SARSI. Volume 1, Issue 2. March The State of Amateur Radio in the State of Indiana. In This Issue. Editor s Note 2

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1 Photos: Gene Dolgner, KC9RLC SARSI The State of Amateur Radio in the State of Indiana Volume 1, Issue 2 March 2012 In This Issue Editor s Note 2 Free Emergency Management Institute Training NWS Weather Spotter Training Lessons from AUXCOMM First ARES Response Holton Tornado The State of Packet Radio in Indiana Distribution of Hams in Indiana County Scores Back Cover 4

2 Editor s Note Brian D. Smith, WW9A With this, our second, in what we hope is a long line of semiannual releases of SARSI, we are moving toward a more professional looking format for the publication and hoping to attract content from more writers across the state. The first change that you may notice from the September 2011 issue is the graphic design changes. Rather than compiling these pages in a variety of different software packages and then importing them into a single Adobe Acrobat document, this issue is being built as a single publication from the beginning, which we hope will improve the continuity, readability and overall usefulness to you, the readers. Second, we have heard the opinions of last issue s readers and split some of last issue s maps into separate ones, helping to make them more readable and useable. Finally, we ve been working on trying to compile all of this data into one single data point to help with the question, How s my county doing? We tried to do this in a way that leveled the playing field between large and small counties and between urban and rural counties. We also wanted to do our best to provide this data point as a rating, not a ranking, to avoid a our county is better than yours mentality. The most fair measure that we were able to develop we have called the County Score. The County Score is simply the calculation below: This calculation is done for each of the 92 counties in Indiana. In addition, if the county has an ARES team, they earn an additional point. They earn another if their county has a RACES team. While we do not claim that this measure is the absolute best possible solution, it is a start. The calculated county scores can be found later in this issue, along with all of the other charts and maps. As always, we hope that you find this publication to be educational and useful. Feel free to share copies of all or part of this publication with your cohorts to help your local ham community. The State of Amateur Radio in the State of Indiana (SARSI) is a publication of South Central Indiana Communications Support Group, Inc. It is published semiannually (normally in March and September). Comments, questions, suggestions and submissions can be sent to ww9a@scicsg.org. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California SARSI March 2012

3 Free Training from Emergency Management Institute FEMA, through it s Emergency Management Institute offers dozens of free independent study courses via their website at training.fema.gov/is These courses range from the very basic to more detailed, with selections for the average citizen and for those interested in being more involved in emergency management or disaster response. Among the most popular courses for ARES and RACES team members are course numbers IS-100, IS-200, IS-700 and IS If you are a member of a local ARES or RACES team, contact your EC or RO to determine which courses are desirable for your team. NWS Weather Spotter Training While many communities hold National Weather Service (NWS) weather spotter training on a regular basis, not all communities do and not all interested parties are able to attend. Are you looking for a way to stay up-to-date on your weather spotter training? Are you looking for a way to hold a class for your local ARES team, RACES team or amateur radio club? NWS Indianapolis now has the weather spotter training online to help with these issues. The presentation is available at: Lessons from AUXCOMM During the weekend of January 7 and 8, 2012, thirty amateur radio operators from throughout the state met at the Integrated Public Safety Commission (IPSC) Communications Training Center on east 21st Street in Indianapolis for the first offering of DHS s Auxiliary Communications (AUXCOMM) Workshop in the state. While many other workshops intended for amateur radio emergency communicators focus on our operations and capabilities, this course focuses on our ability to work with other organizations and agencies through the NIMS/ICS framework. While a significant amount of time was spent on ICS forms, such as the ICS 217: Communications Resource Availability Worksheet, ICS 205: Incident Radio Communications Plan and others, the instructors also pointed out a few things which are seldom pointed out in courses or ARES and RACES meetings. One key point was that, although we are volunteers and amateurs, we should dress and act as professionals when responding to an ARES or RACES activation or other operation. Reporting to the EOC in a t-shirt, shorts and old tennis shoes is unlikely to gain you or our hobby much respect. However, if you report in a pair of Dockers or similar pants, a nice shirt (polo or button down ) and respectable shoes, you are much more likely to be accepted. Leave your callsign hats, ARRL member pin and all of your other ham bling at home. These are more suited for the local hamfest or ham radio club meeting, not for the EOC or IC. Another key point was that you should know your area frequencies ahead of time and preferably have them already documented in the form of an ICS 217 form for your county. In addition, once you have completed your county s ICS 217, share it with the EC and RO in neighboring counties and ask that they do the same for you. After all, disasters don t acknowledge county lines. As always, never self-deploy or self-activate. Wait for activation from your EMA Director, supported agency, EC or RO. The AUXCOMM course was excellent and highly recommended for any amateur radio operators who operate as emergency communicators and is especially recommended for county ECs and ROs. Watch amateur radio websites, newsletters and lists on dates and locations of upcoming offerings of AUXCOMM and other courses offered through IDHS and other agencies. March 2012 SARSI 3

4 First ARES Response Holton Tornado Gene Dolgner, KC9RLC There has been much talk and reports (official and otherwise) on the tornado damage in the southern Indiana counties. Their damage has been significant. One town not often mentioned is Holtan in Ripley County, about half way between North Vernon and Versailles on Rt 50. I had the opportunity to work with Delbert Felix and the local chapter of Red Cross in Holtan today. This was not only Jennings County ARES' first real event since it was formed, but my first tornado event, as well. Delbert had requested that the ARES teams from several counties around Ripley be activated. We had a total of 8 hams from 4 counties. Holton is a small community of several hundred persons. 50% of the town has been significantly damaged or wipe clean at ground level, 25% has damage that is not livable, with the remaining 25% livable and having minor damage. It contained a mobile home park. NONE of these trailers exist, it is a flat/clean field now, except for some debris. The town took a direct-center hit from this event. Our job was to visit the damaged houses and do a damage assessment for the Red Cross. Each one with structural damage needed to be logged. A rep from Red Cross HQ explained that this is a very important procedure to be done for them. Red Cross has classified Holtan as a "National Disaster" and this logging gets the process started for them. 2 people had died in Holtan (Delbert knew at least one of them), many were injured, some still in the hospital. The one thing I truly noticed the most was that as I interviewed homeowners, neighbors, friends and relatives, they were all very friendly and willing to talk. There was an incredible array of neighbors helping neighbors. Although the place resembled a bomb site, surreal in nature, everyone was just working through it. Ingrained in my mind was a house I visited. The owner and several other friends/relatives/neighbors sat in the open garage in heavy coats on folding chairs. Inside was a surreal sight... the roof was complete gone along with some of the ceiling in several rooms and the furnishings destroyed. I wanted to give you the feeling I experienced after just such an event, if you have never been involved in one before. This one happened just too close to home. I cannot think about what it would have been like if the storm had tracked just 30 miles further north! Yes, Holtan is just a small town, but it contains the same kinds of people that live in your town, or on your property. This event has changed my life. As an ARES EC and volunteer, I am going to become more prepared, and more aware, and empower my team to do more! It's just the right thing to do! 4 SARSI March 2012

5 The State of Packet Radio in Indiana Rick Nicholson, N9UMJ Packet Radio in Indiana has been growing at a steady rate over the past 5 years!!! Hams throughout the state have been enthusiastic about the (r)evolutionary changes in the new platforms available for packet AX25 based digital packet Radio, in both the public and Emergency Communications applications of the hobby. A Little history! With all of the changes and advancements in technology hams have also adapted the hobby to meet their needs in an ever changing digital world that we in large helped to pioneer and create but have donated to the world as the internet. Why The Change? While RF packet has been the base for the hobby, it had lost it's popularity to the convenience of and the faster speeds of the internet, though it still maintains the reliability and security that makes it a viable and valuable communications tool in the time of need, that is what has kept the digital mode alive and brought about the transformation of Packet Radio and it's place within the Internet. Kantronics KPC-9612 Photo: Kantronics What's being used? The most popular are the Winlink 2000 programs,like RMS Packet, Paclink, RMS Express and the HF based platform (dubbed as the poor mans Pactor) Winmor. providing packet to internet services, remote mail server and common mail server and RF mail relay on both VHF and HF, but will also support and forward other platforms like Outpost and Airmail, NTS and many more to produce messages, spreadsheets images and file transfers to and from the internet of RF with it's advanced data compression technology and worldwide distribution network. The other is BPQ32 a multiple application, multiple mode and multiple radio switching program that supports many Amateur digital mode. from conventional packet nodes, BBS, FBB, Winmor,RMS forwarding, APRS, Telnet, AXIP linking, Internet gateway and hold and forward and much, much more. BPQ32 has proven to be a valuable and powerful program for packet hubs and is being tested and implemented by many sysops in Indiana. We have found though that BPQ32 is not recommended to the casual packet user but is a great tool for sysops and has great potential for the packet network builders in the state. While for the casual packet user there are still many old packet programs available as well as many new, some that utilize your soundcard and computer instead of a TNC. The new programs mentioned above will enhance the packet experience and provide better access to other hams local and worldwide. What s in Place: There are several BPQ32 Hubs in place throughout the state that provide VHF, UHF, HF, telnet AXIP linking and RMS forwarding. That have been supporting the Home and Emcomm nodes that have been popping up steadily in the last few months. Winmor and Pactor seem to be the favorites so far for HF and a complete list of nodes and frequencies are listed at most of them have vhf and uhf linking to local BBS's and forwarding capabilities. For VHF packet the most common frequency in Indiana is , but as the number of nodes increase there (Continued on page 6) March 2012 SARSI 5

6 (Continued from page 5) will need to be additional frequencies used to reduce congestion. Some hams are already getting together locally and establishing county wide and district wide frequencies with their EOC and ARES managers for 1200 baud. For 9600 baud packet, a county wide or district wide a (440 MHz) UHF frequency has been suggested. At this time there are only a couple of counties that have confirmed their use. One in District 10 and one in district 8 that have a 440 UHF 9.6k on A statewide Emcomm packet frequency on has already been established for the state EOC's for 1200 baud VHF. A Statewide 220 MHz 9.6k baud backbone is in the works, with assigned for the network. So far W9SEM (State EOC) in Indianapolis, N9UMJ in Lawrence County are in place. Other projected 220 backbone sites for the 2012 summer are Tippecanoe County, Daviess County, Hendricks County, Clinton County and Jennings County. More may be possible as funding and sites become available. What is The State doing? The Indiana Department of Homeland Security is currently operating 3 BPQ32 full feature hubs in the state. One primary Hub and BBS at Indianapolis W9SEM-7 and two Tactical Hubs, one at Camp Atterbury W9SEM -3 in Johnson County and the other at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center W9SEM-8 in Jennings county. All 3 are using on vhf and only Indianapolis has vhf 220 backbone capabilities on at this time. a 440 MHz UHF 9.6k node is also expected soon at all 3 sites to the hubs for District access into the network. APRS is also planned for Camp Atterbury and Muscatatuck and is already in place in Indianapolis. on as W9SEM-5 The state has been very receptive to the capabilities of Amateur Radio community and supportive of local EMA's and Hams in their efforts just as there has been the mutual cooperation by the Amateur community with the state to build a strong and reliable packet network for the welfare and security of all Hoosiers. disclaimer: The information and frequencies provided have been gathered from packet forums and individuals and may not pertain to your station or area and was not excluded intentionally. To include your station information and operating protocols visit INPacket@yahoogroups.com to submit your information. Resources for Packet Radio BPQ32 FBB BBS Kantronics Outpost Winlink Winmor 6 SARSI March 2012

7 What does Indiana s amateur radio population look like? As you would probably expect, just as the general population of Indiana is concentrated over the metropolitan areas of Indianapolis, South Bend, Fort Wayne, Evansville and the suburbs of Chicago and Louisville, we can see in both the data and in the maps that those counties falling within these metro areas have higher levels of licensed amateur radio operators per square mile, however they may or may not have high levels of hams per capita. As we have in previous publications, our focus is finding those areas that are lacking in one of the following areas: 1. Hams per square mile 2. Hams per capita 3. Active ARES team 4. Active RACES team Distribution of Licensed Amateur Radio Operators in Indiana In addition, in this issue, we have added the calculated County Score. Those who read the September 2011 edition of SARSI will also be happy to see that we have separated out several of the maps in which we attempted to pack too much information. So that you are able to see the data on which these maps are based, we have included it on the next page. March 2012 SARSI 7

8 COUNTY HAMS PerCapita PerSqMi Adams % 0.23 Allen % 1.28 Bartholomew % 0.52 Benton % 0.05 Blackford % 0.24 Boone % 0.38 Brown % 0.07 Carroll % 0.04 Cass % 0.24 Clark % 0.53 Clay % 0.25 Clinton % 0.21 Crawford % 0.14 Daviess % 0.1 Dearborn % 0.36 Decatur % 0.15 De Kalb % 0.33 Delaware % 0.69 Dubois % 0.18 Elkhart % 0.77 Fayette % 0.37 Floyd % 0.94 Fountain % 0.11 Franklin % 0.07 Fulton % 0.12 Gibson % 0.14 Grant % 0.49 Greene % 0.21 Hamilton % 1.06 Hancock % 0.88 Harrison % 0.13 Hendricks % 0.48 Henry % 0.41 Howard % 1.16 Huntington % 0.42 Jackson % 0.15 Jasper % 0.12 Jay % 0.17 Jefferson % 0.19 Jennings % 0.06 Johnson % 0.98 Knox % 0.16 Kosciusko % 0.42 Lagrange % 0.07 Lake % 1.14 La Porte % 0.41 COUNTY HAMS PerCapita PerSqMi Lawrence % 0.43 Madison % 0.75 Marion 1, % 3.36 Marshall % 0.25 Martin % 0.13 Miami % 0.25 Monroe % 0.96 Montgomery % 0.2 Morgan % 0.56 Newton % 0.02 Noble % 0.24 Ohio % 0.1 Orange % 0.16 Owen % 0.16 Parke % 0.06 Perry % 0.07 Pike % 0.08 Porter % 0.64 Posey % 0.12 Pulaski % 0.06 Putnam % 0.13 Randolph % 0.14 Ripley % 0.25 Rush % 0.11 St. Joseph % 1.35 Scott % 0.28 Shelby % 0.3 Spencer % 0.1 Starke % 0.29 Steuben % 0.42 Sullivan % 0.08 Switzerland % 0.05 Tippecanoe % 0.52 Tipton % 0.14 Union % 0.07 Vanderburgh % 1.41 Vermillion % 0.15 Vigo % 0.84 Wabash % 0.14 Warren % 0.04 Warrick % 0.37 Washington % 0.16 Wayne % 0.47 Wells % 0.15 White % 0.08 Whitley % SARSI March 2012

9 When considering the two maps on this page, the first thing to catch a person s attention is the fact that there are a few counties which appear in red in both maps. These counties are very low in ham population when compared with both total population and with the land area of that county. While the red counties in each of the maps individually are of concern, the greater concern are the counties which These counties are very low in ham population and should be a focus of both statewide amateur radio organizations and amateur radio organizations in neighboring counties. If groups in neighboring counties are offering new amateur classes, a focused advertising campaign targeting these counties would be ideal, as these counties may not have the resources to work on building up their numbers on their own. If we continue on through the maps to the ARES and RACES map on the next page, we see that there are several counties which do not have both an ARES Emergency Coordinator (EC) and a RACES Officer Amateur Radio Operators Per Capita appear in red in both maps. The counties are: Carroll Jennings Newton Switzerland Amateur Radio Operators Per Square Mile (RO). Those counties in green have both. Those counties in yellow have an EC, and most likely an ARES team, but are lacking an RO. The lack of an RO may be due to no amateur radio operator being interested in the position, an EMA director or County Sheriff who is not interested in supporting a RACES team or an EMA or Sheriff who is unaware that RACES exists or what RACES can do. Counties in blue show those counties which have an RO, and most likely an active RACES team, but do not currently have an EC. Often, the lack of an ARES March 2012 SARSI 9

10 Team within a county is a bias within the county from either the EMA Director or the RACES RO against ARES within the county. This is mainly due to a misunderstanding on the roles of the two organizations. While the RACES team in the county is able to support the local EMA, Sheriff and other government entities, there would be little to no support for agencies such as the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and others who may respond to an incident. In addition, while ARES teams can support public service events, such as parades, bike rides and such, RACES is limited in its response. According to Joseph Lawrence, K9RFZ, ARES Section Emergency Coordinator for Indiana, The RACES team is restricted to operating when an incident results in a formally declared disaster and the response becomes a governmental action. However, there are EMA Directors and RACES ROs within the state who choose to ignore these requirements. As mentioned RACES is legally limited by the FCC as to what type of events it is able to operate in support of. These events must be formally declared disasters. During these events, RACES is tasked with the support of local, state and federal government entities in providing disaster response communications. ARES is able to be activated for either disaster or public service events by the ARES EC or by request of any supported agency. In the case of disasters, an Such EMA Directors, and RACES team members who enable them, flaunt the FCC regulations. The RACES operators risk suspension of their individual amateur licenses and the EMA Director can face an FCC fine for authorizing the operation, according to Lawrence. What we must consider when looking at RACES, ARES and other teams such as REACT and SATERN is that each has a niche in which to operate, however a commonality of membership is both useful and desirable in order to create a level of flexibility inherent in amateur radio. By having members common between these teams, the interoperation which is essential in an emergency is already present in the system. 10 SARSI March 2012 ARES and RACES Status ARES representative will often be present at Incident Command to facilitate communications between the supported agencies and public safety and government officials, however ARES will also often provide communications at shelters and relief stations as well as, when the members are properly trained, damage assessment. In many areas of the state, ARES also acts as the local organizing body for Sky- Warn activity, coordinating local nets, mobile spot-

11 ters and training. In the case of a real disaster, such as the flooding in south central Indiana in June 2008 and the southern Indiana tornadoes in March 2012, with members encouraged to be part of several teams, communications is able to run smoothly and members are able to switch roles between ARES and RACES nearly seamlessly. A member who is acting in a RACES role, operating from the county EOC may be asked, due to resources available, to pass a piece of traffic to Indianapolis via an HF NTS net or pass a weather report to NWS on a VHF SkyWarn net. Finally, those counties in red have neither an EC nor an RO, resulting in no recognized amateur radio emergency communications within that county. As with the previous two maps, those counties in red are of greatest concern. Those counties are: Benton Carroll Daviess Jefferson Knox LaGrange Martin Tipton Union Luckily, of the previous list of counties, the only overlap is Carroll County. While several amateurs throughout the state may argue, Why should I worry about what is happening with amateur radio in other counties? On the surface, this may seem a valid question, however, when we consider times in which we, as amateur radio operators are activated through Skywarn, ARES or RACES, neither storms nor disasters honor county boundaries. As many storms in Indiana move from west to east or southwest to northeast, it is key for the counties to our west and southwest to have a well established Skywarn program, either as an independent system or as part of an ARES or RACES program, because they will be hit by the storms before we are. In addition, when we consider amateur radio infrastructure and our networks, both established and adhoc, we must consider that a county with limited amateur radio population, no ARES team and/or no RACES team is much less likely to have the capabilities to establish repeaters, packet nodes, APRS nodes or even effective simplex nets. So, if you are in one of these counties or are in a neighboring county and are interested in helping to build up amateur radio within these counties, please drop me an at ww9a@scicsg.org and I will do my best to help you through the process. In addition, Lawrence advises, If you find your RACES RO is receptive to the idea of helping to start an ARES team, then I would like to be contacted and we can schedule a meeting between your ARES District EC and the county hams to establish a team. If we then take all of this data and make an attempt to combine it into a single piece of understandable data, we can utilize the formula of 1 million times the number of licensed amateur radio operators within the county divided by the product of the total population of the county and the total land area of the county in square miles. We then add one additional point if the county has an EC and another point if the county has a RO. The map on the back cover of this report shows the distribution of scores, calculated in this way, while the table shows the individual scores for each county within the state of Indiana. You will notice that the table is sorted by county name, not by score. This is because this score is meant to be a measuring stick with which each county can measure its current level and track future progress. This is not meant to be a way of ranking the counties within the state, as this would create an atmosphere of competition, rather than the atmosphere of cooperation, which is intended. March 2012 SARSI 11

12 County Scores County Score County Score County Score County Score Adams 8.77 Fulton Lawrence Rush Allen Gibson Madison St. Joseph Bartholomew 8.85 Grant Marion Scott Benton Greene Marshall Shelby Blackford Hamilton Martin Spencer Boone Hancock Miami Starke Brown Harrison Monroe Steuben Carroll Hendricks Montgomery Sullivan Cass Henry Morgan Switzerland Clark Howard Newton Tippecanoe Clay Huntington Noble Tipton Clinton 8.39 Jackson Ohio Union Crawford Jasper Orange 10.2 Vanderburgh Daviess Jay Owen Vermillion Dearborn Jefferson Parke 5.02 Vigo Decatur Jennings Perry Wabash De Kalb Johnson Pike Warren Delaware Knox Porter Warrick Dubois 5.44 Kosciusko Posey Washington Elkhart Lagrange Pulaski 5.99 Wayne Fayette Lake Putnam Wells Floyd La Porte Randolph White Fountain Ripley Whitley