One of the first things that comes to mind when talking about amateur radio is emergency and public service communications. Since its inception, amateur radio operators have been providing communications for disaster relief organizations, such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army, civil defense communications for federal agencies, and connecting members of our armed services stationed abroad with their families here in the U.S. via the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS).

When hazardous weather occurs such as severe thunderstorms, floods, tornadoes, snow and ice storms, SKYWARN volunteers, including radio amateurs, report what is happening at their location. They are asked to report whenever certain criteria are met, such as when one inch of rain has fallen, six inches of snow are on the ground, a thunderstorm is producing hail, or trees have been blown down. Radio amateurs are particularly valuable to SKYWARN because mobile amateur radio stations can be deployed to exactly where they are needed and provide real-time reports of severe weather conditions via nets set up for exactly this purpose.

The best ways to learn about Amateur Radio is to talk to hams face-to-face. Hams take pride in their ability to "Elmer" (teach) newcomers the ropes to get them started in the hobby.

The Colorado Springs Fire Department knows that wildfire is an ongoing threat in our community. The Colorado Springs Wildfire Ready website aims to help inform the citizens of Colorado Springs to prevent, prepare, plan, and know what to do in a wildfire event. If you need information not related to wildfire from Colorado Springs Fire Department, please visit our main website at: www.coloradosprings.gov/fire

Creating your family communication plan starts with one simple question: “What if.” Communication networks such as cell phones, tablets, and laptops, could be unreliable during disasters, and electricity could be disrupted. Planning in advance will help ensure that all household members know how to reach each other and where to meet up in an emergency.

Having a way to communicate with your family in times of an emergency is vital. Making an emergency communication plan PRIOR to a disaster is the only way to ensure everyone knows how to keep in touch should anything happen. In times of crisis, having a plan in place will keep everyone more calm and more safe. Being prepared is key to reuniting your family.

If you don't have a an emergency communications plan, how are your family members going to know where to find you if you are at work and a disaster strikes your building? The time when you are most likely to be away from other members of your family is during the day. Children are at school and adults are at work. How do you find your family members if they are at home and something happens to the neighborhood and it has to be evacuated or there is a power outage?

Having a plan in place allows everyone to know where to meet. Furthermore, if they are unable to reach the planned location, they will know who to contact.

Where to Meet.  Think about how your family is going to get back together in a disaster situation if you are all in different locations. You need to pick a location where you can all meet that is easy to remember.

1. Choose a place in your neighborhood to meet when the disaster is at your home. Pick a place that is familiar to everyone in the family, like the front porch of the neighbors across the street.
2. Choose a place outside of your neighborhood to meet such as a school playground or local park in case it is not possible to get to your home or neighborhood.
3. If you are prevented from getting to either location because of the emergency, have a designated person who can pick up your children at school or daycare, attend to any pets, and/or care for any elderly members of the family (at home or in facilities). This needs to be something that is done automatically if you do not show up. It sounds awful, but it has to be considered.

How to Stay in Touch.  When an emergency situation arises, communication can be a real challenge. Phone lines can be swamped and cell phone towers can be down. Only make the most essential calls during a disaster crisis. So that your family has a way to ensure everyone is safe when you are not all at the same location, choose two people as emergency contacts. Select someone local for your family members to call and also choose someone out of the area to contact. Long distance calls may still go through when local phone service isn’t working. If you are using your cellphone, the preferred method during a disaster is texting. It takes up less bandwidth.

Everyone in your family should know who your emergency contact is and have their home and cell telephone numbers memorized. If you have family members who are very young or elderly or have memory issues, they can have the information written on a 3 by 5 card and kept with their personal items.

• Be aware that an out-of-town contact may be in a better position to communicate with separated family members simply because they aren't in the midst of the disaster situation.
• Be sure every member of your family knows the phone numbers. Even young children can memorize phone numbers.
• You may have trouble getting through, or the telephone system may be down altogether, but be patient.

Implement the Plan.  Having an emergency communication plan is great, but it won't do you any good if you don't put it all in place. Take the time to practice your plan with your family. That means actually going to the places you have designated as meeting places. Your family members, especially children, need to see those places. Place the important phone numbers by the telephones in your house. Put the ICE information in your cell phone. Talk to your neighbors. You have to implement the plan if it is going to work.

Neighborhood Emergency Communication Plan.  Here is another thing to consider: Check with your employer, your child's daycare center or school and even your church about their emergency communication plans. Not all organizations are as prepared as you would expect them to be. Take the lead if you have to and offer to create a plan for your office or your child's daycare center. Most schools have plans in place and if you ask to see them, you should be able to get access. Talk to your child about the plans your school has and make sure he/she knows what to do if a disaster strikes. With regard to your neighborhood, many times you can meet with the people closest to you and talk to them about specific scenarios and figure out what you could do as a group to get through the situation as a team.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/03/19/2021-03042/schedule-of-application-fees-of-the-commissions-rules

This morning at 3:36am (MDT) I received the email from the Federal Communication Commission, FCC, notifying me that my vanity call sign was approved and granted.  Due to the relocation from Alabama to Colorado, I wanted a call sign that represented the region I live in now, which is "0" (zero) in Colorado.

I am now N0CSP!

New FAA regulations require landowners to mark any towers between 50′ and 200′ on their property, as well as include the towers in a new database the FAA is developing.

Previously, towers under 200′ were not subject to any federal marking requirements, according to officials with the National Agricultural Aviation Association.

The new requirements are due to provisions in the FAA Extension, Safety and Security Act of 2016 and the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018.

Under the provisions in these laws, meteorological evaluation towers (METs) meeting the requirements stipulated in the bills must be both marked and logged in to the FAA database. Communication towers of the same size have the option to be either be marked or logged in the FAA database.

The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 requires this database to be functional by October 2019. The FAA is also finalizing the marking requirements for these towers, but they are expected to be similar to the standards found in FAA Advisory Circular 70/7460-1L.

Officials with the National Agricultural Aviation Association encourage landowners to preemptively mark their towers and voluntarily log towers on their property into the FAA’s Daily Digital Obstacle File (Daily DOF). The Daily DOF is an obstacle database that contains mostly obstructions above 200′, with obstructions below 200′ submitted on a voluntary basis. The Daily DOF gives an obstruction’s location, height, and type of marking (if any). Information on the tower’s owner or property owner is not asked for or publicly given.

Association officials note that since 2008 there have been 22 tower-related agricultural aircraft accidents resulting in nine fatalities. The number of accidents and fatalities is even higher when other low-level operations, such as EMS-Medevac operations, are included.

An NAAA analysis of accidents from 2008 to 2018 across all sectors of general aviation found there were 40 tower-related accidents and incidents resulting in 36 fatalities. The data also shows many of those general aviation aviators did not collide with the main body of the obstruction itself, but the extremely difficult to see guy wires supporting the structure, illustrating the importance of installing high-visibility guy wire sleeves or spherical ball markers, officials said.

Unmarked meteorological evaluation towers must now be marked under new federal requirements. The arrow points out the almost invisible guy wires that pose such a risk to general aviation pilots.

North Dakota farmer and aerial applicator Brian Rau has a 96′ RTK tower on his property. Short for “real time kinematic,” RTK towers supplement the GPS systems of automated ground-based farm equipment.

As an aerial applicator, Rau knows the importance of having such towers both marked and logged into appropriate FAA databases, regardless of legal requirements. He added florescent ball markers within the structure’s skeleton soon after it was converted from a communications tower to an RTK tower. This year Rau took the additional step of providing the coordinates of his tower to the FAA’s Obstacle Data Team for inclusion in the Daily DOF.

“Seeing the growth of communication towers in North Dakota and across the county, I knew it was important to both mark and properly log the tower,” Rau said. “Submitting the tower to be included in the FAA’s Daily Digital Obstacle File only took minutes and was well worth a few moments of my time.”

From a safety perspective, being transparent about the existence of low-level obstacles is vital to agricultural pilots and other aircraft flying in the airspace between zero and 400′, such as police and first responder aircraft, aerial firefighters and pipeline patrol pilots, NAAA officials said.

The FAA’s Digital Obstacle File (DOF) provides information about potential obstacles in pilots’ flight path before they take off. Once pilots download the FAA’s Digital Obstacle File or Daily DOF, they can import it into Geographic Information Systems applications, such as agricultural aviation applications.

FAA Advisory Circular 70/7460-1L on obstruction marking and lighting details the ways different types of obstructions may be marked. The document provides specifications on lighting systems, colors and light intensities. As an alternative to lighting, the document also explains tools for the “unlighted marking” of obstructions. This includes paint colors and patterns, as well as specifications for guy wire sleeves and high-visibility spherical markers.

Rau chose the latter option for marking his RTK tower.

“The ball markers seemed the easiest for an existing galvanized tower, and they really improved the visibility of the tower,” he said.

“Aerial applicators have been at the forefront of ensuring a safe airspace for low-flying pilots for years,” said NAAA Executive Director Andrew Moore. “We encourage farmers, landowners and tower companies to familiarize themselves with the dangers of unmarked, low-level towers. Towers in and around productive farmland may prevent a crop from being treated by air if it is too difficult or unsafe for an ag pilot to treat. As such, due consideration must be given to locating any type of tower on ag land. If a tower’s construction is imminent or already exists, it is highly encouraged that preemptive compliance with the forthcoming FAA regulations required by Congress occur.”

In addition to the human cost, a precedent has been established increasing the likelihood that landowners and tower manufacturers could be held financially liable for tower-related accidents, officials said.

In 2014, a milestone court settlement was reached when a group of defendants representing tower manufacturing, wind energy, land-owning and farming interests agreed to pay $6.7 million to the family of agricultural aviator Steve Allen to settle a wrongful death action brought against the tower entities for failing to mark a 197′ meteorological evaluation tower or make Allen aware of its location prior to his fatal collision with the tower in 2011. From eyewitness accounts, it was clear Allen never saw the unmarked tower before he struck it.

Landowners and farmers can submit an obstruction to the FAA’s Daily Digital Obstacle File by emailing the tower’s height and coordinates to 9-AJV-532-OBSTData-REQ@faa.gov.

The General Class license is the second of three US Amateur Radio licenses. To upgrade to General Class, you must already hold a Technician Class license (or have recently passed the Technician license exam). Upgrading to a General license--which conveys extensive HF privileges—only requires passing a written examination. Once you do, the entire range of operating modes and the majority of the amateur spectrum below 30 MHz become available

I'm at the Elmore County Emergency Management Agency attending the FEMA "Public Information in an All-Hazards Incident" course.  Working along side mayors, police chiefs, and other high ranking this week!

After over 30 hours of training, simulations, and exercises, I am officially a member of the Autauga/Prattville Community Emergency Response Team (CERT).  It was great training along side the Prattville Fire Department and the Autauga County Emergency Management Agency.