Quote:
Originally Posted by Foxs Mercantile
On 10/24/2014 9:31 PM, Paul W. Schleck wrote:
Can't speak for supporting a community of 11 million customers.
However, we know from past recent experience that it is workable for a
community of about 400,000 (Lincoln, Nebraska and surrounding 12
counties). Windstream (nee Lincoln Telephone Company, nee Alltel) saw
their E911 system go down on two separate occasions.
Some of the highlights:
- Amateur radio operators were deployed very quickly and provided
meaningful support during the morning-to-evening outage (about 12
hours or so).
- The 62 volunteers that deployed followed a previously written,
practiced, and activated (on a smaller scale) "Y2K" plan, deploying
to 15 high-profile locations at intersections in the city of Lincoln
at the direction of the Lancaster County Emergency Management
Director and supported by the County's Emergency Operations Center
(EOC).
Some real numbers then.
- As part of the contingency plan, those in need of emergency services
could also go to the nearest police or fire station if practical, so
amateur radio served in an assistive, not substitute, role.
An important distinction.
So I'm thinking 15 "high visibility locations" and 45 or so local police
and fire department locations.
- Such plans, admittedly, seem to be more workable in smaller communities
Scalability always works in your favor in smaller scenarios.
--
Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi
http://www.foxsmercantile.com |
400000 / 62 = 0.000155% of the population....
That is being spread pretty thin......
Lets say that in my county we have 50,000 people.
And lets say that I can account for 20 licensed hams in my county.
That would give me 0.0004% of the population that was a licensed ham..
It sounds like your local club needs to have more VE Test Sessions and it needs to actively recruit more people into amateur radio...
If you have 100 people in your club, and 62 deploys - then you have a success rate of 62%..
In my county, we have about 12 active club members and out of those 12, about 6 attends the meetings..
The reason why we do not have more is because the old people that ran the clubs refused to have VE Test Sessions.. They were all Technician and General Class License holders and they refused to upgrade their license to Amateur Extra and they refused to get involved.
Once they got their General Class License - they stopped learning things and they stopped doing things and that was the end of it.
Probably where the people in Lincoln Nebraska dropped the ball is that when they did their Situational Emergency Test - they did not think to include the people with the CB radios and the people with the GMRS radios and REACT.
Had they done this - they easily could have gained another 100 or more people into their active group.
And, once people saw how efficient amateur radio was, another 25 or so would probably have been inclined to get an amateur radio license.