Why We Need To Practice Using Our CAP Radios

[RADIOMAN015]

Well here's a perfect example of why we need to practice using our radios on a regular basis rather than depending upon land line, wireless, and internet connections.

http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x321549364/Work-continues-to-restore-service

http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x1011133816/A-Burning-mattress-brought-down-a-telecommunications-giant-Could-it-happen-again

I know that in the north eastern part of the state  (over 30 miles away from the incident) outbound long distance telephone service was also affected.    Additionally, any radio network (and cellphone network) that depended upon a wire line (fiber optic) connection to the radio transmitter(s) also was out of order including critical public safety dispatch centers.   (Since system planners went cheap with hospitals and didn't provide them with UHF radios, only a telephone type instrument with a dedicated line to get "phone patches" via a control center from ambulances transmitting to a tower, was also greatly affected).       

Just about all of CAP's radio repeaters are not connected to telephone lines but receive transmission directly from other portable, mobile, & base radio units.   Additionally with HF/SSB/ALE (especially ALE) it would be very easy even with a portable HF system to establish voice contact out of the trouble area, with a radio station that would have internet connectivity and also long distance voice communications capabilities. 

So please consider turning on your CAP radios at least once a week and doing a quick net check in on one of your region, wing, group, or squadron nets.    Lets be sure we can have "confidence" that our radio equipment is in working order and we know the operating range limitations on VHF into a repeater and/or simplex, as well as HF/SSB conventional, HF/ALE operations.  What happen above in Lawrence MA is a good scenario for a CAP exercise.   

RM

[PHall]

Love the idiot statement by the state senator. Yeah Verizon could build a backup set of cables for critical users.
Just don't whine when Verizon raises their rates to cover the costs...

[Thrashed]

CAP radios? What are those? Seriously, we've been trying to get them for years. I hear they are sitting somewhere at wing covered in dust. We use our cell phones on SAREX's.

[BigShu]

Well, if we're idiots to suggest a company be able to provide their paid for service without interuption, then the company should at least do like the Police Chief suggested and secure the site from casual external damage. Obviously,  the high voltage signs were ineffective in keeping people out, but they certainly kept the fire department from responding soon enough to prevent the outage.
I'd be interested to see how cost prohibitive it would be to have redundant fiber. There are thousands of miles of dark fiber in the ground, due to overbuilding networks in the boom years. Maybe some of those are available to Verizen, and ANY additional cost to the company is prohibitive. It would be interesting to know the rest of the story.
I work for an oil pipeline, and we're held accountable for protecting our assets, which are considered to be terrorist targets. It seems in this day and age, fiber optic networks should be bumped up on the homeland security radar for similar consideration.

[Майор Хаткевич]

There are beaches on the ocean where fiber internet cables are unsecured in plain view.

[Garibaldi]

I find Verizon's "cost prohibitive" reasoning laughable, when untold millions of dollars was spent on upgrading infrastructure to bring FIOS to their subscriber's homes. To wit, every FIOS customer was outfitted with fiber optic line to their home, replacing the twisted pair that AT&T uses to bring their U-Verse service to their customers. AT&T did not want to invest in upgrading all their customers' lines but would place fiber optics to new constructions. AT&T is more vulnerable in this case than Verizon, and since AT&T serves the majority of the country (their words, not mine) a well-placed fire like this one would be more devastating. Oddly enough, law enforcement and other agencies are not fully aware of where the phone companies have placed cable over the years. Sometimes even AT&T was puzzled.

It seems funny to me that when I worked for AT&T their reasoning behind not giving us techs raises when the contract came up was due to a decline in wireline services, when it was us who were repurposing those very same wirelines to install U-Verse, as well as AT&T's policy of pushing mobile phones over landlines. The money comes in, the money goes out. I guess it would be cost-prohibitive to create a redundancy until something happens to make the government force Verizon and AT&T to do so. And yeah, when comm fails, we turn to whatever we could use to get hold of mission base. Too bad that we can't rely on that anymore.

[BigShu]

There are beaches on the ocean where fiber internet cables are unsecured in plain view.

Yes, I remember the Professor almost affecting a rescue with an underwater phone cable...until Gilligan screwed it up!

[RADIOMAN015]

I think most of the previous posts indicate there is a potential for communications disruptions affecting both wire line and wireless common carrier type companies.

Some additional interesting reading can be found at:
    http://www.ncs.gov/index.html

Of course the key issue is the communication facilities have to be in working over for much of what is proposed for WPS and GETS.    Surely SHARES (radio) has some potential.

As far as those of you that don't have radios for SAREX, that seems to be a local type problem, not solvable here.

RM     

[wuzafuzz]

Speaking of communications disruptions:
http://www.kcci.com/news/central-iowa/Vandal-turns-off-power-to-new-police-radio-system/-/9357080/16419128/-/6wtruy/-/index.html#ixzz252GhOV6O

Next time label the button: "Emergency Stop.  Never use."   

[SarDragon]

Here in San Diego, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles of dark fibre cable, that was installed in the mid to late '90s. It has never been connected to the users. The unterminated ends still stick out of the tops of the conduits.

[a2capt]

There's dark fibre running right past my window. They came by two years later and added two more D battery diameter copper lines after that, and the fibre..

ATT then PacBell ... running like a headless chicken. D'uh. I ditched the Telco for that reason.

[PHall]

Here in San Diego, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles of dark fibre cable, that was installed in the mid to late '90s. It has never been connected to the users. The unterminated ends still stick out of the tops of the conduits.

That was for the "Broadband" project. One of the first things SBC did when they took over Pacific Bell was to pull the plug on that project.
It took Pac Bell so long to get their crap together building this mess that the technolgy became obsolete before it was in service.

(Fiber to the pole, coax from the pole to the house. The "Node" that converted the signals from digital light pulses to digital electrical signals used on the coax had a mean time to failure of about 30 days at the max. Not exactly ready for prime time.)

[PHall]

There's dark fibre running right past my window. They came by two years later and added two more D battery diameter copper lines after that, and the fibre..

ATT then PacBell ... running like a headless chicken. D'uh. I ditched the Telco for that reason.

The fiber goes to the "VRAD" that brings the digital Uverse signals to your neighborhood. Uverse uses copper cable for that last thousand feet.
Costs a lot less then fiber all the way to the prem. Which is why AT&T is still building out the Uverse plant while Verizon has stopped building out Fios.
They ran out of money when the recession hit.

[SarDragon]

Here in San Diego, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of miles of dark fibre cable, that was installed in the mid to late '90s. It has never been connected to the users. The unterminated ends still stick out of the tops of the conduits.

That was for the "Broadband" project. One of the first things SBC did when they took over Pacific Bell was to pull the plug on that project.
It took Pac Bell so long to get their crap together building this mess that the technolgy became obsolete before it was in service.

(Fiber to the pole, coax from the pole to the house. The "Node" that converted the signals from digital light pulses to digital electrical signals used on the coax had a mean time to failure of about 30 days at the max. Not exactly ready for prime time.)

Well, my neighborhood had no poles. It was all underground, and the fibre went up to the house wall. And stopped.

[Garibaldi]

There's dark fibre running right past my window. They came by two years later and added two more D battery diameter copper lines after that, and the fibre..

ATT then PacBell ... running like a headless chicken. D'uh. I ditched the Telco for that reason.

The fiber goes to the "VRAD" that brings the digital Uverse signals to your neighborhood. Uverse uses copper cable for that last thousand feet.
Costs a lot less then fiber all the way to the prem. Which is why AT&T is still building out the Uverse plant while Verizon has stopped building out Fios.
They ran out of money when the recession hit.

My sources tell me that AT&T, at least down this way, is going with bonded pair now as their primary service mode from the VRAD. They are getting rid of or have gotten rid of the iNID to extend service out from the VRAD to 4000 feet or more. It usually stopped being effective on twisted pair after 3,000 feet, hence the bonded pair for iNID service.

Part of me wants to go back. I don't miss the 130 degree attics during summer, or the long long hours but I do miss the money.

[Eclipse]

That's why I use wireless broadband - not as fast as cable, but also not dealing with these providers.