Randy, HamWAN is alive in EWA. Particularly, Spokane. We will be making some pushes to further our connections towards the middle of the state this year, as well as work with anyone who has time and energy from the West side, to bridge the gap over the cascades. I also have some effort to expand Spokane north and south along the EWA region, as I've currently got the "in" I need at a few facilities. Sites as you know, can be difficult to gain access to, especially with little interest and support for the infrastructure side. HamWAN, Particularly PSDR, is fortunate to have a strong presence in the WWA Region, and a strong management team to push development of the backbone. We're lacking that over on this side. 1200 baud packet and WinLink seem to be the kool aid folks are OK with over here, sadly! As for DMR, Please pass on any contacts you might have. The downside for DMR in the Emergency community on the west side that I can see, is that there is no one involved in the DMR system, who is active in any of the Regional EmComm efforts. And if there is, they sure haven't spoken up after many attempts to raise those poor souls! The East side, I just can't get anyone in EmComm groups to even look at it.. well, because it's not Winlink. As you know, we do have a large presence of DMR across the state, and likely could cover all of RC's territory offices in WA. So please feel free to pass on my info as well to those folks. Thanks for the update! Rod / KC7AAD On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 12:00 PM <psdr-request@hamwan.org> wrote:
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Today's Topics:
1. Seattle/King County Red Cross now on HamWAN (Randy Neals) 2. Re: Seattle/King County Red Cross now on HamWAN (Dylan Ambauen) 3. Re: Seattle/King County Red Cross now on HamWAN (Bart Kus)
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Message: 1 Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2019 20:43:20 -0800 From: Randy Neals <randy@neals.ca> To: Puget Sound Data Ring <psdr@hamwan.org> Subject: [HamWAN PSDR] Seattle/King County Red Cross now on HamWAN Message-ID: < CAHDTD7qovQjwqfWhsWYLFnYSvXaebcCGWgVpYXtEgwbhsom0fQ@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
FYI,
Today I attended KC Red Cross in Seattle with Frank, K7RSD. They operate a Red Cross Disaster Services radio room in the basement of the Seattle RC building and have a 50' tower on the roof with VHF and HF antennas / station.
We installed a Mikrotik SXQ on the tower pointing at Beacon-S3. The path is short/visual and about -65dBm / 7 Mbps up/down.
We deployed a small ethernet switch and HamWAN / Seattle ACS IP Phone in the RC radio room, all of which can run on building generator system. Tested SIP phone with Seattle ACS / Seattle EOC. (HamWan ext 8081)
Red Cross team is interested in connectivity from Seattle to Spokane. Apparently Spokane is a staging area for moving disaster assistance west to Seattle. I advised nothing near term, but that longer term something is likely to develop re Ham Networks to Spokane.
I also recognize that the disaster potential/risk factors for E Washington are different than for W Washington. Having a HamWan network extend over the mountains to Yakima/Wenatchee and relying on public Internet to then reach Spokane is likely workable as the typical Earthquake scenario for Puget Sound that emergency planners work to isn't likely to affect infrastructure in Eastern Washington.
The Northwest Region Red Cross is HQ in Seattle. There are branch/chapter offices in Kennewick, Spokane, Bremerton, Bellingham, Everett and Tacoma. Most have a disaster service radio station.
If you have an interest in helping your local Red Cross chapter office with a connection to HamWAN, I can put you in touch with hams at the Seattle regional office and perhaps there is a pull-through effort to get more of the braches on the network.
For our DMR friends... There may be a good opportunity to support NW Red Cross disaster services via DMR talk groups. Given the wide reach of DMR, that might be a tool the RC could have in their kit. The wide spread nature of Red Cross offices and regions, seem to be a poster-child use-case for PNW DMR.
Randy W3RWN Seattle