This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
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we go, welcome to Amtopi Calling let's stop Neil's
your guy, Amtopi Good evening everyone, it's
time for HamTalk Live episode number 258. It's
the 2021 Hurricane Net Show, recorded live on
Thursday, May the 6th, 2021. I'm your host, Neil
Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this episode
of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined by Bobby
Graves, KB5HAV, Julio Ripple. WD4R, Rob Macedo,
KD1CY, Lloyd Colston, KC5FM, and we'll take your
calls live later in the show. Last week, Connor
Dickey, KD5LSV, was here to talk about the Bradley
University Amateur Radio Club. If you missed
that show, you can listen anytime at HamTalkLive
.com or on your favorite podcast app or YouTube.
And don't forget you can catch the rebroadcast
on WTWW every Saturday afternoon at about 3 .30
p .m. Eastern Time and the frequency for WTWW
is 5 0 8 5 a .m. So get your Skywarn and Hurricane
preparedness questions ready to go if you're
listening to us live. Thursday night you can
give us a call after the interview by telephone
And here is the number and we'll give that out
a few more times before it's time to call But
we'll give you the number so you can have it
ready to go. It's eight five nine nine eight
two 73 73 again eight five nine 9 8 2 73 73 if
you have a question, give us a call tonight later
on in the show You can also tweet us whenever
you like at ham talk live or you can Type into
the comments on the speaker and we'll see those
on the screen here as well as we go throughout
the evening. And we'll do that with Bobby, Julio,
Rob, and Lloyd right after this word from ICOM
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on the eights. Welcome back to HamTalk Live.
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online and check out their fine products. We
welcome you back to HamTalk Live tonight. Bobby
Graves, KB5HAV, Julio Ripple, WD4R, Rob Necido,
KD1CY. and Lloyd Colston, KC5 FM, join us on
the Orlando Amateur Radio Club and Hamcation
Zoom line. Bobby is the Net Manager for the Hurricane
Watch Net. He's held that position since 2013
and he now lives in Stark Vegas, I mean Starkville,
Mississippi. And Julio is the assistant coordinator
for WX4NHC, the National Hurricane Center amateur
radio station. And he lives in Miami, Florida.
Rob Macedo is the director of operations for
the Voice Over IP Hurricane Net. And since 2004,
he's also been involved with the Voip Skywarn
Hurricane Net that supports WX4NHC. And he's
in Bedford, Massachusetts. And Lloyd Colston,
KC5 FM is the public information officer for
the voiceover IP Hurricane Net. He's been a net
control for the Hurricane Net since 2004 and
he is now in Arkansas City, Kansas. So guys,
welcome back to the show and thanks for joining
us again. Yeah, thanks for having us. Great to
be here. Well, it's getting about that time.
And so we need to talk about some hurricane preparedness.
And that's what we want to take a look at tonight.
And of course, COVID -19 does not stop hurricanes.
You'd think we can just handle one tragedy at
a time, but no, it doesn't work that way. So
Lloyd, what should hams do to prepare? to participate
in these hurricane nets? Well, first off, they
should be prepared for not only their well -being,
but their family. You can't help someone if you're
distracted by the goings on in our city, Kansas.
So prepare locally to take care of yourself.
Then prepare your station to talk to Bobby and
other people doing disaster communications. But
more importantly, the people that you're talking
to be in a position to help them give them information,
timely information that is accurate information
so that they can take care of themselves as well.
You always make sure you have some supplies and
you're ready first because you don't want to
be out in the middle of something and have to
run back home. Always take care of yourself and
and then then we can talk about Deployment or
whatever the case may be although With the hurricanes
a lot of times. It's just sending in the report.
So we'll we'll talk about that as we go along
COVID -19 also changes planning and training
and I know there's always the big seminar of
hurricane preparedness and the hurricane forecast
and everything that happens each year. So what
changes have taken place because of the pandemic?
How has that changed the quote unquote normal
routine of training and preparing? Locally and
statewide and regionally and nationwide, emergency
managers in those three zones have adapted virtual
operations, such as I just finished a deployment
to the virtual Pacific Northwest working COVID
plans. So there you have the one example of how
things have changed. Yes, you need to have boots
on turf. giving shots to people, but the planning
section doesn't have to be necessarily boots
on turf. They can be virtual, planning the various
operations. Going into deeper, someone living
in a hurricane zone should have a plan, a disaster
plan, for when they have to evacuate from a hurricane,
where are you gonna go, how are you gonna live.
Do you have 72 hours stock of food, supplies,
medicine to get you through? And I say 72 hours
rarely. Do you need more than 72 hours? But on
those rare occasions, you might have to have
a week's worth, even for power outages in Oklahoma,
which is all that this year. So make your plan.
Practice the plan. Go on a vacation and take
your supply kit with you and see if it works.
And if you're going to evacuate for COVID, where
are you going to go? Are the hotels COVID welcoming?
Or are you going to have to sleep in a park in
a tent while a hurricane passes your home and
you're in Smoky Mountains of Kentucky? Yeah,
all all good information and You just you just
don't know you have to prepare for the unpreparable
and You don't always know What's gonna happen?
So I'm not sure who wants to take this one. This
is this is probably the one that That takes the
biggest leap of faith here What are we predicting
for this hurricane season? What what are the
meteorologists saying? Bobby you want to take
that? Yeah, I'll be happy to It's probably probably
the 65 million dollar question As I've always
loved to say about the time we think we have
Mother Nature figured out she always loves to
change her mind Who would've ever thought that
2020 would've been sort of a repeat of 2005 with
the number of storms we had. I mean, 30 storms
in one season. I thought 2005 was 28, was plenty.
But right now, a few weeks ago, there was some
updates as far as from the National Hurricane
Center. of changing their yearly average. Right
now, they're going to start going by the yearly
average, going from 1991 to 2020, with an average
total name storms of 14, seven of those being
hurricanes, with three of those becoming a category
three or stronger. On April 8th, Dr. Philip Glaxback
out at Colorado State made his first prediction
for this season, calling for another active season.
calling for 17 named storms, eight to become
hurricanes, with four of those becoming a cat
three or stronger. Tropical Storm Risk, which
I think is a group over in Europe on the April
13th, has basically got the same forecast, 18,
excuse me, 17, eight, but they're calling for
three, category three or stronger hurricanes.
NOAA will be making their first... predictions
a little bit later on this month, but bottom
line, whether we have 17, five or even one, just
remember, we go back to why it was in 1992, there
was only one landfall and hurricane that season.
That was Andrew. That was more than plenty. So,
and I know Julio can attest to that cause he
got hammered. So yes, you know, We always like
to say, hope for the best, but prayer for the
worst. Yeah. And Julio, I think you were going
to chime in there. So go ahead. You're there
in Miami. So you're probably hearing this on
the news every night. Oh, you bet Neil. And Bobby
was very accurate saying that it only takes one
bad hurricane to ruin your year. And mine was
1992 hurricane Andrew that ripped half the roof
off. my house and about 300 ,000 other homes
in South Florida suffered major damage. I mean,
it took more than six months for me to rebuild
my house and many places never really recovered.
But anyway, I just want to do a real quick recap
on what WX4NHC did for 2020 with the Hurricane
Center. And 2020 was the nightmare. scenario
that no one could imagine, a pandemic worse than
the last 100 years, and then a record -breaking
hurricane season with the 30 named storms, 13
hurricanes, six major hurricanes, and 12 of them
actually hitting the U .S. mainland. So it was
the first year ever in 40 years that we worked
hurricanes and we were not inside the hurricane
center. That was a complete change that didn't
surprise everybody because we had COVID since
March, but we had to retool every which way we
could to not only gather reports, but how to
report and submit them in for review by the hurricane
specialists there. So we set up this whole network
with the Hurricane Center's help. And let me
tell you, our director, Ken Graham, WX4KEX, is
fantastic. And he understands ham radio very
well. And he has his Yezu handheld right there
on his desk in the hurricane center. But we work
virtually from our home stations the entire season.
And we actually did very well. And we got reports,
hundreds of reports through all the hurricanes.
And sometimes we had old WX4NHC operators that
have moved out of Miami area, so they thought
they could never help again. And they were working
from the Virgin Islands as far north as Delaware.
And they were able to relay the stations through,
you know, from the Hurricane WatchNet, from the
VYP HurricaneNet, and even Echolink, and all
these other modes all the way through. So with
no surprise, 2021 season, because COVID is still
active, very active here in South Florida, we're
going to be working remotely again. Back to you,
Neil. Yeah, it makes you improvise. And I guess
that's a good thing for preparation. I'm sure
you'd be more comfortable doing what you had
originally trained for and that's to be on site.
Thankfully, us hams are innovative and we adapt
to what's going on. Thanks for all of your work
on that. Rob let's talk about the different ways
that hams can connect to this and you're in Massachusetts,
so you're not exactly you know in in the direct
line of fire But yet You're dealing with the
hurricane net. So let's talk a little bit about
how hams wherever they are can Help and participate
in the hurricane nets and and I'll let you take
the voiceover IP side since that's your thing
Yeah, so so few things so number one You know
here in Massachusetts, like you say we're you
know, certainly not getting them like Florida
and the Gulf Coast, etc But we can get tropical
systems and even landfalling hurricanes in our
area now. It's been a while It'll be 30 years
in August 19th When we get to August 19th, 2021,
it'll be 30 years since the last landfalling
hurricane in southern New England, which was
Hurricane Bob in 1991. And that name was retired
because of the amount of damage that it did.
Right, actually, where I live, I had not moved
here yet, but in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
It was near the landfall point. It was on the
northeast corridor of Hurricane Bob and was one
of the hardest hit areas of southern New England
from that hurricane. We've had some close brushes
in the last 30 years, but they were always...
tropical storms are not quite making landfall.
Hurricane Edward in 96 was 100 miles off the
coast of Nantucket. It brought hurricane force
conditions to Nantucket, but just tropical storm
force conditions in southeast New England. And
then you fast forward into more recent times.
We had tropical storm Irene in 2011. Hurricane
Sandy, despite being way down in New Jersey,
brought hurricane force wind gusts into southern
New England, particularly Island and southeast
Massachusetts with some of the worst storm surge
flooding since Hurricane Bob in 2012. And then
last year, we got a pretty strong brush from
then tropical storm Issa Eos, which made landfalls
a hurricane in eastern North Carolina. We had
quite a bit of wind damage and power outages,
especially in western Mass in Connecticut, but
pockets of damage and wind gusts over 60 miles
an hour here in eastern Massachusetts as well.
So we can get tropical systems here, but certainly
not as frequently as Julio and folks down south.
So with that, part of our reason for getting
involved was to have that connection with Julio
and team. In that scenario, if we had... uh...
hurricane force conditions are hurricane directly
making landfall with our area uh... so a number
of us got involved in with echo lincoln i'll
p now we can we have folks here in new england
we've had people off from as far away as australia
our technical coordinator vk three j e d tony
langton has in the past taken that control during
the overnight shift when it's during his daytime
and he's also brought some technical skills to
bear so for the first time in uh... over In a
number of years Tony was more involved this year
more on the technical side allowing us to connect
Lloyd has helped us quite a bit as well in this
area connecting up modes like all -star and Fusion
and DMR, etc. Tony took it to kind of a further
level working with his own resources and coordinating
with Lloyd and some of his efforts that he had
done. And we actually were able to connect all
the modes in on our network. So having DMR and
D -Star and all -star and fusion and there were
others all in on our system at the same time
during some of the landfalling hurricanes in
September and October, so kind of bringing all
the other VOIP modes to bear. So what's nice
about these modes, right, is you don't, when
they're available, because certainly, you know,
if you look at... couple of hurricanes we had
uh... it's not gonna allow vio i p in the internet
to be up but in the areas where it's available
or if it's available close enough to the affected
area so you can have direct r f to the area and
then bring it up through on the vio i p nets
it's been it's worked out pretty well uh... we've
been able to add those modes and we can have
people from all across the globe help during
uh... uh... activations. They don't have to be
on the U .S. East Coast or near the affected
area. It could be a system in Florida or the
Caribbean Islands and people in Massachusetts
can help, people in California can help, people
in Australia or Europe could help in certain
scenarios. So it can kind of bring an international
radio response. to hurricanes using the VOIP
modes when they're available or available close
enough to the areas hardest hit. So that's some
of the things that we're able to bring from a
VOIP standpoint. Okay. And Bobby, you want to
talk about on HF again, how can people connect
to the hurricane nets? Where can they find you
and what can they do? Yeah, real fine. You mentioned
the COVID wall ago. COVID doesn't stop hurricanes.
Well, for a number of years, folks may remember
that the hurricane in Washington was just strictly
a 20 -meter only net. When we were on 20 meters,
we operated on a 14 decimal 325. But when I became
that manager back in 2013, the first thing I
did is I turned this into a 24 -hour net when
needed to be. because there again, storms don't
care about the time. They don't care about COVID.
They don't care about whatever. Mother Nature's
gonna do what she wants to do. So what we're
doing is working 14 decimal 325 during the daytime,
72, 68 on 40 meters at nighttime. And when bank
conditions will warrant, which past few years
with conditions listed to be honest on 20, it's
not been that good. There's been times we've
been having to operate both bands simultaneously,
but thankfully we've got a large group of members
covering a good portion of the eastern part of
the United States. We have members across, I
might as well say eight countries. We've got,
I know here in the United States, but we have
some up in Canada, Bermuda, Honduras, Venezuela,
Aruba. And we're looking towards expanding our
group even further west as propagation changes.
But that's where you can find us at. And also,
if you're not able to listen in or hear what's
going on, we also have on our website at hwn
.org, we do have some links for some streaming
audio. There's some various groups allowed us
to have links. To their receivers to so they
can be able to hear what's actually going on
on the air I don't know whichever band we happen
to be operating on Okay, very good. Well for
those of you out there who are can listen and
participate, you know if you have the ability
listen listen and and then listen and Never know
when you might be called upon to to chime in
and give some reports or take care of who knows
what. So give both of these nets a listen on
HF, on VOIP, and help out wherever you can. All
right. Well, we're going to take a break right
now. And when we come back, Lloyd's going to
talk to us about a special celebration that's
coming up. So we'll talk about that and take
your calls live at 859 -982 -7373. So I'll be
back with this Skywarn panel tonight right after
this word from Tower Electronics right here on
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Radio Newsline. Join the conversation. Give us
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I fell asleep on a big stack of QST magazines
last night. I woke up with back issues. This
has been the HamTalk Live, ham radio joke of
the week with Rick Garrett in 9GSU. Tune in again
next week for another joke from Rick. So that's
why I keep waking up with back issues. Thank
you, Rick. And we'll hear from Rick again next
time. But right now it's time for your call.
So if you have a question for our hurricane net
experts, give us a call right now. Now is the
time to call 859 -982 -7373. Or you can tweet
us. It's at ham talk live. And if you're listening
to us on WTWW or on the podcast edition, you
won't be able to reach us because we're doing
this live on Thursday night. Uh, Lloyd, you mentioned
a special anniversary celebration coming up.
So, uh, tell us a little bit about that. Well,
who doesn't remember the movie twister who now
that movie, if you, um, had, um, been alive back
then, 25 years ago, that movie was produced 25
years ago and it started out showing what it
was like 25 years before with the different technology
that was in place back then. My blog, kc5fm .blogspot
.com, this week I took the movie 25 years later
and and retrace the steps of what the weather
enterprise has become now. Now the movie Twister
Museum, the Twister the Movie Museum in Waukeeta,
Oklahoma is celebrating 25 years of that movie,
May the 15th at 10 o 'clock. So come to Waukeeta,
get your all bags packed. I checked the forecast
for Waukeeta on the 15th. It's going to be partly
cloudy and about 85. So come on, enjoy some sun.
and that the movie twister museum 25th anniversary
cow another cow all right well there you go wakita
oklahoma yes the movie was actually filmed there
uh they did some major destruction to the to
the place and the movie people rebuilt it and
uh marquita got a kind of facelift out of the
job all right well there you go so uh it's time
for twister i was just telling the guys before
the show i i was just hooking up the surround
sound at the new place and uh we decided that
we needed to test it out so we pulled out twister
and uh got the surround sound going and it sounded
pretty good so there you go. Well we've got a
couple of other things to talk about here and
Julio let's go over to you because I know you've
got some things that people can participate in
as well. Well, yes, we're gonna be doing our
annual station test on May 29th from 9 a .m.
To 5 p .m. Eastern time Don't ask me about Zulu.
I'd have to bring out my calculators But and
we'll be doing as many modes as possible because
remember we're working remotely But we'll definitely
be doing HF vo IP will have an hour on the vo
IP net that Rob will run a Basically a formal
net which is a good practice for everybody to
get in there check it and we'll exchange a report
and we'll be handling wind link and Also throughout
Florida. We have a system called Sarnet S -A
-R -N -E -T Which are a combination of I think
they are up to 28 repeaters that are UHF all
the way from the Florida Keys down south to the
capital up north in Tallahassee Mostly EOCs are
all interconnected. So we'll be on that as well.
So I invite everybody to participate. It's just
an informal event, just to check out equipment
and signal reports and things like that. And
one other thing about the 2020 season, how much
it was challenging working remotely and learning
new things. Well, one of the things we learned
was after we used up all 21 names of hurricanes
and went to the Greek alphabet. And we learned
that zeta comes before eta, and iota comes after
theta. Okay? That is true. That is true. It's
not even in alphabetical order, but it is in
Greek. And it's all Greek to me, so there you
go. That's right. Alright, and Rob, we ran down
what you can do, but we didn't give all the locations
of all of those nodes, so... Take it away, Rob.
Yeah. So, uh, well, may, mainly, uh, so we will
be shifting to weekly with the VOIP hurricane
prep net, which meets on, uh, it'll be weekly
starting, um, on the first Saturday in June.
It'll be weekly through June, through November
at 8 p .m. Eastern, 7 p .m. Central zero a hundred
hours UTC. On the star wx underscore talk star
echolink conference node seven two zero three
IRLP nine two one nine system and then during
activations we plan to bring in a lot of the
various modes all -star DMR, Brandmeister, P25,
YSF, D -Star, Fusion, etc. through some of the
efforts of Tony, VK3, JED, and then there's always
listen -only capability when we're doing activations.
We're also always interested in getting net controls,
so if you're interested you can email me at katie1cy
at voipwx .net and we can see about getting you
signed up for the net as needed. As Julio mentioned,
we'll be on for the communications test. We'll
get with him on the time window. And we'll always
pleasure to have them on for the communications
test. And we've always worked with them as well
during the SkyOne Recognition Day event in December
as well. So just a few. comments there about
where our net meets, both during activations
and during regular nets. And again, we can use
all folks. And also, if there's hams, for example,
you might be in Nebraska or you might be in New
York, but you may have relatives or family or
no other hams in the affected area of hurricanes.
If you know folks and you can get them to provide
the information and reports and any pictures,
et cetera, of the damage whatever that is very
helpful to us as well to get that into the hands
of Julio so to relay to the forecasters in the
hurricane center because from both the hurricane
watch net and our net there have been a number
of times during the course of the last hurricane
season where our reports go right into the hurricane
center advisories and updates and credit amateur
radio for their support for the support so on
this data is it helps the forecasters with the
warning process and it gets Gets us credit for
performing a great public service All right,
so that's how you can participate and You can
also participate by calling eight five nine nine
eight two seventy three seventy three right now
And we have some tweets and some comments to
get to, so we'll get to those in just a second.
But if you want to give us a call, that's the
phone number 859 -982 -7373. Well, first of all,
my friend Andy, AA0WX is listening tonight, and
he's in Florida. He just bounces around all over
the place and says, say hi to Rob for me. And
he ran Relay from Puerto Rico. uh... for hurricane
matthew into florida and uh... spent many hours
last year on both twenty and forty uh... meter
hurricane watch nets and uh... so we appreciate
all of your work andy and and we know of especially
of all your work down in uh... porto rico so
so thank you for that All right, let's see, we've
got a tweet, but we have a call on the line right
now, so let's go to the phones. Good evening,
welcome to HamTalk Live. Good evening, my friends.
My name is Eddie Mishevich, and my call sign
is Kilo Bravo 3, Yankee Romeo Uniform, and I
live up here in Perry Oppa's Fair County in southwestern
Pennsylvania, Bob. Oh, 30 miles south of Pittsburgh.
And we've been listening to the hurricane watch
and that for quite a few years. I am the Airies
Emergency Coordinator for Fayette County here
in southwest of PA. And also I'm in charge of
nine counties in southwest PA for the Southwest
District Skywarn Group. And we are under the
direction of the National Weather Service office
in Pittsburgh. And what we do is we conduct our
SETs with weather -related emergency -type scenarios,
and this coming October will be our fall one,
and we're actually going to be including tropical
storms into the area. And I would like to see
if there was a way you guys could participate
or maybe give like a group talk or something
to one of our Skywarn Zoom meetings. All right.
Lloyd, you want to take that one? I'd be happy
to. If you shoot me an email, kc5fm at arrl .net.
kc5fm at arrl .net we'll try to help you out
okay that's uh kc1 again please kc5 go ahead
go ahead yeah kc5fm kilo churley five foxtrot
mike at arrl .net or you can email rob Kilo Delta
one Charlie Yankee Katie wants to see why they
are l .net as well Okay, okay. Thank you very
much and you guys do a fantastic job and We try
to get our guys from up here to contact you gentlemen
down there for your station test And Julio you
want to jump in there too Sure thing. Well, if
you need any input from the folks down at the
Hurricane Center, you can also look at our website,
wx4nhc .org, or send us an email at wx4nhc .org,
and we'll try to help out as well. Okay. Sounds
good, gentlemen, and thank you for all you do.
Thank you very much for your support in Skywarn
in Pennsylvania and thanks for calling in tonight.
Appreciate it. I've been doing this 49 years
coming up on 50 as a Skywarn storm spotter. There
you go. And you're still here to talk about it.
So that's a good thing. Thank you guys. Have
a good one. All right. Take care. Bye bye. Bye
bye. Bye bye. All right, let's go to Twitter
here. We have Chris W4NRG and Chris says obviously
hurricanes bring huge winds. What antennas are
the best for getting through these storms? Something
indoors? Something on the ground? What's your...
or tie the dipole tight in the trees? What's...
What's the recommendation for antennas in hurricane
force winds? Anybody want to take that one? I
can talk a little bit about that, Neil. I've
been through several hurricanes here in Miami,
all the way from 1965 with Betsy that cut our
house in half when I was a kid. As far as antennas
and what we use at the hurricane center and what
we've experienced with The wire antennas have
a higher rate of survivability because they flex
and We have triple backup at the hurricane center
where we would have our main dipole on a hundred
foot tower Let's say we get the worst scenario.
We get a cat 5 like Andrew come through Takes
everything out including our towers and our verticals
and our beam antennas Our last resort is we actually
have a long wire antenna with a portable antenna
tuner That let's say the whole thing comes down
We can put that out in a matter of a few minutes,
and we're back on HF And so that's what we recommend
is wire antennas. Every other antenna, and we
have specially designed antennas that are rated
at 150 mile per hour winds. But still things
bend, things break. Wires, they flex and fly
and do pretty well, even though they don't have
a lot of gain. But sometimes you just need to
get the signal out. Okay, and AndyAA0WX says
the same thing, wire. Very easy to replace and
cheap, so there you go. Probably not a huge HF
Yaggy, although those are nice for all the other
times, but those things can really twist around,
so. So there are some ideas, Chris, so thank
you for writing in and appreciate you taking
time to listen tonight and join us. Well, guys,
we've filled up the time. We're out of time here.
We could go on and on all night, but any last
comments here? We'll just go around the horn
again. Any final words? Let's go with Bobby first.
Yeah, real fine. First off, thanks for inviting
us on here tonight, Neil. A couple quickies.
There's been a couple of changes from the Hurricane
Center this year. Phileo mentioned about the
Greek alphabet with all the confusion, especially
last year. Last year was the last year they'll
be using the Greek alphabet. If we run out of
letters, they'll actually send create a new set
of names to use instead of using the Greek alphabet
starting this year. Also, starting next Saturday,
May the 15th, the National Hurricane Center will
actually start issuing the Tropical Weather Outlook
for the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific. Generally,
the Tropical Weather Outlook does start being
posted until June the first when the actual Atlantic
hurricane season starts. But due to the past
few seasons with some early season storms, they
decided to go ahead and start on the 15th of
May, start posting the tropical weather outlook.
And if there happens to be any storms, then also
advisers as well. And if you want to get those
via email, we have that on our website, hwn .org.
I have a link on the left hand side for a weather
email. And for those who may want to sign up
to become a net control operator, there's a link
on that left -hand side called net control information.
All right, and Lloyd? I would advise folks in
the United States especially, if you are not
weather aware in your locale, find your local
National Weather Service Warning Forecast Office.
You can go to weather .gov, type your zip code
in the search box, and it will bring you to the
weather forecast office that serves your location
for that zip code. Become friends with them.
They can save your life. They literally can save
your life with watches, warnings, preparedness
information. Get to know them, make them your
buddy, and then help us. with me, with Hurricane
WatchNet or the VYPWX .net. Help us, help other
people be safe during hurricanes. Thank you for
having us on. All right, Julio? Well, I would
like to stress for everybody to please volunteer.
You don't need to be in a hurricane affected
area to volunteer. We've had relay stations as
far north as Canada become vital in relaying
reports from like Bermuda that we could not hear
down here in Florida or anywhere else. We've
had stations like in St. Lucia that were able
to talk to Grenada. on 40 meters HF that we couldn't
hear and then go back on VOIP and relay that
report. So no matter what, you can become a very
vital station and relay things firsthand, secondhand,
thirdhand, and the message still gets all the
way down to the Hurricane Center. So please volunteer.
Your report might be the most important report.
Thank you. All right. And Rob, I guess you're
getting the final word tonight. Well again, I
want to thank you for having us and it's always
great to hear Bobby and Julio and Lloyd be with
us I think I just want to echo what Julio said,
but you know volunteer there's Definitely different
ways to help being a control operator. If you've
got friends, relatives, other hams that are in
affected areas of hurricanes and you maintain
contact with them during hurricanes, getting
them their reports and sending them into us can
be vital to the warning process and it gives
credit to Amateur Radio for performing a great
public service. Check in on the WX4NHC communications
test, Saturday, May 29th. Check in with us on
the VOIP Hurricane Prep Net. We'll be weekly
starting the first Saturday in June at 8 p .m.
Eastern, 7 p .m. Central, 0100 hours UTC. And
if you're on HF and can relay reports into the
Hurricane Watch Net to Bobby and team, be sure
to do that as well. Many different ways to get
the information out. uh... stay involved in also
i'll give a quick shout out to volunteer with
your local sky one program because they're also
active during tropical systems that don't quite
get to hurricane strength but have the threats
of severe weather and flooding that uh... can
be the uh... hazards at a local regional out
level for local regional sky one activation so
thanks for having us tonight neil and uh... hope
to hear some of you on the air but hopefully
not too much if uh... we have impending hurricane
during the seat during the season Yeah, absolutely.
Well, thank you, Rob. Appreciate it. And that
is a wrap for this week's edition of HamTalk
Live. Thanks to Bobby Graves, KB5HAV, Julio Rapol,
WD4R, Rob Macedo, KD1CY, and Lloyd Colston, KC5FM,
and everyone out there in cyberspace for listening
and calling in, typing in. And I invite you back
next Thursday night, 9 p .m. Eastern Time, when
Greg Lapin, WN9GL, and Dan Brown, W1DAN will
be here to talk about the new FCC RF exposure
policy. And for a list of all of our upcoming
guests, visit HamTalkLive .com. And if you like
HamTalk Live, please leave a review. Wherever
you listen, that helps other people find us faster.
So for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying
7 -3, 7 -5, and may the good DX be yours. You
never once mentioned your weather at all And
I didn't mention mine