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HamTalk Live. It's him radio Good evening, everyone.
It's HamTalk Live, episode number 89, or the
Puerto Rico disaster communications trip with
Val in V9L, recorded live on Thursday, November
9th, 2017. I'm your host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
and thanks for tuning in to this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we're joined by Val Hotsfeld in
V9L, and we'll take your calls live in a few
minutes. Last week here on the show, Don Greenbaum,
N1DG, was here to talk about the Baker Island
De -Expedition, and if you missed that, check
it out over at HamTalkLive .com or on a podcasting
app like Stitcher or Apple Podcasts, iHeart Podcasts,
Google Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud. We're also over
on YouTube. so you can check those out whenever
you can. So after a while we will take your calls.
I'll go ahead and give you the phone number,
but we're not ready for calls just yet. It's
812 -NET -HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. Or you
can Skype us. We're HamTalk Live on Skype. You
can also tweet us. Our Twitter handle is at HamTalk
Live, so you can reach us that way. And we're
going to talk to Val for a little bit first,
and then... We'll take some questions from you
all, so hope to talk to you and interact with
you tonight. We're on the air every Thursday
night, 9 p .m. Eastern Time, right here at HamTalkLive
.com. And check us out on Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram. And we're just about, I think,
10 away from a thousand on Facebook, so be sure
to like us over on Facebook. Well, Valerie NV9L
is with us tonight. She is originally from Wisconsin
and now resides in Illinois. Val is a co -host
on the video podcast Ham Nation, where she usually
contributes information about DXing and contesting.
Valerie is one of the most noted YLs in the hobby
and spends most of her weekends on the air working
contests, along with her fiance, Jerry WB9Z.
She's a member of many DX and contesting clubs
and an ARRL volunteer examiner She's also been
the North American pilot station for Amsterdam
Island back in 2014 Wake Island in 2013 and Swain
Island in 2012 and I believe Buve is coming up
here soon that she'll be piloting as well Besides
her ham radio obsession. She enjoys camping traveling
hiking fishing, bowling, gardening, and baking
if she has time left over to do all that. And
just a couple of weeks ago she returned from
Puerto Rico where she was working on a team doing
some disaster communication. So Val, thanks for
coming back on HamTalk Live. Well, thanks for
having me, Neil. Glad to be back. Were you ever
in radio broadcasting or something? You've got
that great radio voice. I was, yes. It was kind
of a temporary gig, but I did a few years of
that. That's actually when I wanted to start
doing talk radio and instead it was country.
It was playing country music. If I would play
the song backwards, I would get my dog back,
the truck would start running again. The sun
would come out. Yeah, the sun would come out.
My wife came back and everything was great. So
yeah, I did the broadcasting thing for a while
and it was fun, but I didn't stay in it. Me too.
I was on WGFA, World's Greatest Farming Area.
So a lot of farm reports and soil temperatures
and rain gauge reports. There we go. There we
go. We had a guy that did the hog reports. It
kind of reminds me of Les Nessman on WKRP. We
had this guy that did Gary Truitt. It's about
time to watch that episode to always have to
watch that one right before Thanksgiving, but
there was this guy Gary Truitt who would always
do the hog reports and We would always run those
Okay, all right, I'll get through it Well, we're
here to talk a little bit about the the Puerto
Rico trip and this was a really unique opportunity.
So, first of all, you've been on, of course,
Ham Nation talking about this, and there's been
some shows that have been talking about this,
and one of the things that you talked about was
how you applied for the position. I wanted to
go a little deeper with that and how the selection
process took place, whatever you know about that,
but you said you actually applied for this in
your car? Well, we were at CEDCO, W4DXCC down
in Pigeon Forge that weekend. We were in the
car driving back Sunday and I saw that they had
posted they were looking for volunteers. And
I was just on the heels of volunteering. My son
and I went down for Hurricane Harvey doing small
animal rescue and I kind of got hooked. And so,
when I saw that, I asked Jerry if I could go
and he said, sure. So, I applied in the car Sunday
afternoon. probably somewhere between Tennessee
and Illinois. And I led with my ICS certs and
my ARIES training and just different things like
that that were pertinent to the mission, my wind
link knowledge. And the next morning, Monday
morning, I get a call from Mike Corey at the
ARRL. He kind of did a phone screening. and kind
of just kind of went over some of those things
you know and you know can I do this can I do
that and all that and so I must have passed the
phone screen because later that afternoon the
ARRL ran a full background check and a credit
report I guess on all of us and by Tuesday I
had my marching orders to fly out Wednesday so
it happened very fast yeah it sounds like it
was a really quick opportunity to throw together
and try to Make it all work and I'm amazed that
they were able to get all those checks done But
with with any kind of government thing like like
me teaching You know, we got to run background
checks on a guest speaker So, you know, we got
to have all that all that paperwork in hand.
Well I was really impressed because I think I
found out from Mike Corey that Red Cross contacted
the ARRL Friday evening wanting to put this team
together and so they had to have an emergency
conference call Saturday, said go for it. Sunday
they put out the call and then they had to order
all that equipment, the Pelican cases, put all
that stuff together and have it waiting for us
in Atlanta on Wednesday. So I think it's pretty
amazing how both agencies moved. To get this
going, you know, usually I pictured them to,
you know, people agencies to move a lot slower.
Yeah. Yeah. This was a, a very quick thing and
uh, and that's how it goes a lot of times. Uh,
whenever you get on, um, you know, one of these,
uh, disaster relief or disaster assessment teams,
uh, you never really know what's going to happen.
Um, so you were called on, um, to do some things,
uh, down there and, and as Yeah, the disaster
assessments and things that I've been on, you
never had a clue what you were going to end up
doing. And usually, there's no plan at all. Well,
I mean, the plan originally was to do safe and
well traffic with the Red Cross, go out with
their teams of Red Cross workers, and to put
into the spreadsheet the people in that town
that were safe and well. And then we would upload
that by a wind link and it would end up in the
Red Cross Safe and Well database. But very quickly
upon arriving, that mission was changed pretty
quickly because there was no communications on
the island. I mean, we had to land. an international
airport on a jetliner. There was 164 of us Red
Cross workers on this plane at an uncontrolled
airport, and I've taken flying lessons. It's
scary when you're flying in a little Cesta to
land at a rinky -dinky uncontrolled airport.
We were one of the first people down there. There
was definitely a few hiccups, lots of hiccups,
but that was to be expected because nothing on
this scale had ever happened before. So, yeah,
you know, you never know what's going to hit.
And as soon as you get down there, it's like,
okay, no, we really need this. And so that's
what you did. So you had some other stuff going
on, like, you know, uh, I know you had to switch
over to the hospitals after a while and then,
and you actually, on your day off, I know you
guys, uh, just actually went and delivered some
stuff. Well, when they started passing out assignments
to everybody, I sort of got assigned to do the
administrative stuff, so I didn't really get
to go out in the field and get deployed out in
the action, you know, and I was stuck at the,
well, not stuck I should say, but I was at the
convention center without a vehicle, you know,
and just kind of... That's why I slept on the
first floor and worked on the third floor, and
a lot of meetings, a lot of paper pushing, a
lot of forms and things to fill out and trying
to find the right people to get this done or
that done. There was just a lot of that. It wasn't
really the sexy part of the activation, but it
was very interesting. I really learned a lot.
I definitely have lots of ideas on how things
can be tweaked and made better going forward
not just from our division but from other divisions.
I mean I was kind of shocked like FEMA didn't
have any kind of ticketing software. So like
we'd get a call for generator fuel at this hospital
or oxygen tanks or you know whatever they needed
and we'd put that in request in and then they'd
say okay we got it and we forwarded it on and
then that's all we'd hear from them you know
so we didn't know if it actually had been taken
care of. So things like that there's a lot of
You know things that could be different I guess
yeah, and we'll talk about some of that stuff,
but Every opportunity is a learning opportunity
so Definitely be learned from from this one well
I know you've got tons and tons of tons of stories
and already you said the toughest part of this
tonight was How do I pick just one? But pick
just one and tell us about it. Maybe two if you
can do it quickly. None of my stories are very
glamorous. We were able to work it out with one
of the fire station people. If we put one of
our ham radio operators in their fire station
down in... Yunkos, where their search and rescue
was out of, then they would give safe harbor
to all Red Cross workers, which was pretty pivotal
because once that, they signed a letter that
the Red Cross workers could take or have on their
phone, so they could show up to any fire station,
they had 72 fire stations on the island, and
they could get a safe place to stay and food
and water, and that really was a a game changer,
so then we didn't need to have two man teams,
we could just have one man teams, Red Cross didn't
just have to do day trips, they could turn into
two day trips, so that was kind of cool, just
something as simple as that, giving them one
ham radio operator, Tim Maloney I think, N9RRM
was at that location and did a lot of cool things
to help them provide communications between the
fire station down in Yunkos. and to the EOC.
But I mean, some of these guys did some great
stuff. I mean, Andy, all the work he did at the
dam, Kilo Echo Zero Alpha Yankee Juliet did some
amazing stuff there. It's just from clearing
an area and spray painting out a helipad circle,
you know, with that H and he... even had to do
one with like a sideways H or something that
means you have to kind of come in at an angle
I don't know he just he knows so much and he
was able to treat people with dysentery when
a bad tainted water truck was providing water
there and he I mean he helped Army Corps of Engineers
to help keep the dam from breaching so he did
a lot of wonderful things I mean so many of these
guys just did so many wonderful things outside
the scope of HAM radio, so it was pretty cool.
It was pretty cool, and a lot of people truly
saved lives. I mean, especially once we moved
them into the hospitals, once we were with the
FEMA meetings and figured out that these HAMs
needed to be in the hospitals, and that sort
of changed a lot of the mission instead of just
doing safe and well. So, it was pretty cool.
Like you said put it down to just one story so
many cool things happen on this I'm sure where
their mistakes and where their issues of course
there were and that's the thing when you go into
any disaster nothing's gonna go according to
plan and and that's a really important characteristic
is to be able to to change on the fly and adapt
and Put out the fires on a daily basis, you know
and trying to come up with solutions. So There
was a lot of that absolutely You know, I've worked
just tornadoes which are fairly locally you know
isolated and there's always you know a proverbial
fire here and there and you got to go put those
out and try to take care of those things and
you just you just gotta roll with it. Even on
an Aries drill, you know, they're not gonna go
according to plan, you know, I from my Aries,
you know, nothing goes according to plan So and
that's why you have a lot of those drills to
work those kinks out But we didn't have that
luxury. We'd none of us had ever worked before
This was all put together very quickly because
it had to be they needed us there right away.
So Yeah, it was it was pretty amazing how We
really changed a lot of people's mindset on what
amateur radio can provide. People just didn't
realize how valuable we were until we were there
and we got to see it firsthand. I mean, they
just appreciated everything those guys that being
deployed did, you know, that they were there
and we could talk to them. And if they needed
to evacuate a patient and wanted to verify it,
they could just come over to the radio and we
could find out right away. And so that was very
cool. Yeah, excellent excellent work and we thank
you for all that you've done and the team and
and My my little story was one of your colleagues
Joe Bassett normally we talked to him during
school club roundup week from school and he's
usually on the air with a group of kids and and
Working as many schools as we can and I happened
to catch him on on chat and And he was just like
man. I miss school club roundup, man I miss school
club roundup, but I'm down here in Puerto Rico.
I said, oh, you know, I've been telling the kids
about all of this, you know, at school I said,
you know, is there any way we can work? And he's
like, well, yeah, we're kind of winding down.
I'm just manning the radio here. You know, we
can try it. And we tried once and couldn't hear
a thing. And then we tried again the next day.
And, you know, the kids were very excited to
talk to him. Even though it was just for a minute
or two, you know, we're Exposing them to you
know this is this is what you can do with ham
radio and a lot of those kids You know weren't
Well all of them this time were not licensed
yet, and so they're you know operating the school
station with me and That's an incentive for them
to start to get involved and do some of those
things. So it was really cool just to talk to
Joe for a couple minutes. Yeah, I originally
met Joe. It's kind of weird. I was helping doing
dispatching for Hurricane Irma. put a call out
needing some help evacuating an apartment complex
that was senior citizens. There's only one guy
there and trying to evacuate them before it flooded.
And so he, him and a couple of his guys got in
the car and went to go and try and help evacuate
this apartment complex. And then, you know, that
was in Florida, just near Jacksonville. And All
of a sudden, I'm at the airport and there's Joe
and he's like, NV9L, Vail! So I got to meet him
in person after talking to him on the radio,
so that was kind of cool. Oh, and I see Joe's
in the chat. Good guy. Yeah, Joe's listening.
He says, I'm here, so. Hey, Joe. Nice to see
you. Hi, Joe. We're talking about you. He's probably
the better one to interview because he was in
net control and knows more about a lot that happened.
I was at the EOC, so I got traffic. We got traffic
over there of needs and wants from the fire stations
or the hospitals from our ham radio operators
relaying traffic, but he got to probably... get
more immersed in a lot of the happenings going
on there. Yep, oh, he says hi Val, so, yep, he's
over here in the chat. The good guy. Yeah, he
is. Well, thanks to everyone on the team for
your service and the ones who donated the equipment.
I know a lot of that equipment was... was donated
and just shipped right away and made it to Atlanta
for you guys and made all these last minute arrangements
as much as possible. So thanks to everyone for
pitching in to do that. Some incredible work
done there and you all deserve our respect and
gratitude. It was really unique. I don't remember
and I don't think there ever has been a deployment
like this that was You know sent somewhere That
required you know an airplane ride and all the
equipment to be you know boxed up and sent over
and Organized and it was it was something that
was really Different I mean, you know a double
RL normally isn't doing logistical stuff and
they hopped in and ran with it so With all the
unknowns and and all the great things, you know
you did you had an opportunity to learn? So why
don't you talk a little bit about what? You did
learn from doing this effort. You always have
something that you can learn and do better next
time and everything. So if we do have something
like this in the future, you know, if there is
a next time, what can we take away from this?
What can we learn? Well, I think the hardest
part one of the hardest part is we all none of
us knew each other none of us knew who what talents
or you know What everybody's best at or you know
think different things I think going forward
it would be nice to put together some kind of
task force or group already pre trained they
can do drills and and and Beforehand and be ready
to go and each one. You know would have their
roles So, that's a cool thing to have going forward
is everybody's trained, everybody knows each
other, or you know what I mean, have worked with
each other before. So, that was a little bit
of a learning curve because we're all strangers,
basically. And, you know, I would really like
to see FEMA have some kind of ticketing software.
That would have been really nice to have. The
kits, yeah, the kits, I think we really needed
those. dual bands with the 50 watts for where
we were. The HTs were great when you're all in
one building together, close to each other, but
I think, thank God, Red Cross happened to have
eight dual band. mobile rigs, so they could get
50 watt units out on location, so that was pretty
nice. They ordered them two to a case, so when
they ordered the antennas, they only ordered
four antennas because they saw four cases, so
there was only four mag -mount antennas, but
luckily FEMA provided the other four. You know
networking and found out who to talk to and Gary
I think was real instrumental Gary Sessoms in
getting us four more antennas So we had eight
dual bands. So that would be nice to include
in the kit So There's you know a couple things
like that, you know, there's a lot of tweaking
and things that could be done different but for
the most part, I mean With what we had and the
little amount of time and how quickly this was
put together. I think our team did outstanding
they just they really did wonderful I would agree
and Again glad that you're able to roll with
the punches and make some of that work and yeah
when you don't have antennas you just gotta Just
got to go with it, but yeah, I agree from what
I've been hearing the The mobile rigs would have
would have been a big help And who knows maybe
that might have been a logistical issue because
they had to order this stuff bright and early
Monday morning get it overnighted Tuesday put
them all in the kids ship them out Tuesday So
they're waiting in Atlanta on Wednesday, and
it's not like you're ordering three or four You're
ordering 20 of them. So you have to go with what
they have 20 something of. So a 7300 would have
been nice, but I'm sure they probably didn't
have that many of that. So you're kind of limited.
But if that stuff is all there ready to go for
the Justin case down the road, then that can
be prepared and planned for. And Joe, Joe mentions
here too that some redundancy in the HF equipment
kits would have been helpful. Yeah. Well, it's
nice if everybody's kind of trained on the same
equipment. Is that what he's talking about? Yeah.
Yeah. And, and have, and have some backups. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, when I'm my day off and we went out,
we went out dropping off radios and I dropped
off groceries as well to some. people in a certain
area that were lacking food and water. If you
don't have cash, you don't have food or water,
or you don't have food anyway. So there's a lot
of people in definitely needing. Stuff like that
sure sure yeah, and we've posted a couple of
pictures of that happening And I know even you
know even around here when we had some big ice
storms down in Kentucky a few years ago And you
know all the powers out for a week, and it's
the same kind of thing It's if you don't have
cash. You're pretty much out of luck because
you have a way to Run the debit card through
Correct, correct. Cash is king in any times of
emergency. And maybe these people pulled out
what they had and maybe they only had, you know,
some people might only have $50, $60, so that's
not going to last you very long down there. So
I really feel for the people of Puerto Rico,
this is going to be a long time before they're
fully recovered down there and my heart goes
out to all of those people. They've really dealt
with a lot and still are. Yeah, and that's what
we're going to talk about next but we're going
to take a break and we're going to talk a little
bit about that and then we're going to start
taking some of these tweets and chats and calls
and all this that the boards lightened up already.
So we'll get some of those questions in and be
back with Val right after this word from Tower
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Well, it's time for your calls and your questions
for Val. The phone number is 812 -NET -HAM -1
812 -638 -4261 or you can Skype us or tweet us
and we've even got activity in the chat on Spreaker
here tonight. So we'll take some of those. But
first off, I want to lead with something about
what's going on right now. And I know you don't
have a lot of information on this, but They still
need our help. There's still a lot going on.
And as you said, our hearts really go out to
them for all the things that they're going to
have to work on over the next year or more. So
what's going on right now? And what's the immediate
future look like for communications down there?
Well, I still do get the ESTF2 Task Force Communication
Operational Update reports every day, I'm still
on their list, so I'm pulling out my current
report today. You know, they give you things
like, there's 2 ,693 cell sites in Puerto Rico.
I remember when I first got there, I think only
300 or 400 were up. Right now, there's 1 ,500
up, so there's still 1 ,182 cell sites down,
so they only have 56 % of the sites up. But that's
going to be a long time, because most of these
are in the center of the island, which is very
mountainous. And mudslides took a lot of the
roads out. I know they had to airlift a lot of
the Air Force guys onto these mountaintops. and
they would just camp and stay there, the Air
Force tower climbers, and clean up the towers
and get ready for the ants on a hill operation,
which is what they called it when they would
go out and put antennas up. So it looks like
things are getting a lot better in that department.
I know water is going to be an issue for a long
time, especially up in the northwest side of
the island near... There's about 350 ,000 people
that it's going to be a long time before they
have water because their channel was destroyed.
And that's a 10 and a half mile channel through
really rugged terrain with no roads. That was
all just mudslided away. So I know water is going
to be an issue for quite some time down there.
You know what? And I forgot to thank The local
hams on the island too. I just really want to
give a shout out to those guys. The local guys,
even though they were impacted and their families
and their homes were impacted, I mean, it looked
like a tornado hit that whole island. They were
on that, the local repeater every day helping
the power grid, the power company bring up the
grid. And so they really deserve. a big round
of applause. So yeah, I really don't know that
much about what's going on now. I haven't really
talked to Oscar. I talked to him on his birthday
and things were going alright. He misses all
of us and wish we were still down there and I
wish I was still down there and I'm sure a lot
of us still do. I thought our activation went
way too fast and it would have been nice to stay
at least another week or two. But it is what
it is and so they have shares operators shares
radio operators down there right now and I think
their activation is probably going to be ending
in the next 10 days or so because they sort of
came in as we were leaving and They were going
to be active for 30 days. So that's got to be
coming up pretty soon Okay, so we don't know
exactly what's what's going to happen after they
leave them Yeah, I'm not sure if they're renewing
and bringing in another 30. I will try and get
on the phone with Oscar and try and get more
details. I know he's been very busy. I did just
talk to Angel. Angel Vasquez over at, he is out
at the Arecibo and he finally has internet on
a steady basis and he said he wanted to make
sure I was one of the first ones he emailed and
so they're doing well. He said water's still
an issue even by them. They're just north of
the town of Arecibo heading up towards the observatory.
It's gonna be a while before everybody's back
to normal there a pretty long time Sure is so
again a big round of applause and we'll play
a real round of applause here All right. Well,
let's see if we can knock out some of these questions
here we like I said the boards lighten up here
tonight, so I'll quit asking my stuff and start
looking at these David Wilma asks. Can you explain
the FEMA communications task force you mentioned
on? Ham nation a little bit ago. Oh Sure, that
was that was put together. You know, I had been
working at the EOC probably the third or fourth
day into our deployment. And they just put that
together, I want to say the first, let me see,
I have all my emails still, oh my god, I got
so many emails, it was crazy how much paperwork
I had to do. Kickoff meeting follow -up was on
September 30th, so that was pretty early on that
that started and it was... It wasn't just FEMA,
I mean the FCC was there, DOD, National Guard,
Secret Service, VA's, External Affairs group
was there. They sort of handle a lot of things
with like Health and Human Services and different
things and combining efforts so things didn't
get done or duplicated, so they were there. MERS.
I mean, there's so many people in there that
it's really hard to remember everybody, but there's
all these different groups that had anything
to do with communications was in that meeting.
At least one person from that group in that meeting.
And that's where we kind of hashed out and solved
problems with trying to get communications on
that island. Because that was the number one
thing. I mean, people need food and water, but
you need safety. And in order for that, you need
communications. It's like communications. You
need that before you can get a lot of that other
stuff. Especially when we first got there, safety
was a big concern. We had that every day, even
on Saturdays and Sundays. No one really took
a day off. Everybody pretty much did 12 -hour
days there. We'd have that meeting every morning
and work on ways to come up and solve these problems.
At one point, they wanted us They needed people
at the hospitals. That's where we really got
the thing to do the hospitals. And there were
51 operational hospitals, but they didn't know
which ones had communications, which ones didn't.
So I had to go around to all these different
tables until I find someone who could give me
a list of hospitals and phone numbers. And I
went out on the balcony, because I got the best
cell service out there, and I just started calling
them. They answered the phone. I hung up. And
I was like, OK, we don't need to send AM there.
You just got to kind of. go with the flow and
do what you can to figure things out because
everything was happening so fast and you know
nobody there was no communication so that was
really really the the number one thing that we
really had to work on. Now David's following
up here asking what did they do? Who do? The
FEMA task force. What was their active job? Well,
we put together they put together teams to go
out and the ants on a hill operation and then
they all these different Different people they
I mean it was really what was really hard with
a lot of this with these cell sites, too Nobody
knows who owns what and if then you finally figured
out who owned that tower How do you get a hold
of them the phones don't work? So how do you
get out there and you know, and if the roads
aren't working and I mean there was a lot of
obstacles to try and just bring communications
to that island. They handed satellite phones
to the hospitals, the mayors, the police, but
that doesn't, who are you gonna call? The other
person on the other end has to be outside with
a clear view of the sky, happen to have the sat
phone on, you know? So it's really, and then
the satellites were overtaxed because it's not
used to having that many people with a satellite
phone. I mean, so. It was just coming up with
ways to solve problems. So in the meeting, then
the one guy says, �Well, I know who to call to
move in more satellites over Puerto Rico.� So
they actually moved more satellites over Puerto
Rico, so the satellites weren't always busy.
It was just stuff like that, constantly. There
were always obstacles. generator goes to which
cell site or generators they go and fuel them
up and then someone steal the fuel or steal the
generator. So I mean there was always every day
there was just so much to take care of and so
many problems to solve and it was just never
ending. And Joe throws in FBI. Yeah, they were
in there too. You name it. They're everywhere.
Yeah, and then the second floor of the thing
was where the Prima was which was the Puerto
Rico version of FEMA and Health and Human Services
was down there and that's where the Puerto Rican
government officials but we were up on the third
floor and we did have a Prima official in there
as well. So yeah, it was well represented by
anybody in the communication business. Boy, I
learned a lot about a lot of things in that meeting.
and dealing with those people even when the meetings
were over trying to solve problems. Dr. Scott
Wright, KZeroMD says thank you for your service.
He wanted me to pass that along. He's off in
some country doing training right now. He said
it was like 3 a .m. Thank you, Scott. Marty KC1CWF
asks about lugging the equipment around. Was
that a problem? Was it heavy? Were there issues
with that? Well, it was a Pelican case on wheels
with a handle. So it's like a extra large, double
large suitcase. And they were, gosh, I remember
looking at the scale when we had to put them
on. I'm trying to remember how much they were,
maybe 60 pounds. Oh gosh, I don't remember. But
we really didn't have to lift them. They were
on wheels and you just... lug them around so
that was fine. Okay and Carl KD9HQT says have
you had any antennas during uh emergency communications
where they go down like um I know Carl's upset
today his mast fell while he was working on it
and broke his antenna uh but of course it can't
happen in the summer oh of course of course so
did you have any backup way to make Just a quick
dipole or anything like that? Well, I personally
wasn't deployed. I was at that convention center.
So I mean, at one point we had to move our antenna.
We moved it from one end of the convention center
to the other. But I'm really not a good person
to ask on that. And I really didn't handle the
net control. So I didn't hear a lot. I only got
the traffic that pertained to people needing
things from FEMA if they needed. Fuel or airlift
or you know, they needed oxygen tanks or you
know pharma any kind of meds So that's mostly
what I dealt with at my end net control really
probably got would have been more in the know
on that I was speaking of that control pieces
56 pounds Is that what it was? Okay. Yeah, so
it's not that bad, you know, so we can all pretty
much lift 50 pounds even me David Wilma again
asks, would you improve screening for volunteers?
Well, see, that's a hard thing. I mean, how do
you know how to screen? I mean, it would be nice
if there was a lot of ARIES training and things
like that. And that's why I think putting together
a team beforehand, you know, I mean, FEMA does
this. people already trained, ready to go, they
get put on call when a hurricane's coming, so
they're all packed, ready to go if they need
to be, down there right away. So I think going
forward, that's definitely something the ARRL
should look into, or it doesn't even have to
be really ARRL, it could be the ARIES group puts
that together, which is a part of ARRL, but you
know, somebody put together some kind of task
force and they can... do drills and practice
and be ready to go. I think definitely that's
going to be a huge thing for them to look at.
We should have just got Joe on the line here.
He's also saying we had to bag, borrow, and whatever
backup equipment. Oh yeah, from a lot of it,
yeah. Including antennas. Everything, all our
kits, people robbed for this kit to take for
this kit and luckily, you know... So, but you
know, we ended up being on the air. So that was
the important thing and making it work. And that's
what hams do. Yup. That's the name of the game
is, is making it work. And, uh, they're all MacGyver.
Like I said, yeah, you never know. Yeah. It got
MacGyver coming in here and, uh, and making something
out of nothing. And that's exactly what we have
to do sometimes. That really impressed a lot
of the other people. These guys were out there
fixing generators or air conditioners or doing
stuff that had nothing to do with ham radio.
I know many times I did many things that had
nothing to do with ham radio. That's what makes,
I think, our group so special. Yeah, absolutely.
I like the idea of maybe have a pool of people
trained especially for that so that way you can
take whoever is available at the time and have...
a little more training on that. So good lessons
learned from all of this and great work and Val,
our time is up, but I want to thank you so much
for coming on. Yeah, it does. It goes by. It
goes by quick. Thank you for taking all the questions
and thanks for coming on and look forward to
seeing you here in a few months and we'll be
talking to you. All right. Thank you. All right,
thanks so much, and hi to mom and dad there for
Thanksgiving, too, so we'll say hi to them. All
right, well, that's a wrap for this week's edition
of HamTalk Live. I'd like to thank my guest,
Val Hotsfeld, NV9L, and everyone out there in
cyberspace. for chiming in online this evening.
Great to have all of your questions. And come
back next Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time.
We're going to talk to Scott Avery, W -A -6 -L
-I -E. He'll be here to talk about remote hams.
So a way for you to get on the air when putting
up an antenna and a rig may not. be possible.
For a list of all of our upcoming guests, be
sure to visit HamTalkLive .com and click on the
schedule link. For now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG,
saying 7375, and may the good DX be yours. Thanks
for watching.