeater now that it is fully operational again. Where there is a will, there is a way.

[Singlestack]

To run Echolink, do you need a TNC? On the 146.970 repeater, is there a 100 Hz CTCSS tone both ways (xmit and receive)?

Thnx!

[streetglideok]

I want to say the 970 doesn't transmit a tone. I ran into an issue with my Kenwood D710, if you set the squelch to tone squelch, it will not break open no matter how strong the signal is without the tone. IIRC, the 970 was one of the repeaters I had issues with and forced me to go back and change all the settings. So the 970 is probably 100hz, nothing out.

Ok, with echolink, it can work two ways. Both ways, you download the software and install it on your PC. From there you'll have to verify your call sign with them. After that you can either use a mic and speakers, or a headset directly with the computer, or if you own a kenwood that supports echolink connect the radio directly to the computer via the kenwood cables they sell and use it. It brings up a board that has different node numbers that go all over the world. You can listen into hurricane nets, all sorts of stuff. I haven't really played with it much, but I believe you can talk user to user, or in a chat room setup( I think), or user to repeater. The CRA repeater in Boulder is listed in echolink, so if I logged onto it, you would likely hear it announce my callsign. Then you would just talk to me like I was on a radio in the area.

[streetglideok]

Found this video while aimlessly surfing youtube today.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=treLJc_QogQ