I am trying to set up instructions for utilizing a baofeng or tidradio with a digirig and ipad for ARES ecomms deployment to emergency areas for providing sitreps before official first responders can arrive.
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Sounds like a great project. Please keep us posted on your progress.
Hey man, I’m all for radio communications everywhere and at all times, but please temper your expectations. I’ve worked in the emergency services for over 20 years and I have never seen or heard of the conditions you described having occurred even once.
A better place to start would be to approach your served agencies (starting with the dispatchers everyone forgets about) and ask them what their needs are. Some possible suggestions might be:
- Partnering with the sheriffs office to operate a KrakenSDR to rapidly track down jammers. I am not talking about fox hunting. They do not want to manage 30 obese elderly brittle diabetics with heart conditons and mobility issues tromping around the county and potentially making contact with someone in the process of committing a crime. Send one capable person to operate the Kraken from the passenger seat of a flat-topped fleet car, with the deputy driving and ready to make contact with the jammer.
- Offer your teams assistance in setting up Starlink, mesh networks, and connecting up all the laptops and printers in the EOC or wherever it’s needed. Then let them know that if the starlink fails, you have the ability to string up some HF antennas and reach out to out of area winlink gateways if needed.
- If some of your guys have 4x4s and can make it up to high points in your area, offer to set up temporary repeaters as needed.
- If any of your guys have some really good drones, offer your services in surveying damaged areas, or responding to emergencies where a drone cam could be useful.
None of this is ever going to be as sexy as the youtube videos you watch about this topic. Emergency radio comms are always going to be much simpler than the fantasies created by those high subscriber count channels, because it has to be. Most emergency responders will never learn anything more about how their radio functions beyond twisting a knob and pushing a button, and so our systems are designed for those people.
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Sounds like an interesting project. I’m curious to know what App(s) you might be using with that setup.
73!
- Jon Pitchford / kk7npk