[nos-bbs] EMCOMM challenges - was B2F (compression) success !!!

[Bob Donnell]

Hi Brian, and all,

That'd be nice, if we could find 'em.  This isn't a flame - it's an example
of the challenge some EMCOMM efforts face.

We've got 9 EOC's that we have to have enough people to staff on a 24/7
basis, and of people that come close to meeting your requirements, we have
about 7-8 people of the 60 credentialed volunteers currently available who
would meet that criteria.  We have 2 that are equipped to install JNOS from
scratch, and that installation would be an iterative process.  That's in a
reasonably population-dense area, and pretty near one of the worldwide hubs
for computer technology - as much or as little credit as I want to give
Microsoft.

Most of our volunteers are people who have either been attracted to ham
radio as a result of their CERT training, or ones that we've solicited to
act as emergency communicators, by way of articles in the community
newspapers.  So they don't necessarily come from a technical background.
Many of them are retired, which from an availability standpointis a good
thing - our organization was able to supply volunteer communicators to other
emergency response organizations when flooding was happening in their
service areas, because like most of our volunteers, most of theirs were at
work.  Like most employed people, I probably won't be responding to an
emergency unless it's either of a regional scale, or happens outside work
hours.  That's where I work in situation where my general manager is a ham,
and a member of his local EMCOMM group.

73, Bob, KD7NM

-----Original Message-----
From: nos-bbs-bounces at lists.tapr.org [mailto:nos-bbs-bounces at lists.tapr.org]
On Behalf Of Brian
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 8:06 PM
To: TAPR xNOS Mailing List
Subject: RE: [nos-bbs] B2F (compression) success !!!

Greetings;

While going through my toolbox of listmail, I've been quietly reading the
threads about airmail, b2f, telpac, etc and it appears that everyone's
sharing basically the same thought that the skill level of end user who
would be manning the station at an EOC has less than a novice-type
skill-set.

Not to open up the flame-flood gates or anything but, wouldn't it simply
make more sense to just use standard protocols for Layer 7 and place people
who would be in such emergency communication positions that have at least an
advanced computer user skill-set in such positions at EOCs?
I for one would feel a LOT better knowing that in the time of a real
emergency that not only is there less a chance of a user-generated computer
error, but I'd be guaranteed not to hear "would you like fries with that
emergency communication?" in the event that disaster was in my area or
region.

</$0.02>