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The VoIP Hurricane Net with Rob Masado KD1CY
and Lloyd Colston KC5FM recorded live on Thursday
March 16th 2017. I'm your host Neil Rapp WB9VPG.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of HamTalk
Live. Tonight we're joined by Rob Masado KD1CY
and Lloyd Colston KC5FM. from the voiceover IP
Hurricane Net. We'll take your calls live in
just a few minutes. Last week on the show, Frank
Bauer, KA -3 HDO, was here to talk about the
status of the equipment on board the International
Space Station. And if you missed that show, you
can listen anytime at HamTalkLive .com. Just
click on the episode you want to listen to. Or
you can download the podcast from iTunes, Stitcher,
Google Play, TuneIn. or SoundCloud or several
other podcasting services as well, and we're
also on a YouTube channel. Before we get started
on our break and get to the interview, we want
to remind people that the ABC TV hit comedy Last
Man Standing will be shooting its last episode
of the season on Tuesday. So to commemorate That
occasion Ka6 LMS will be on the air as they Typically
are from the Mike Baxter set, but they'll be
on about 2245 UTC This season last man standing
licensed several crew members and special guest
operators have worked From the set, well over
a thousand stations, both Sideband and CW, and
also on D -Star. So this Tuesday, the 21st of
March, will be the last chance to work the stage
until hopefully next season. Operating times
and frequencies will be posted on their Facebook
page. That's the Mike Baxter K -A -0 -X -T -T
Facebook page. That'll be posted sometime on
Tuesday as soon as they have a feel for the schedule.
So don't miss out on that. If you haven't worked
them, be sure to give them a call. So tonight
we're talking some Skywarn stuff and we're looking
at it from the... IRLP, EchoLink, and VoiceOver
IP way to go tonight. So get those questions
ready to go. And after the interview, you can
call us. The telephone number is 812 -NET -TAM
-1. That's 812. 638 -4261 or you can Skype us.
The username is HamTalk Live. You can also send
a question by Twitter and our Twitter handle
is at HamTalk Live. So I'll be back with Rob
and Lloyd right after this word from Tower Electronics
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it on HamTalk Live and HamTalk Live is on the
air every Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time
Right here on HamTalkLive .com and if you missed
the show You can listen to the archive on the
website or you can catch us on most popular podcasting
web services Rob Masito KD1CY mispronounced his
name earlier we were fighting Skype issues and
I didn't get a chance to ask for that, so my
apologies there. It's Robert Macedo, KD1CY. He
is the Director of Operations for the Voice over
IP Hurricane Net. He's been an amateur radio
operator for 29 years and has been dedicated
to public service work for the Skywarn program
for the National Weather Service in Taunton,
Massachusetts and their station. Rob has been
very involved in the amateur radio emergency
services program as the Eastern Massachusetts
Section Emergency Coordinator from 2005 to 2014
and currently serves as the Eastern Massachusetts
Ares Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator
as the liaison to the National Weather Service
and the State Emergency Management and Federal
Emergency Management Region 1. Since 2004, he's
also been involved with the VoIP. Skywarn Hurricane
Net that supports the National Hurricane Center
Station, WX4NHC. Professionally, Rob is a senior
manager in the drive storage media engineering
team at Dell Technologies in the Dell EMC division
where he's worked for close to 22 years. Lloyd
Colston, KC5FM, is the public information officer
for the VoIP Hurricane Net. And Lloyd has been
a net control for the Hurricane Net on VoIP since
2004. He joined the team in 2006 as the public
information officer, which ties to his career
with emergency management within Oklahoma. Lloyd's
a past ARRL section manager for Oklahoma and
currently is the public information officer for
that group. He's a member of several clubs and
nets including QCWA, 1010, Christian Amateur
Radio Fellowship, the Less Involved Data Society,
the Croatian Telegraphy Club, the Russian CW
Club, and Southcars. So Rob, Lloyd, thank you
so much for joining us on HamTalk Live tonight.
Thanks for having us great to be here Neil Yeah,
thanks a lot and sorry Skype was being Skype
earlier. We were trying to get everything working.
We've got everybody together here now, so Hopefully
that'll Keep working here tonight But we want
to start off just talking About the VoIP hurricane
net a little bit and a few months ago We did
a show here on ham talk live about the hurricane
watch net that meets on HF. So This is a different
net that Also has a lot of the same functions
But does it all over VoIP? So tell us the differences
Between the hurricane watch net and the Voip
hurricane net and If any of the goals are the
same or different and do you work together with
the HF net? Tell us how that is is I guess compare
and contrast. It would be the teacher thing to
say the two nets Yeah, so first of all the hurricane
watch net is a very distinguished net that has
been around since 1965 and certainly on the VOIP
hurricane net side we are a much younger net,
but we have worked with Bobby Graves and others
within the hurricane watch net over the last
good 10 or so plus years since the VOIP hurricane
that has been in existence. We work together
to put together the program for the amateur radio
workshop working with WX4NHC, the amateur radio
station at the National Hurricane Center. And
our nets exist to help support their mission
to save lives and property and have surface reporting
into the National Hurricane Center specialists
at WX4NHC and to maintain a vital communication.
link with the National Weather Service local
forecast offices and regional offices that the
Weather Service has across the country. Yes,
we are focused on Echolink and IRLP links and
repeater linked systems through those networks.
And we're looking at expanding into some of the
other VOIP networks as time goes on. They have
a system that can reach out. We can reach to,
for example, technician amateurs that don't have
HF licenses or don't have the ability to get
on HF from their locations. It allows us to interact
with some of the more local Skyware nets where
we can... work with them ahead of time to establish
either a liaison path or a connection with their
nets. And certainly, depending on more infrastructure,
so there can certainly be scenarios where we
lose the internet connectivity. A lot of times
those connections are able to stay up. Generally,
if there's backup power, that's usually the first
thing that goes is the power, then potentially
the internet connectivity, depending on where
it's based from. But we have found in A number
of hurricane situations, we've been able to maintain
some vital links through the internet -linked
repeater systems on Echolink and IROP, and the
same can be true for others, where we've been
able to have good communication, good reporting
from those areas. uh... where when required and
you know it's not a competition you know these
nets uh... our net hurricane watch that are supporting
wx -4 nhc mission and uh... it's there to uh...
again, provide that reporting into the Hurricane
Center and quite often we'll have these reports
shared with other agencies during Hurricane Matthew.
We had the FEMA Region 4 team of amateurs on
the air and they were sharing the information
we were collecting from our net into their agency.
And maybe I'll have Lloyd say a few words here
and some reinforcing points here as well. And
Rob's right, it's not competition. It's about
serving serve agencies. That's what the amateur
radio emergency service is about. That's the
mission of SkyWarn, and I have been in SkyWarn
for a long, long time. I'll give you a couple
of examples. You know, HF is dependent upon the
ionosphere to bounce the signals. And on the
Christian Amateur Radio Fellowship Net that you
mentioned, We meet early in the morning, and
75 meters when there's a solar storm, it's kind
of hard to communicate on HF. So we can supplement
that and get the reports from the field for the
hurricane center so that they can get ground
-truth intelligence. That's what Skyborne offers.
support the mission. I also recall a time where,
I believe it was Hurricane Charlie, there was
an operator on the Key West and he was on a walkie
talkie and his battery on his walkie talkie failed
before the network did. So we were able to give
and give real intelligence to him so he could
be safe. and from him so we can get the information
to the National Hurricane Center. And then another
example, picking on Florida again, there was
an AT &T telephone technician who could not use
the telephone to call the Emergency Operations
Center in Tallahassee. He got on EchoLink on
our weather talk conference. I talked to him.
He wanted information conveyed to the Emergency
Operations Center. And from my Emergency Operations
Center in Altus, Oklahoma, I picked up the phone
and called Tallahassee and gave them the information
that they needed to do recovery during that disaster.
So it's not a competition. We have people who
fail because, well, the electrons don't work.
And the HF bands don't work. So it's a compliment.
And the goal is to support the National Weather
Service sky -warming programs through the National
Hurricane Center. All right. Very good. Good
explanation of all of that. So how do hams access
the net whenever you guys are activated? How
do they go about getting in if they have some
kind of a report to make? So there are basically
local Echolink and IRLP nodes that can be accessed
and you would access the star wx underscore t
-a -l -k star star wx underscore talk star a
conference, that's Echolink Note 7203. On the
IRLP side, you can access 9219. We can accept
connections from both areas. And as I said, we're
looking at some other things. Can we get connected
in with All -Star? Can we interface some of the
other digital modes? But today, it is Echolink
and IRLP based. And this information is available
at our website, voipwx .net. We also have our
social media feeds. And in terms of Well, do
I have an EchoLink or IRLP node in my area? You
can look up the IRLP status page and check for
IRLP nodes in your area. On the EchoLink website,
there's ways to search for EchoLink nodes, or
you can download EchoLink onto your computer
or cell phone, and you're able to use that to
connect in from the EchoLink side. There are
some limitations on the cell phone side. If we
get a lot of cell phones connected, that can
cause, there are some limitations there. into
the new hurricane season, we're looking into
ability to extend the number of connections that
we can have there. And we can also talk about
listen -only capability. We do bring in some
nodes for folks that just want to listen into
what's happening on the network. Lloyd, why don't
you reinforce a couple of those points there
as well. Well, it is important that the information
for the voipwx .net webpage, voipwx .net, will
explain how to access the net. When there is
a net activation, there's live streaming there
so that you can listen to the net without being
connected to the net. Monitoring is always good.
It's also important that the operator outside
the affected area go to the listen -only servers.
VKMcom is one. Again, this is explained on vypwx
.net. And the idea there is it takes the overhead
off of the mission critical communications that
we use now. I've mentioned the vypwx .net website.
There's also a way to make your report. on the
website and that report will go directly into
the National Hurricane Center as well. So there's
multiple streams and multiple manners in which
a listener can participate with our net. Very
good. So the stream then if you're just listening
Would probably be a better way to go then I assume
because then you're not tying up another port
that Could be used for somebody who has traffic
to get into the net Correct, that's that's a
good summary the idea though. It's about serving
the National Hurricane Center And Rob mentioned
the Twitter account and Facebook, voipwx .net
on Twitter. And it really is a SkyWarn program.
If you monitor voipwx .net, I'm sorry, voipwxnet,
not the dot. If you'll monitor there, every time
there's a landfalling hurricane from anything
from the Mother Service National Hurricane Center,
And any weather service office along the Gulf
Coast in one state in is automatically tweeted.
So if there's a dense fog advisory in Texas,
that effort by the OIPWX net on Twitter is designed
to give the operator a situational awareness
of where the bad storms are. and what's happened,
who's got warning, and who's just in a watch.
And that helps our net maintain the situational
awareness so we can support the National Hurricane
Center and by extension those offices serving
the Gulf Coast area. Okay, so the reports that
you're collecting tell us a little bit about
what information you're looking for What if there's
any protocols so that people need to know? and
and what the criteria is You know for making
a report besides. Well, it's raining You know
you can get a hundred thousand. It's raining
reports and that just ties up the system. So
What, what's the criteria for sending something
in? So basically to simplify it, it's the Skywarn
reporting criteria. We have that criteria posted
on the VOIP WX net website. Generally. measured
wind gusts 40 miles per hour or greater, any
kind of tree and power line damage, any kind
of river stream or urban flooding, any kind of
coastal storm surge flooding if people are in
an area where they're safe but are able to observe
that flooding. We want to hear about that. Any
type of tornadic activity. Hurricanes can produce
tornadoes and obviously we want people to be
safe. We don't want people chasing. But if they
observe a tornado through their area, we want
to hear about that. Any measured rainfall reports
are helpful. And in a hurricane, we like to hear
about lowest barometric pressure. that can be
interesting information to track where the center
of a system is. And also if the eye of the hurricane
is coming over the area, you get that calm, the
rain stops, the high winds stop, you get into
that eye where it's calm, and then you'll get
into the backside of the hurricane, which sometimes
can be the stronger side of the hurricane depending
on which direction it is coming from. That information
is, extremely helpful. Some other ways to gather
information, number of amateur radio operators,
many of us are able to monitor their local public
safety. Getting reports from there can be helpful
to know what's going on around their particular
town or county. That information can be helpful.
necessarily there are cases where they're you
know the county and public safety folks can call
in their reports and other times they're too
busy dealing with the incident so even if that
information is just good it's good for situational
awareness and and and being able to uh understand
what are the sensible conditions out there are
we getting the damage and such where it is hurricane
forced or is the system weakening? And we're
not getting those conditions as strong as expected.
So again, those are some ways that we can gather
a lot of good information. And again, the Sky
1 reporting criteria is pretty standard across
the country. That's really a good guideline of
what we're looking for. Lloyd, any further comment
there? Certainly, the idea is to do these reports
safely. That's the onus of Skywarn. First, you
have to keep yourself safe, your family safe.
But during, if you are out and you see a quarter
size hail or larger, that's a Skywarn reportable
event. So do report that. It's a life safety
issue. If you see someone who is in danger, and
you can't call 911, but you can connect on the
echo link somehow through a radio or smartphone
or however. If you need assistance, our net controls
are trained to help you. And we have during hurricane
season, we have weekly nets and it's a training
net. At least there's a question of the week
designed to bring some thought to personal preparedness,
reporting, and life safety. How are you going
to maintain? In the off season, we have a monthly
net. And again, there's a question of the month.
What are you doing in the off season to prepare
for the next tornado season, or the next hurricane
season, or the next winter storm season? And
Rob's the expert on winter storms too. Yeah,
we just had a blizzard come through southern
New England and While there have been a lot of
talk about the predictions there, I think overall
it verified pretty well for most of our area.
A bit more rain in southeast New England, specifically
in my home area of Massachusetts, but we had
a lot of areas with greater than 10 inches of
snow. It was a very heavy, wet snow and we had
several wind gusts to hurricane force. Interestingly,
the barometric pressures with this system were
as low as some hurricanes. dipping below 29 inches
of mercury down around 2880, 2890 in inches and
around 980 to 983 millibars which is It's as
potent as some hurricanes in terms of the barometric
pressure readings. So, and we were very active
at our image radio station at the National Weather
Service in Taunton, WX1BOX, and we use an Echolink
and IRLP technology in a conference very similar
to what we do for the VOIP Hurricane Net, but
it's a different conference and reflector system,
reflector channel that we use on the Echolink
and IRLP side. We still do a lot of local VHF
UHF nets. We have even a little bit of six meters
in HF. But we have Echolink and IRLP in our operations
for SkyWarn in southern New England. And as I
said, we were very active on Tuesday, about 17
hours of continuous operation for that blizzard.
quite a week up in the northeast. So well, we
are running a little bit behind here. So let's
stop and we're going to take a break and then
we'll come back and we'll give a chance for people
to ask questions. The phone number 812 net ham
one or Skype ham talk live or tweet us at ham
talk live and I'll be back. and take your calls
right after this message from The Ham Station
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Well it's time for your calls. If you have a
question for Rob and or Lloyd, give us a call.
The phone number is 812 -NET -HAM -1. That's
812 -638 -4261 or you can Skype us. Our username
is talk live or you can tweet at ham talk live
and let us know what questions you have I know
that Lloyd had a couple of things you want to
talk about the importance of skywarn training
and a couple of things so while we're waiting
on the calls Lloyd go ahead and talk about that
and if you're out there listening and you're
gonna call in why go ahead and give us a call
Thank you. And the idea, Neil, is that Skyborne
trains spotters, not chasers. We want the listener
to be safe. We don't want them to expose themselves
and their families to unnecessary hazards to
get a report to the National Weather Service.
So each year, our ALSA Skyborne Association,
for example, has to, it's mandatory by that organization,
they have to attend a stand -up Skywarn training
from the National Weather Service, or this year
the group converted a webinar and had people,
about 40 people, register to come to the webinar,
listen to it, and get that training. And again,
it's not so you're out there as a chaser. The
primary focus, number one focus, from the National
Weather Service training that I've attended is
be safe, you be safe. And that's the purpose
of training people how to be safe when there's
an approaching thunderstorm or hurricane or the
like. Very good. And yeah, that's so and up here
in tornado alley, we hear the same thing about
tornadoes. So always good to keep that in mind
that you're you're a spotter, not a chaser and
We don't need need you getting into You know
adding to the problem and having to rescue you
so that's That's an important note eight one
two net ham one is the phone number eight one
two six three eight four two six one or Tweet
us over on Twitter at ham talk live or Skype
is at ham talk live and you had one other Point
you want to make Rob or I'm sorry, Lloyd? Well,
in addition to the training, participation in
our nets, increasingly each year, EchoLink has
been easy to add to my computer, easy to add
to my phone. I've got it on my phone, my tablet,
Android and iOS both. And from the EOC, it's
on a computer. From my laptop, it's on a computer.
you can participate in our net, please do. And
if you want to know the net times, and they just
changed because they like saving time, if you
want to know the net times, go to voipwx .net,
voipwx .net. And those are for the regular nets.
Training nets and those are weekly during hurricane
season and monthly during the offseason, correct?
Right and when there's an active hurricane, it's
daily all day long sometimes Okay, very good.
So important information to have around. So again
voipwx .net is where you will find all that information
and be sure to check that out if you're in those
areas that can can help out with the Voice over
IP Hurricane Net we're talking about tonight
here on HamTalk Live. Again the phone number
812 -NAT -HAM -1, 812 -638 -4261 or give us a
tweet at HamTalk Live or give us a call on Skype
at HamTalk Live and we may have everybody watching
basketball tonight. I don't know who scheduled
this during basketball, but oh well. I heard
it was somebody famous. Yeah, it probably was.
Probably was thought. Hey, you know, let's go
ahead and have the heavens have a show Anyway
At least at least my Wildcats aren't playing
tonight. So that's tomorrow night. So we'll get
that in So would it would it be okay if Bob?
Explained if someone wanted to join our net,
it's not a matter of joining and then that Next
day, you're going to be in that control. Sure.
Sure. Absolutely. So yeah, let's, uh, let's talk
about that and a little bit about, uh, what kinds
of activity you saw on the net last year. And
again, if you want to call in or tweet in, uh,
just go ahead and do that. We'll add you and,
uh, and we'll pick up your call. Go ahead, Rob.
Sure. So, um, yeah, so our net is, uh, We don't
have a membership per se. We have the net currently
monthly. It will turn weekly at the start of
hurricane season. are always looking for net
controls, but we don't throw people to the wolves,
as it were. If people are interested, we'd love
to have them come aboard. And if they just want
to be net participants, that's fine as well.
We're always looking for stations along and near
the coastal areas of the U .S. Atlantic. And
we've even had some net activations with some
of the Ecolink and IRLP nodes in the Caribbean.
And that's been very very helpful in cases where,
you know, with the lower sunspot cycles and such,
we don't have the HF propagation to make it all
the way to Hurricane Center. We've been able
to help fill the void where they can have maybe
something going on at 75 meters, either through
the Caribbean Emergency Weather Net or other
similar nets. And then they will bring their
reports up into Ecolink and IRLP if they can't.
have the propagation to reach the other hurricane
watch net or other nets to reach the WX4NHC.
The other thing that we'll do during that activation,
we'll monitor social media. There's a storm blogging
site, stormkrib .com, that has a number of folks
that post on the different tropical storms and
hurricanes and conditions, and that can be a
level of good information. as well as through
Twitter and Facebook and social media gathering
and monitoring information there. So we, you
know, we're the original form of social media.
So we're the ones that can manage social media
the best in my mind. And it's just another way
we can add more eyes and ears to looking at information,
finding critical information during a tropical
system or a hurricane. During Hurricane Matthew
was pretty active. We had a number of net controls.
We had a number of ways we were gathering information.
We also monitored a lot of the APRS and CWAP
weather stations. We monitored some of the online
public safety feeds. We had amateurs checking
in from the various areas that Hurricane Matthew
was affecting. So it's a great way, it's a number
of ways we can gather information and use our
skills of collecting information and providing
it based on the sky one reporting criteria that
can really turn into a a picture that helps emergency
management agencies, national water service offices,
and even the media get a proper situational awareness
disaster intelligence picture. We're even hoping
that it will help have the media say what's happening
out there for real and not get into a hype situation
or anything like that. It gives you a little
bit of our participation, especially with Matthew.
That was the big one. We were active. Both the
Hurricane Watch Net and the Voight Net were active
for nearly a week with that hurricane for all
the land areas that it affected, from Haiti and
eastern Cuba, through the Bahamas, through Florida,
Georgia, south and North Carolina. So that was
definitely a very long activation during this
last hurricane season. 812 net ham one is the
phone number we have just a few minutes remaining,
but we do have time for a call So if you want
to call in now's your chance 812 net ham one
or you can call us on Skype at ham talk live
or Give us a tweet at ham talk live, and I'll
check that again. Just make sure So yeah, it
sounds like you guys have been pretty pretty
active on on there How did how did the net actually
get started? So the net the net's roots started
so there actually was an echo link hurricane
net and a IRLP hurricane that we for be Bob was
the original gentleman on the IRLP side. It was
on the Raleigh Reflectors through the efforts
of KD4RAA Danny Mustin. And Kevin Anderson, KD5WX
was the net manager on the Echolink side. And
then at the time, the two networks couldn't be
connected together. and this was in the roughly
2002 to 2003 time frame. In 2004, the nets were
combined and Danny and Kevin were basically the
co -net managers for the net. I came onto the
scene in 2004 as a net control and then that
was the year, if you remember, we had four Florida
hurricanes and it was a very active hurricane
season, mostly focused on Florida. but active
nonetheless. And they were, with the exception
of Hurricane Charlie, although that was maybe
a little over a day, the other hurricanes were
slower movers and multiple day activations and
one right after the other. And we had to schedule
a lot of net controls. So I took on the responsibility
at Kevin and Danny's recommendation to plan out
net control schedules for the activations. Eventually,
that led to me becoming the Director of Operations
for the NET. Danny and Kevin will check in once
in a while. I kind of like to refer to them as
they're the co -founders of the NET. Danny still
provides the IRLP resources with the Raleigh
Reflector Group and Kevin checks in with me once
in a while on things, but it's almost like Chairman
Emeritus status, if you will. They're kind of
the co -founders, the original folks that...
brought the net into being, but I run the day
-to -day operations. Lloyd is our PR guy, and
we have several others that help manage the net
in our net management team. All right, very good.
Well, we've got about a minute left, so we'll
give you a chance to throw in anything that we
missed here, and then it's going to be time for
us to sign off. All right. Well, let me I'll
just kick it off to say thank you for having
me on the program tonight and it was good to
be on here and I hope folks enjoyed hearing about
our net and I want to thank Lloyd for Helping
them set this up and glad to be a part of this
tonight and I'll give Lloyd the final word and
The idea I want every listener to be safe Your
safety is paramount in this whole thing because
if you're not safe What we're doing is pretty
much useless. So be safe, be educated, and participate
with BYPWX .net is the website. All right, guys.
Rob Lloyd, thank you so much for being on tonight.
And that's a wrap for this week's edition of
HamTalk Live. I'd like to thank my guests. Rob
Macedo, KD1CY, and Lloyd Colston, KC5FM, and
everyone out there in cyberspace for listening
and invite you all back next Thursday night at
9 p .m. Eastern Time when Pat Barkey, N9RV, will
be here and he's going to talk about his contest
station and his massive antenna array out there
in Montana and he's the editor of the National
Contest Journal and so we'll be talking. about
that as well. For a list of all of our upcoming
guests just go over to HamTalkLive .com and we'll
put some links over there as well to the Weather
Nets and you can check those out over there as
well. So for now this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying
7375 and may the good DX be yours! Thanks for
watching! 73, and good luck from HamTalk Live.