September 2011 Nebraska Section News

Greetings and welcome to Fall!

We are finally making real progress on the Nebraska D-Star Emergency
Network. Many of you have heard me talk about this. The idea is to
provide a D-Star statewide network to facilitate communications between
and among Nebraska’s amateur radio emergency communications groups and
through them, between county emergency operations centers and the
Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. Ten cities are named in the
initial phase. The D-Star repeater in Lincoln has been operating now
for a few years. This is one of three repeaters purchased by the State
through a fortuitous funding opportunity. Since Omaha has a private
group supplying a repeater for the system, the additional two units are
slated for Grand Island and Kearney. The Grand Island repeater is now up
and running. The Omaha repeater is operating at a temporary location. It
appears that all the obstacles have been removed to install this
repeater on the tallest building in Omaha. We thought we had a site for
the Kearney machine, but the deal “fell through� and we are working
on a new location. In addition, several counties have purchased D-Star
repeaters on their own. These will eventually become part of the
state-wide system, at the discretion of the county’s emergency
management.

Bob Eastwood, W0RJE, is the leader of the D-Star effort. Our technical
guru is Myron Coleman, NG0M. In order to get call signs for the
machines and to form an organization to support the system, we formed
the Nebraska D-Star Club. Bob is president, Myron is VP, I am
secretary, and Jon Morris, KA0JGG, is the treasurer. The club held its
first full meeting on Saturday, September 24. The club’s constitution
and bylaws were approved. Nebraska residents who own D-Star radio
equipment are invited to be full members of the club. Any amateur,
without a D-Star radio, who is interested in D-Star and emergency
communications, can be an Associate Member. We formed a Governance
Committee consisting of the officers, repeater owners/operators,
repeater trustees, and emergency managers for the counties using the
statewide system. This committee will set operating policies and help
plan the future of the system. Naturally, the Governance Committee will
expand as new repeaters are brought online. Trustees, by the way, are
volunteers located in the communities housing (or close to) the
repeaters.

The repeaters and system are open for use by any licensed amateur radio
operator. You do not need to be a member of the club. We are
experimenting with a reflector-based linking system called “Nebraska
Permalink� which allows automatic linking among the repeaters in the
system. So if you make a call in Omaha, your voice will appear in
receivers in Lincoln and Grand Island (and any additional repeaters as
they become available). Full D-Star functionality is also available
which will allow you to talk to D-Star users around the world.

During emergency conditions, however, the system will be restricted to
emergency traffic. We are working on a signal or voice loop, etc., to
announce that condition. Normal day-to-day amateur communications are
encouraged when there is no emergency situation. There is no better way
to be sure an emergency resource is working than to use it.

Right now, the systems are linked via the Internet. When it becomes
operational, we will move the linking to a new State-owned microwave
network. Eventually, we would like to have the D-Star system linked via
amateur radio microwave so that we are completely independent of other
communications systems. We would, of course, be able to fall back to
the state microwave or the Internet.

For more information on the Nebraska D-Star system, please visit:
http://www.nedstar.org. This website shows the system status.
Eventually users will even be able to configure some of the network
functions via this site.

[...]

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ARRL Nebraska Section
Section Manager: Arthur I Zygielbaum, K0AIZ

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Roger Grant, KB0VVD, wrote and asked if storm spotting will still be
done on 2-meter FM or if everyone will need to switch to D-Star.

I tried to make it clear in my newsletter and I apologize if I didn't
make it clear enough. The Statewide D-Star system is in addition to
all that we now do. It offers an additional capability and is not
intended to replace our current 2-meter FM activities. The Statewide
system gives us the abililty to keep county emergency managers in touch
with each other and with the state emergency operations center. It also
allows us to coordinate ham radio resources if that becomes necessary.
In fact, we will be experimenting with linking FM repeaters into the
system.

Some day in the future, digital communcations may replace FM just like
SSB replaced AM a few decades ago. But until that time, your VHF
and/or UHF radios will continue to be the workhorses in our emergency
communications arsenal.

Sorry if I caused any concern.

If you chose to get into D-Star, you are, of course, most welcome to
use the system.

73, Art K0AIZ

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ARRL Nebraska Section
Section Manager: Arthur I Zygielbaum, K0AIZ

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