[aprssig] APRS in Disaster area

[AE5PL Lists]

The time to do that "education" of the "ham authorities" is _before_ the
emergency, NOT during.  If they do not already have APRS in their
emergency plans, then individuals trying to "educate" them during the
emergency is counter-productive.  As I have consistently said throughout
my posts: "In an emergency situation, it is the AUTHORITIES in charge,
NOT the individual operators who decide what type of communications are
to be used and how those communications are to be used."  Those
authorities are government, ham, whoever is coordinating and managing
the available resources.  This is why your entire thread is
counter-productive.

Yes, it would be nice to see APRS used in useful ways, and it apparently
is by the Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief organization.  However, your
posts specifically stated "I think it is far more productive to spend
our efforts on the periphery of the disaster to get digipeaters in
there." followed by a large amount of encouragement to operators to
waste their time trying to set up a network when it has not been
requested.  Leave the emergency communications to those on the ground in
the affected areas.  Don't try to promote APRS with the potential
volunteers which will prove to only be a harmful distraction if the
organizations they are being deployed with want their services for other
activities.

Whether you intended to or not, your posts basically promote "ham
anarchy" with regards to playing with APRS in the affected areas.  And I
intentionally use the word "playing" because it has no place in the
communications architecture if not desired by the authorities.  Again,
if the authorities want APRS, let _them_ request it.  Just because only
2% of the ham population know about APRS (your number) does not justify
trying to disrupt emergency operations to "educate" the others.

73,

Pete Loveall AE5PL
mailto:pete at ae5pl.net 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Bruninga
> Posted At: Friday, September 02, 2005 5:41 PM
> Subject: RE: [aprssig] APRS in Disaster area
> 
> >> Yes, of course, if they know how to, or have better ideas about 
> >> re-establishing the APRS network, then of course folllow 
> their lead.
> >> But in most areas, only 2% of the HAM population knows 
> anything about 
> >> APRS and has no clue how to "instruct" its re-constitution.
> >
> >You missed the point, Bob.  In an emergency situation, it is the 
> >AUTHORITIES in charge, NOT the individual operators who decide what 
> >type of communications are to be used and how those 
> communications are 
> >to be used.
> 
> Actually, I think we agree on all of this.  It was the ham 
> radio "authorities", then, that I was offering the 
> recommendations to about how to best re-establish an APRS 
> infrastructure.
> As noted above, only 2% of HAM radio
> operators (including many of the "authorities" 
> have no experience with APRS.
> 
> My offering was to educate who-ever is in the "authoritative" 
> position to make it happen, on ideas on how to reconstruct an 
> ad-hoc APRS 
> network.   Did not intend for it to be implying
> ham radio anarchy which seems to be how it is  being 
> intepreted by some...
> 
> Bob