Saturday, December 5, 2015

Madras Disaster, december 2015

I was seeing the human tragedy at Madras(Chennai, India),due to the natures fury. Even if nature's one element increases Air, Fire, Water,Earth all becomes cause for the disaster. If we are lucky the disaster is small, but there is still loss to the humane and infrastrutcture and in long-run to economy. First thing, we wish in this situation is water, food, hygine, warmth blanket and message from our family they are ok, we are trapped here, save us. In this last thing related to the communications, as a ham we can help them a little.

I look around, am i disaster ready ? Yep, my antenna is up. i have light(electricity), what If ? my light goes out,,, for 5 hours i can use a 40 meter analogue receiver on car battery. After that nothing. sorry, i do not have transceiver...

What ? i can not afford commercial set up, not able to build one, and great ham not able to provide the pre-build air worthy transceiver. But, there are many designs, bitx, vu3gcm,rm96,nr60,vu2atn,various dc receiver,r7, gr7, jota,HF1 etc etc.... there is a gap of simple tech. We have very hi-quality tech,sofisticated, digital, software but not a simplest one.

In the early years of 60-70 our maritime mobile were able to accurately transmit the distres signal in morce ? they were right on frequency ? how did they do it.

Answere is simple 2182kc, 6725kc , 455 to 465, 500kc etc were maritime frequency. I have seen the emergency set powered by a crank shaft, CW, DSB with portable vertical antenna and they all were xtal controlled transmitter. I have seen fixed frequency receiver also to receive 2182kc the local oscillator was 2682kc xtal, IF was 500kc. So, you got two frequency receiver. Damn ! the tech is there.

Our, need of the day is small powered cw or fone transmitter with portable antenna so that atleast they are able to radiate some effective signals around say 50km from the locations and if power is there and antenna is high then full range with big linear. We should go with new tech, that is progress but at the end of the days the morce code will come handy. When power is out, there will be less QRM.

There are many xtal cheaply available i.e 14.166mhz, 14.318mhz, 7.159mhz, 3.597mhz, 1843kc, and 10.000+(4.000 / 4194 / 4433/4286) for twenty meter, 11059-4.000 for forty meter. All our problem of hams not on air can be solved. VU2FI sir, if we import some xtals in bulk from dx or specially made say 14194kc. Let us make some simple design of one to two watt transmitter, simple transistors as active device, less dependance on special ferrite, and simple receiver (DC or Superhet )with sensitive enough to work another local qrp. If person is on air, we can depend on it. our air wave will be busy and no one has the chace to grab it up. Guys, think over it. otherwize as you have seen the everage age of hams at hfi2015 was more than 45 plus. Farhan we expect & request you to help as you can think out of the box, it is out of your league or not intune with what you are doing but we seek you to help. VU2RBI, VU2FI this is answere to your quest what will help ham not to dry up.


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I put this ideas to the indian and foreign hams. From the response/comments I can say, may be we are not realizing the potential of this old technology. May be electricity and civilization stays with us forever ... BEWARE  there will be few black days also.........
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My one friend put this on net. I liked the content, as it is useful.

Most Chennaites and people in rest of TN have only WhatsApp connectivity, so please copy this
story and spread through Whatsapp.

As the rescue operations are underway in Chennai, the focus should now shift to how best people can ensure public health and combat the outbreak of water-borne diseases as it is often difficult to maintain hygiene during clean-up operations.
The News Minute has compiled a list of dos and don'ts based on our conversations with doctors. Most of these... are home remedies that you can execute even without power and medical supply. Spread the word and stay safe.

> Using sari as a filter can reduce the chance of cholera and the water-borne diseases. This has proved to be an effective method of filtration in flood-ravaged countries like Bangladesh, with researchers from the US establishing. While boiling water and then filtering it would be more effective but in cases where people have no access to gas or heating mechanisms, filtering water using the folds of a sari is better than no filtration at all.

> If you have no access to drinking water, collect rain water in containers placed on your terrace. This can then be boiled and filtered for use.

> Do not stand in stagnant water. With sewage water getting mixed with all water sources, standing in these stagnant pools can lead to leptospirosis.

> If your food stock is running low at home, take a litre of boiled water and add 5-6 spoons of sugar and 1 spoon of salt. Drinking this at regular intervals will help in keeping the hydration levels high.

> In areas where the water is knee-deep, add bleaching powder or salt to it. It works as an effective disinfectant and also prevent bacterial diseases from getting transmitted.

> For those with access to medicines, stock up on ORS packets to prevent diarrhoea and antiemetic drugs to prevent vomiting.

> Have freshly cooked food that's been heated to boiling point. For those with power, avoid refrigerated food to the maximum extent possible
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It seems our senior ham VU2FI had set-up a emergency communication room at Banglore and handled 3000 messages and helped in disaster relief in 4 days. Hats off to those hams. Freq was 7070kc, and ecolink , VHF etc were used. Hope to hear and learn from their experience for disaster preparations.
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It seems the SIARS-Chennai , also have its own view. Will collate it after they speak it loud.
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Personally I have no bias, I welcome all the voices pro-con and others. Life is multi-dimensional, if we have different views, viewpoints then better we understand the situation.

 IMHO we need hams who can interface with giant multi head  government on whom we depend for our joy. There are who really wants to work in field and shy away from all limelight. There are those who comes on air, there are those who just  tinkers.

It is a very expensive hobby. I have seen many persons who also developed other hobbies, numismatics, photo, tracking, mountaineering etc and survived the harshness of ham hobby.

So, ultimate aim should be enjoyment. Whichever way you find joy enjoy it.

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