Blackberry REACT January Newsletter

Quick Clicks

KNUTTZ.NET

Knuttz.net has photographs of widely varying topics and is worth exploring just for fun. On the page at http://knuttz.net/hosted_pages/Old-Mobile-Phones-20070102 the perpetrator of the site has photos of vintage mobile phones, which are shockingly huge and, uh, old. Most of the case for each phone is devoted to the battery, of course. I expect these are about 20 years old - they've been around a long time - and not one of them includes a camera!

ANCHORING GUY LINES

The October 2006 issue of QST (the ARRL magazine) had a brief mention of Hy-Gain anchors (Arrow Point) for your guy-lines. The price listed in the magazine and on the Web site http://www.hy-gain.com/products.php?prodid=APA-3 is $14.95 each, which is more than I'm willing to pay. A quick search on the Web, though, turned up American Earth Anchors, which appears to sell exactly the same product http://67.130.82.133/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category;_ID=67 for $8.40 each (minimum purchase of 10, though). Pull out resistance varies with soil type and ranges from 600 pounds to a ton per anchor. NOTE: I've heard from someone who has installed the military-style 4-inch anchors and he says it takes a backhoe to dig them out; he considers them permanent. UPDATE: the maker says they should be considered permanent.

PIRATE RADIO Pirate radio is way outside the purview of our club, but it was a topic covered in the San Jose Mercury News on January 7, 2007, page 4D. The article covered a man who operates a pirate station in the Bay Area and who has, not surprisingly, received cease and desist notices from the FCC. His answer has been to quote to the FCC the part of the regulations that say that during periods of national emergency and war, stations can operate without a license. There's a war on terror, the pirate says.

An interesting sidelight to this is that the FCC has a monopoly on granting broadcast licenses, and it has allowed conglomerates unlimited ownership of stations, resulting in a lack of local programming. As a result of public comment, the FCC instituted low-power licensing in 2000, but the number of spots was 700 - it received 12,000 applications and granted a few in rural areas where there were empty spaces on the dial. Populous areas like the San Francisco Bay have not gotten licenses for low-power stations.

Low-power stations could provide local programming in the event of disasters. Most people have FM radios, and many of those radios are battery powered. Places like countycomm.com offered very cheap FM receivers that run on AAA and AA batteries. I read about a group that attempted to set up a low-power FM station inside the New Orleans Superdome while it was occupied by Katrina evacuees, but they asked for permission first and were denied it because authorities wanted to control what the evacuees were told. While I see merit in wanting that control, the result was that evacuees were told nothing and believed every rumor that came their way - there was not only no control but not way effectively to counter appalling tales of rape and murder.

If people want to be able to provide news and information to the general populace during an emergency, FM radio will reach many people who have no phones and no FRS/GMRS or other specialized radios. And while pirates are currently operating outside the law, they have the expertise to reach out to the general populace.

Louise and I have met Stephen Dunnifer at the Maker Faire in San Mateo - he provides courses on how to operate a low-power FM station in person and through his Web site at http://www.radiotupa.org His estimate of the costs to set up a low-power FM broadcasting station is $2,000. Louise and I get a variety of electronic catalogues, and one or two sell FM transmitters as kits and fully-assembled, along with antennas and connections for computers and iPods. Searching for the quoted phrase "fm transmitters" on our favorite search engine returns almost a million hits, several of which are helpful.

SEARCHING FOR LOST PERSONS One of the uses of Blackberry REACT is to search for lost persons. One of the free weekly papers prints the contents of the police blotters in the area, and here's one we are still trying to figure out:

A nude elderly woman was reported missing on East Milbrae Avenue and Rollins Road in Millbrae at 12:40 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 10.

LENGTHY POWER OUTAGES There's a posting in the Survival Forum at http://www.equipped.org/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board;=survival&Number;=84142&page;=0&view;=collapsed&sb;=5&o;=&fpart;=1 about the recent lengthy power outage in Seattle from an ice storm. The power outage was local, and "local" Seattle TV just didn't cover it outside Seattle. Among the lessons learned were, when lines are down, you don't have internet connections and cable TV, along with no phones and no power. If trees are down, cell phone towers may be down, too. Eating cold food from a can for a week isn't fun. The thread following this post is lengthy, but there are some very interesting observations and suggestions. I recommend browsing through all the posts.

Events

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Updates

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