What's Your PACE Plan for Emergency Communications?
Posted by iamliberty@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 35 comments
Monday night, we tested our POClink emergency group. Pinging each member and getting a simple check-in from various places around the country.
The idea here is to be able to gather intel from a larger group even if SOME cell signal or carriers are lost. This will be added to my current PACE Plan for emer comms (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency)
Do you have a PACE plan to have 4 means of communication in the event of a disaster that disrupts cell service? What are some of your alternate comms methods?
live_long_die_well@reddit
Area of communication is all within 5km.
Spiley_spile@reddit
Ugh, when Im doing ham practice sessions with disaster first response teams, we get people illegally interrupting our comms. Please know what youre doing on a ham and dont get in the way of responders trying to do our jobs to save lives.
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
You are aware that if cell service goes down that POClink radios won't work, aren't you?
"Poclink connects through all three major US carriers—AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon—plus 99% of global operators."
iamliberty@reddit (OP)
100% this is just an Alternate/Contingency depending on the group member. We also use the wifi models which can connect to Starlink.
StarlightLifter@reddit
This is something I wonder about.
Like, in a true grid down and we don’t know if it is coming back scenario, cell towers will also be out. So GMRS and HAM repeaters, they’d be offline - right?
I have a nice set of Cobras for my wife and I. That’s about it.
I am open to any differing info though. This is a topic for which I have been weak on for a long time. Granted, I live in a city and besides friends/family the next city over I’m not sure who I’d need to talk to..
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
In my area the HAM and Emergency Service repeaters are all solar powered
dittybopper_05H@reddit
Repeaters aren't the be-all, end-all of amateur radio, or even GMRS for that matter. Having a base GMRS radio with a decent antenna up in an elevated spot at your home can give you pretty significant range to handhelds and mobiles.
The same is true with amateur radio, but even better you have access to HF frequencies. When I was a Novice, a bunch of us in the local area had 10 meter radios in our cars because the only other options for voice were 220 MHz and 1296 MHz, and at the time no one made radios for that, and we didn't have repeaters for them in the area anyway.
We used to get decent ranges, running 25 watts SSB. Today I can run 50 watts SSB (if I go higher, car starts complaining).
And I can go lower in frequency (though at the cost of antenna efficiency).
Plus that gets us into long distance capability.
Financial_Resort6631@reddit
I am going to get so much hate and down votes. I tried HAM radio. It’s no longer a part of the plan. If you find it to be a good tool for you then fine. Good for you.
P: Cell phones A: switch to roaming C: texting only E: rally points.
I am a Ham Radio Technician. I got a 5W hand held. Outside some group meet ups and hearing utility workers it’s never really been useful. Even tried to play with WIRES and APRS. When I price the General class equipment even used it’s never cheap. You gotta set up power for these systems.
I have been through many disasters that took down cell towers.
You switch your phone to roaming and go off of other carriers towers. So I was in hurricanes/typhoons that took out all the areas towers. You just text and use Twitter. SMS (whatever format used now) transmits way further than voice.
If everything fails my family has places to meet up in an emergency.
If I am going to spend thousands on comms equipment it will be satellite communications like STARlink or a satellite phone.
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
Correct. 5W handhelds are ALL line of sight radios. If you can't see the other party odds are you can't reach them.
If you want more range you'll need to go to HF (20, 40, 80m) radios
eye_of_the_sloth@reddit
Cell phone, Garmin inReach, Meshtastic nodes, in person meetup spots.
Rkitt1977@reddit
Ham radio. PoC radios are great until cell towers go down. With zero connection to the grid, I know I can always get out with my portable HF radio running on battery power.
I also have a Garmin InReach I keep in my truck just in case.
Ingawolfie@reddit
This is the correct answer. Most cell towers are on battery backups which die after 12 hours. We had this happen to us during a three day major brush fire which thankfully spared our house. All cellular ability stopped after 12 hours because the power company blacked out our entire town. Compounding the problem were the first responders who jammed what little bandwidth there was. Verizon actually throttled the fire department, which turned into an ugly lawsuit.
Ingawolfie@reddit
To add. After this incident we went ahead and got a sat phone. 1K to buy. $25/ month to have. $3/minute to use.
No-Dimension910@reddit
Which InReach model, if you don't mind me asking? Have been eyeing a few models for a couple of years, but have not purchased. What is the typical subscription cost?
iamliberty@reddit (OP)
I like the Garmin idea. Thanks!
MsSuzAllen5515@reddit
In progress.. but need help
ryansdayoff@reddit
Cell phone
Meshcore (fantastic coverage in my area and I can communicate across my city and work to home)
Garmin Inrange
HAM radio: (my girlfriend does not have a license, so this is a last choice for now)
dittybopper_05H@reddit
Normally I would have included VHF/UHF amateur radio because the local repeater system is damned good and has emergency power backup, but something extraordinary happened a couple days ago.
The repeaters were all turned off, by order to the repeater owner.
The repeater system is owned by the local county office of emergency services. Through an agreement with the local ham radio club, it has been open to all, not just RACES members.
One of the local hams violated that agreement by putting up an Allstar node that allowed remote access to the repeater. Not once, not twice, but thrice over a period of time.
When this got back to the head of county emergency services, who is not a ham and would have never known had someone not told them, they shut down the repeater system. Only time it's available now is during the weekly RACES net.
Also, the ham in question is permanently banned from the repeater system, and also apparently banned from using the local club callsign or participating in club events.
This was a fairly active repeater system. There were regular nets on it, including a wide area weather net, a local net to help/encourage new hams to upgrade and/or ask questions, a regular club net to discuss things of local amateur radio interest, etc. It was also often used during non-net hours, especially during commuting hours.
Sigh.
And people wonder why I happily sit on HF, pounding brass, and don't join a club.
BallsOutKrunked@reddit
That resonates hard with me. I'm in a super rural area, our 2m repeaters share towers and power with county services. I'm also in ems and for some calls we'll use that network because we can hit a non county repeater occasionally, like maybe a few times a year.
Online hams lose their minds at this but in reality land the amateur service and the county have a positive, symbiotic relationship. Everyone gets what they want. Citizens are better serviced, less tax money to edge case repeater coverage, amateur community gets 3/4 of the repeater network hosted essentially for free.
dittybopper_05H@reddit
Thing is I don't really use the repeater system, good though it is, because I'm an HF CW guy. The only time I use it is when I'm heading up to the Field Day site, or to the Museum Ships site, or to some other event that the club invites me to participate in because I'm a CW guy, and that's generally just to let them know I'm on my way. Occasionally to coordinate or something like that.
The truly sad part is I'm friends with people on both sides of this current kerfluffle. I think it could have been handled better on both sides without the need for such drastic measures.
The reason why the Allstar node kept getting put up is because there were a number of people who lived in the area and subsequently retired down to Florida and wanted to keep in touch. There was a plan to connect Echolink to the machines, but for years it didn't happen.
Doesn't excuse the ham who kept connecting the Allstar link in violation of the agreement between OES and the local club. Absolutely a violation three separate times, and well, three strikes and you're out. So banning him from the repeater I can absolutely see. I like the guy: We're almost exactly the same age and we got our Extras at the same VE session, and we like joke around with each other a lot at events like Field Day. But he was a bad boy.
By the same token, the repeater owner should be a ham (head of OES of the county isn't) and should have taken into consideration that it's a widely used system and maybe just banned the one ham instead of all use except for the weekly RACES net.
Just seems like an over-reaction.
BallsOutKrunked@reddit
As a county guy and a ham, I've seen a lot of possible friction points but I always try to steer things towards getting along. Maybe if you're rural you can make an argument for the safety aspect. Get a fire guy or other emergency services guy to at least nod his or her head.
dittybopper_05H@reddit
Area is mostly rural upstate New York. But it's not my fight, I was just gobsmacked by it when I was told about it last night while picking some stuff up at the supermarket, and I ran into a couple of my "ham children" (people I introduced to the hobby), and they told me the entire sordid story.
certifiedintelligent@reddit
This is largely dependent on who you want to talk to if your P goes out. Family, friends, emergency services, etc, and what you assume their comms will be like.
In my case, I really only care to contact two groups:
Family across the country, so I assume they won't be affected by my local disaster.
Emergency services/search and rescue/etc
My A is a ZOLEO. I primarily use it for backcountry hiking, but if traditional communications went down for any other reason, I can send and receive emails and SMS text messages and contact the rescue center via the Iridium constellation. I chose this over inReach devices since it has a dedicated, normal phone number and email address assigned to the device, no portals to use or needing to contact someone else before they can you.
I don't have a dedicated C, but I suppose you could put the satellite feature from my iPhone here.
My E is a PLB. If all else fails and I just need help, things have to be real bad for COSPAS-SARSAT to be down worldwide.
silasmoeckel@reddit
Poclink that's cute overpriced far less function cell phones
Ham radio gets you local and long distance coms without relying on anything else.
Starlink is frankly the only sat worth bothering with cost/benefits wise.
In any event.
Primary local coms is ham for me and mine. Voice or data and we have positional updates via data for a simple this way to them arrow. Small enough for EDC carry and the vehicles act as repeaters. Not legal to encrypt but it's easy to do so. APRS especially here can get out of a regional event and into traditional systems like SMS/email. Interop with local and state LEO and other emergency services (partially tested once a year). Locally we have good ham/emergency services coordination via shared gear in both dispatch and command vehicles.
Alt is starlink, have on houses, vehicle, and in bob. Add a cell phone on now wifi calling etc. 5 Bucks a month for 500kbs.
Contingency, HF it can go to the far side of the world on a good day. Voice and data. Email/NTS gets me to non hams. Gear is frequency agile to interop with mars etc. Gets me a lot of data as well for weather etc.
Emergency, APRS sats and PLB. Store and forward gets me wide coverage abit rather slow, gear wise it's my EDC HT. PLB is the ultimate in please come save me mr government man.
All in it's about 4kg of gear in my bob/edc to have all 4 available to me. We split up the starlink and HF kit, everybody has a PLB and HT as basic backpacking kit.
iamliberty@reddit (OP)
Great PACE for sure! Funny enough the cuteness and less function of the POC is why we chose it. We are building a large comms group (50-100ppl) and what I have learned over the years is that you gotta make things simple for people or they won't do it.
We had a HAM radio study group of similar size years ago and it was clear that some people are gonna go for it and others are gonna say, "screw it." The POC is push to talk and gives our group an immediate Alternate at the very least.
Most people don't have this kind of problem to deal with, so HAM is a great option, but our audience wanted an emer comms option, so over the last year, we really looked at a lot of radios and methods to find something simple and seamless.
Thanks for the input!
DeFiClark@reddit
I’m struck by how few folks have postal mail in their list.
It’s one of the first services restored after disaster and is a primary comms method in many disturbed areas and even failed states.
ohyeahwell@reddit
I’m building out a meshcore setup right now
agent_flounder@reddit
Hadn't heard of pace before. I just kind of have options but don't really have any specific group to get info from.
cheap gmrs/frs radios (for comms between family since I'm the only ham)
Ok let's be real. I have a pile of ham radios, but one is permanently mounted in my 4Runner. I also have a 2m HT. I can easily set up my old RS HTX-212 or new Alinco DR-135 for a base station / aprs with a simple J pole ladder line antenna. Also have an Alinco 6m and a mobile antenna around here somewhere.
DeFiClark@reddit
Cell phone, second cell phone, USPS/email, radio (Baofeng)
iamliberty@reddit (OP)
These are great recommendations! Anyone who is seeing this post and does not have a PACE plan you should read through these replies! Thanks.
Swmp1024@reddit
I don't get the POClink thing. You need WiFi. If you had WiFi you can text. Pretty much everyone I talk to has an iPhone so you can already do WiFi texting if not you have WhatsApp/telegram/signal or whatever you use.
iamliberty@reddit (OP)
We like the POC for the distance and the WIFI with Starlink. Gives you a means of hitting both 5g cell and starlink through wifi.
Cheap_Cap760@reddit
Cell/text Local ham repeater (providing utility power is on) Simplex / my battery powered repeater (providing I wrap up its lose ends on the repeater) In person
BallsOutKrunked@reddit
Cell/text
2m repeater network in our area
20m
Fallback plan to drive / travel to certain areas.
Ryan_e3p@reddit