CAP Talk

Quote from: Eclipse on January 05, 2021, 07:33:46 pm

Quote from: NIN on January 05, 2021, 05:58:39 pmIts not like the CAP Mobile Training Team got the authorization to do these ICS courses online from FEMA and immediately dropped in to "CAP-only" mode. The majority of the people they have teaching this stuff teach at their local or state EM trainings (Non-CAP) and learned ICS "someplace else."

I'm gonna have to throw the "your mileage may vary flag on this".

Yes, there's likely plenty of CAP folks who are EM Manages and related instructors who can offer the ICS classes
to a CAP-only audience with a more benevolent schedule, but in these parts there are a number of CAP-only
folks who went through the trainer process explicitly to do CAP-Only classes, and you would not want them
in front of CAP people, let alone LEOs, Fire guys, etc.

Come on, Bob: "in these parts" != the majority of CAP.

As I said, so far in my experience with these courses (and these trainers are teaching all over the country, not just in a specific geographic area), the majority of the trainers I've  encountered teaching are experienced "outside of CAP" in emergency management and teach ICS modules at their local or state EM training courses.

Over two courses, I've had interaction with close to a dozen trainers. I can think of only one or two who were "CAP-only," and even then: they were pretty darn good.

So I will agree: your mileage clearly varies "in your parts."  But don't believe that is representative of all of Civil Air Patrol.

IOW, there is no easy way. 

Quote from: NIN on January 05, 2021, 05:58:39 pmIts not like the CAP Mobile Training Team got the authorization to do these ICS courses online from FEMA and immediately dropped in to "CAP-only" mode. The majority of the people they have teaching this stuff teach at their local or state EM trainings (Non-CAP) and learned ICS "someplace else."

I'm gonna have to throw the "your mileage may vary flag on this".

Yes, there's likely plenty of CAP folks who are EM Manages and related instructors who can offer the ICS classes
to a CAP-only audience with a more benevolent schedule, but in these parts there are a number of CAP-only
folks who went through the trainer process explicitly to do CAP-Only classes, and you would not want them
in front of CAP people, let alone LEOs, Fire guys, etc.

BTW, because of my knucklehead brother-from-another-mother Stonewall, I'm scheduled to take the General on 16 January.

I'll finally get some low-band voice privs. (yes, yes, I know. But in the old days, back "right after Marconi invented the [darn] thing" [bonus points to you if you get the line], Novice & Tech did not have voice privileges on HF. CW only.) I have been a 2m only kind of guy since 1982 or so (both amateur radio & CAP).

Its about time I upgraded. I was a Technician, then a Tech Plus, and now I'm back to Technician again. My dad will be thrilled, probably want to give me one of his old HF rigs so I can chase DX (me: "borrrring!")

73, K1NIN

Quote from: Stonewall on January 04, 2021, 04:52:06 pm

Quote from: TheSkyHornet on January 04, 2021, 04:38:24 pmHeck, I can't even get into an ICS-300 because I don't take Ground Team training seriously enough for the Gods of the Auxiliary. New faces need not apply.

You're doing it wrong.

If you do a "CAP ICS-300" then you're likely only going to get CAP's vast experience and knowledge on the Incident Command System.

Mostly not correct, dude.

I did a CAP-run ICS 300 course thru SER last summer. The instructors were CAP folks, but all were emergency management folks on the outside of one stripe or another.  Much/most of the instructional material was a *little* more easily related to CAP-specific ops and situations by CAP-knowledgeable instructors, but all the class materials and learning exercises were still the FEMA-specific materials, not CAP-specific.

Same-same with the ICS 400 I finished last month.

At the end of the day, its really no different than a fish & game guy showing up to an ICS 300 and getting his cram-jam on with full-on fireground terminology that he'll basically never use because the instructor(s) are all fire folks.  That guy is never going to an apartment building fire, so knowing a fire battalion from a company (beacuse they're all using those terms) isn't going to help him much.

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I 100% believe there is a huge benefit to taking these types of courses outside of CAP if you can. They're free and the only thing you need is the prerequisites (100, 200, 700, 800).

The wealth of knowledge and experience from the instructor(s) was impressive. These people had been there, done that. From Hurricane Katrina to floods and earthquakes. This isn't to say the CAP-led ICS courses aren't valuable, but I expect you'll get a single perspective when everyone is from the same organization.

I would flip that on its head and say that CAP needs to get the word out in the EM community that they're doing these online courses so they can get "non-CAP students" into these courses for the exact same reasons.

Its not like the CAP Mobile Training Team got the authorization to do these ICS courses online from FEMA and immediately dropped in to "CAP-only" mode. The majority of the people they have teaching this stuff teach at their local or state EM trainings (Non-CAP) and learned ICS "someplace else."

We had a thread on this a while back, and it appears that it can only be entered as a historical award, by the individual. Then the commander gets to approve it.

I was just asked by our Commander to enter Unit Citations in member records. I know I can add them to my record, but cannot find an option to add it for others. Any advice??

Quote from: Eclipse on January 04, 2021, 03:17:17 pmHam was long ago relegated to "hey, that's pretty cool" levels, along with CB radio.  If you make it harder to
participate, casual users will just disengage "OK, screw it, I'll just call Australia on the Skype for free...", and you'll never get more "experts".

Actually this was even the case when I got licensed almost 30 years ago. Got my ticket, started playing around, and fortunately met some really awesome folks in a ham club. This guy talked me into getting a KPC3 because packet was "so much fun" and I kept trying to explain to him this internet thing I'd been using through the university, but I'm always game for nerd stuff so I joined in. I think both of us dropped out of packet a few months later when he also discovered the internet...

But... I did learn stuff about technology that I wouldn't have learned otherwise. When APRS became a thing that the internet hadn't dominated yet, having some packet knowledge was helpful. What I learned about GPS actually became helpful in my paying job, so it wasn't for nothing.

The good news is that the ham folks are still innovating and experimenting. Linking VHF repeaters with a UHF backbone turned into linking repeaters via microwave turned into linking repeaters via the internet. I suspect people who are willing to go through the extra hurdles of learning some basic RF & electrical theory are going to be the kind of folks who will like to play around a bit. That playing is just different than back in the day, instead of assembling radios using spare parts, it's now about how to utilize commercial equipment in interesting ways.

If all someone wants to do is pick up a radio and smash the release-to-listen button without a hint of curiosity how any of it works, then CB, MURS, and GMRS are ready and waiting for them.

Quote from: undefinedThe way you grow the community is that you make the entry barriers as low as possible, which will include a lot of unwashed casual users who just want to play once in a while.

As I said, there do need to be some barriers to keep the spectrum used for its intended purpose, but adjust those barriers as the times change. When I got my Tech No-Code back in the day, man the gnashing of teeth was thundering, but the change was necessary. Perhaps always a bit late, but it does seem as though the FCC and ARRL are making some good moves as there has been a surprisingly sustained steady climb in licenses:



It's probably not a coincidence the climb really got into gear when Morse code went away. I know amateur radio is pretty big in the "prepper" community, I'm not sure when that became a thing (perhaps around the same time?).

One of our squadrons that is partnered with a school just secured funding through the school to put together a ham shack with HF and VHF/UHF capabilities. While the squadron won't be able to use it for missions, they get to do kind of the reverse Stonewall, introduce them to using radio comms via amateur radio and hopefully hook them into joining CAP's comm program. Plus, the opportunities to talk on radios amongst themselves will be far more plentiful with ham gear (as in whenever they want using those cheap radios from home) compared to limited opportunities to talk on CAP comm equipment.

At the end of the day, as we learned with Katrina and even to a smaller degree with the recent bombing of an AT&T facility, the side effect of having an amateur radio community is having a group of folks who are readily prepared to communicate when the commercial infrastructure takes a hit. It's by no means the primary purpose of the spectrum, but it's there to be used when needed.

Released today:
https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2459225/newly-acquired-afrl-test-aircraft-to-aid-personnel-recovery-research/

Some of our search and rescue volunteer professionals may find interesting this research into combat SAR/Personnel Recovery technology with the use of the venerable Cub platform. This update of the classic tech could add the capability to perform quiet, less observable, bush pilot style PR saves through the use of enabling HMD tech. If you've ever been at an airshow and seen a proficient Cub stunt pilot land and take off in amazingly tight spots, or seen some of the bush pilot or historical ('Nam) videos out there of landing on stream beds and tiny farmer fields, you can see why this is of interest.

I personally know and have worked with a couple of these (world class) HMD researchers, and expect great things out of this program.

R/s
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