2024-10-11 — Public Service Announcement for Preparedness, A Few More Observations About 21st Century Emergency Comms - Via Satellite, ARRL’s Dismissive Arrogance re: Technician Class Operators
Very well put. I believe the Mr. Minster is the biggest impediment to amateur radio that we have now. He doesn't seem to want to listen to the little guy only the big bucks "investors" more openness and communication with the little guy would significantly help the ARRL and ham radio in general.
I know that in the past, the ARRL has supported the notion of giving technician licensees significant privileges on the HF bands. This could be done by giving them narrower slices of HF spectrum than general class licensees enjoy, or by limiting them to reduced power on the frequencies allocated to the general class. It's an idea I enthusiastically endorse.
Here in Germany, ham radio is strictly between licensed hams. In official emergencies, we may transport messages from/to outside parties - no exceptions allowed. But a few months ago we got a very basic new entry class with VHF/UHF and 10 m privileges only.
I think it is a bad idea to let people use better two-way radios without any training. This might work in low-density populations where you can reach a very limited number of people. But in population centers this would provoke chaos. By US standards, Germany is a single, densely populated area: more than 80 million people in an area 800 km across.
Alexander - The recent rapid growth of usage of the US General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) will be an interesting "test" of your position of "I think it is a bad idea to let people use better two-way radios without any training". A license is required for operating on the US GMRS frequencies, but no training is required. If memory serves, when I obtained my GMRS license, I didn't even have to acknowledge that I had studied the GMRS regulations. GMRS operates in the UHF band around 460 MHz and mobile, base, and repeaters can all transmit with up to 50 watts transmit power.
We live in the most hit part of the US, statistically, by hurricanes. Tip... before the storm, fill your bath tub with water. In a pinch, you can drink it for many days. You'll know the next day how bad things are. If it's bad, you'll have water, and you'll not care about skipping a bath or two. . If it wasn't bad, just empty it and take your bath.
The ARRL has always imphttps://www.facebook.com/share/p/siLJw7qgkweUK6Ef/membershipressed me as being arrogant. Years back, I wanted to join but only for the membership. I did not want the magazine as it was chucked full of ads. So I asked have the cost of the magazine and mailing deducted from the total membership fee. Nope, no dice so I told then to keep their organization.
The recent disqualification for ARRL Northwestern Division Director of Dan Marler, K7REX (challenging the incumbent) was yet another case of the ARRL not wanting to be transparent on many topics, thus they also were vague in their lotice of the disqualification to members in the division. I am dissatisfied with the ARRL explanation, as Dan also sent his replies to the Ethics Board to the members in the division. I stand wit Dan Marler.
Steve, are you sure about this? I just read “The Ecosystem of Becoming a Ham” and that "never progress within amateur radio" issue could easily be referring to those who get their ticket (any class) but then lose interest, never participate any any ham activity, and eventually let their license lapse. We know this is an issue, and that's how I read it. Yes, the piece discusses licensing, but that's more in the vein of encouraging new hams, not really about upgrading license class. It also includes phrases like this: "Local clubs are an absolute necessity in helping new hams navigate from getting their ticket to becoming radio active" and "giving new amateurs the inspiration and motivation to get active in one or more areas of the hobby".
So I don't think that tech license holders are being disrespected.
"If something's hard to do it's not worth doing. So just stick that guitar next to your shortwave (ham) radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle, and we'll just go watch TV" -H. Simpson, giving advice to his son.
Paul - Thanks for offering your perspective. There was more depth that went into my conclusion than what I included in the article. Just to state one cynical perspective, Technicians generally aren’t interested in buying multi-$k (thus, profitable) HF radios that are the highest revenue ads in QST. Another is “lost” revenue from not selling ARRL General and Extra study guides to “happy Techs”. I thought long and hard whether to express this opinion, and ultimately concluded it was warranted, and someone ought to challenge ARRL’s apparent bias against Techs.
Perhaps there a bias, and you mention a few reasons why that might be the case at the ARRL. But is there really? Now, I've got my Extra (novice -> advanced -> extra), and even with that I'm not the typical "ARRL-approved" ham as I spend over 99% of my ham time building stuff, and less than 1% of the time actually "communicating", so I'm probably not is a position to personally notice any ARRL bias.
However I do think that times are changing (as they always have) and the ARRL and other ham organizations need to evolve. But it's a big ham world out there, and (for example) while I have absolutely no interest in contests and DX-hunting, should QST stop giving the contests so much coverage? I would personally say yes, but many others enjoy that part of our hobby.
When it comes to the ARRL there is much to gripe about. But as for disrespecting techs, all I'm saying is that I didn't see it in Minster's article.
"Amateur Radio is communication of last resort". While I find that technically true, and hams scream it from the mountain my feeling is that ship has sailed. If a self-appointed EMCOMM ham shows up at a disaster comms site uninvited he will be (hopefully politely) shown the door. FEMA certifications and an existing working relationship with the local Emergency Communications Director is a prerequisite. I know of several ham groups that have those conditions established, which is terrific.
It depends on what exactly the ham radio operator is expected to do. I have no interest at all in interacting with FEMA or any of the first responders directly. That's not useful to anyone. And consider most state emergency responders have received massive grants to keep their hardened repeater systems running, both as a result of post-9/11 acts and FCC narrow banding implementation. However, if I can get a welfare message out of the area for my neighbor's family via the NTS, I think that's quite appropriate.
Let the pros do their thing. That's what we paid taxes for.
John - I think Amateur Radio EMCOM still has a role, but the scope of where it’s truly useful and offers a unique capability not provided by other systems or orgs… is narrowing, given the increasing capabilities of, for example, Starlink. We really need to understand where Amateur Radio should, and more importantly, shouldn’t be applied.
I'm not so sure that Starlink is going to be "all that and a bag of chips" when the SHTF. Consider that even small towns have multiple 100 Gbps links to the outside world. Sure, that's carrying a typical day's traffic and most of the data sinks would be down in a disaster, but there's still far less bandwidth available overall to Starlink compared to a typical fiber. Once you start enabling VoIP and FaceTime calling at a disaster shelter the bandwidth will be chewed up pretty quickly.
Interesting read linked below, deconstructing the starlink Ku-band OFDM carrier. Apparently the receiver is capable of 200MHz reception. For comparison, that's about the same as one or two cellular bands, or one half of a neighborhoods' (150 homes passed) "narrowcast" cablemodem carrier (as of 2022).
I know that beam forming and other techniques can allow for a good bit of reuse, but there's still going to be guard bands between nearby satellites to prevent interference. Still better than nothing, and probably more practical than passing NTS messages over a voice repeater.
Ready - One of the reasons for my admiration of Starlink as a 21st century broadband infrastructure is that both the network (the satellites / inter satellite links / ground stations) AND the user equipment is continually evolving. Here's a hint of how Starlink thinks it can evolve to even higher capacity with lower orbits, bigger satellites, and more flexible use of spectrum allocated for satellite use - https://www.satellitetoday.com/connectivity/2024/10/15/spacex-requests-starlink-gen2-modification-previews-gigabit-speeds/
One aspect of amateur radio that many Technician licensees seem to miss is they have full access to modes such as DMR, C4FM, D-STAR, AllStarLink, Echolink, and more. Those modes open up the world for hams with a Technician license in the United States.
I view the hobby of amateur radio as being a bit like golf or bowling. The major limitation is generally the human, not the game. Yes, we compete against each other because that's in our DNA. But improvement in any of these games (amateur radio, golf, bowling) is really about striving to improve one's own ability to understand and to do. These activities are contests within ourselves to become better. That can be one of the deeper benefits of any hobby.
You should look out for modes that can do store & forward. This way your station can do something useful while you are away - eating, sleeping, helping...
My way is to use solar power for my (mostly) VarAC QRP station and let it run around the clock, as long as I am at home. If you wish to send me a short message (< 500 characters), you can reach my station from the US east coast most nights on 40m. Or send the message to VO1CBL or G1BVI. They will automatically inform me so I can fetch your message from there.
Alexander - good points all. VARA HF / FM, and using the excellent third party app VarAC just really changes the paradigm of reliable use of HF for email, etc.
Tom - Thanks for your comments. Yeah, "work the world" via Amateur Radio really is different in this era of ubiquitous, inexpensive broadband Internet access that makes it easy to communicate nearly anywhere, starting with a portable radio and an RF to Internet gateway.
EMCOMM and Starlink: Starlink makes is much easier and comfortable to provide welfare traffic. But it also needs infrastructure to work. Power supply for the Starlink terminal etc. is obvious.
But most smartphones must be charged once a day or so. And the operator himself must be self sufficient from clothing to water. I a community burdens could be distributed beforehand. The energy supply could be thought quite a bit bigger, to only name one topic.
Alexander - Good points, but in "mass shelter" provisioning provided by organizations such as FEMA, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. I've seen that provisions are being made for charging up phones as part of the sheltering mission. This is pragmatic - the sooner those being sheltered can connect with insurers, family and friends, etc. the sooner they can move on from being sheltered. The IEEE MOVE team - https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-move-van-disaster-relief and ITDRC - https://www.itdrc.org both make provisions for emergency broadband communications and especially charging individual phones. But point taken, the power system for an individual Starlink unit needs to be oversized to operate for several days, and the other loads such as laptops and charging up phones.
We live on different continents with different climates, different cultures etc. Especially here in central Europe we have a very high population density and and much more stable infrastructure, especially houses, than large parts of the USA have.
An extremely popular German TV entertainer, Thomas Gottschalk, escaped with his family to California. He did a few TV features about the differences. "If you want to hang up a picture, you do not need a hammer drill or even a hammer. Simply take a nail and press it into the wall with your thumb."
The result is, that we have had only very local catastrophes over the last two generations. Hardly anyone has suffered some real hardship after a tornado etc. Hardly anyone, from inhabitants to the state, is prepared for something big. But I see it looming, considering the $%/) German Energiewende. Lots of power plants have been decommissioned without considering that the sun does not shine at night and even the wind dies down from time to time.
General preparedness: You should have some containers for drinking waters. At camping outlets you can get cheap containers you can fold for storage. Fill them when needed.
The water supply in my community has an emergency power supply for two days and uses ground water. So besides some bottles of water I rely on empty containers that I will fill when something like a storm is coming or even after something has happened.
For food supplies you should look at what you normally buy and how long it can be stored. If you can store it, buy respective normal food stuff in bulk. Sometimes you can get it cheaper and are also protected from food inflation a bit.
I just came back from holiday. We took a carrier with drinking water with us that was way beyond its best before date. Normally we drink tap water. This carrier will be replaced shortly and will refill our emergency storage. BTW: The glass bottles we use for this will be sent back to the well and refilled there. The well might not be happy that we have kept carrier and bottles for 3 years. They count on a turn over within a month or two.
Emergency power supply: The power consumption of much communication gear has come down (Starlink Mini, QRP), has have battery prices. This shouts to combine both! This leaves the question how to charge the batteries, as batteries are still way too expensive to power anything reasonable for weeks with a single charge.
You can use regenerative power sources, especially solar panels. This is the way I go for my shack and the fridge most of the time. And/or you can use a gas generator with a charger. Or use the grid when it comes on for a few hours.
The combination of generator and battery has important advantages: You can always operate the generator with high efficiency to charge batteries, while you discharge the batteries with your communication equipment using very low currents. The generator only runs a few hours a day.
10 years ago cooling/freezing combinations used about 1 kWh/day. These days you can buy comparable fridges that consume around 200-400 Wh/day, depending on climate. This way you not only can include the fridge into your preparedness considerations. Also remember that there are medications that must be cooled.
Technical class, ARRL, NA2AA: That ARRL statement should not have been worded as it has been. But I believe that Steve is a bit blue-eyed: Search for "prepper radio", "baofeng" etc. and you find lots of people that simply want to legalize their exiting equipment. If all you need to do is to memorize a few facts and come out with a license, you hardly ever need to come in contact with our world.
The ARRL should try hard to get those people interested in our world! Try to be seen in local gatherings. For example offer a "fox hunt" for children. Or show what ham radio has already done for the local community.
I did not get the same meaning out of the CEO's comments, to wit: "There is a significant percentage of people who become licensed and then never progress within amateur radio." To me, what he meant was that many people get licensed and then become INACTIVE. Having administered ham exams since 1984, my experience is that we rarely see new licensees after they get their license, for a variety of reasons.
Curt - Thanks for your comments. To your statement "we rare see new licensees after they get their license" is (respectfully) solely from the perspective of the observer. If one is active on HF and they don't see new licensees on HF, does that de facto mean that they're not active? Ditto operation on VHF / UHF repeaters? It's entirely possible that new licensees are active, but in areas that most Amateur Radio operators doing traditional activities, just don't see. One example is operating on their portable radio into their personal hotspot that's connected to extensive repeater networks (or just chat groups with no wide area repeaters). Another is operating on AREDN and other microwave networks. Yet another example is the many "hackers" that are getting their Tech license solely to experiment with more sophisticated radio technology (and more spectrum, higher power levels) that are possible as an Amateur Radio Operator. They have little interest in traditional Amateur Radio activities, so "don't register as being active" from the perspective of many existing Amateur Radio Operators.
Thus I don't quite buy into the plaint that "new licensees aren't active" unless and until there's some actual research and rigor applied to that statement, like followup contact WITH those "new licensees that aren't active" to find out the real status of their Amateur Radio involvement.
The board's makeup and agenda is reflective of a very small, and getting smaller, segment of the amateur radio community that has demonstrated little interest in experimentation and new technologies in, or new audiences and applications for, amateur radio. Combine that with the board's active unwillingness to allow dissenting voices a place at the table and is it any wonder that new licensees don't join and renewals are declining?
Bill - I agree. ARRL is now aggressively into a new era of self-selection which, in my opinion, their support base (and corresponding financial situation) will downsize radically. With their actions, they won't be getting my $60 / year of support when my 3-year membership (subscription) expires in late 2025, and honestly, I don't think I'll miss not having access to ARRL "members only" info... though I will take the opportunity to dive back into previous periodicals to download the few interesting items for my personal archives.
Agreed. The ARRL's (so called) leadership is out of touch and only concerned with advancing their own interests.
David - Thanks for your comments.
Very well put. I believe the Mr. Minster is the biggest impediment to amateur radio that we have now. He doesn't seem to want to listen to the little guy only the big bucks "investors" more openness and communication with the little guy would significantly help the ARRL and ham radio in general.
Gary - Thanks for your comments.
I know that in the past, the ARRL has supported the notion of giving technician licensees significant privileges on the HF bands. This could be done by giving them narrower slices of HF spectrum than general class licensees enjoy, or by limiting them to reduced power on the frequencies allocated to the general class. It's an idea I enthusiastically endorse.
Jim - From what little I know about Amateur Radio in other countries, that's exactly what they do - reduced power, narrower portions of spectrum, etc.
Here in Germany, ham radio is strictly between licensed hams. In official emergencies, we may transport messages from/to outside parties - no exceptions allowed. But a few months ago we got a very basic new entry class with VHF/UHF and 10 m privileges only.
I think it is a bad idea to let people use better two-way radios without any training. This might work in low-density populations where you can reach a very limited number of people. But in population centers this would provoke chaos. By US standards, Germany is a single, densely populated area: more than 80 million people in an area 800 km across.
Alexander - The recent rapid growth of usage of the US General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) will be an interesting "test" of your position of "I think it is a bad idea to let people use better two-way radios without any training". A license is required for operating on the US GMRS frequencies, but no training is required. If memory serves, when I obtained my GMRS license, I didn't even have to acknowledge that I had studied the GMRS regulations. GMRS operates in the UHF band around 460 MHz and mobile, base, and repeaters can all transmit with up to 50 watts transmit power.
We live in the most hit part of the US, statistically, by hurricanes. Tip... before the storm, fill your bath tub with water. In a pinch, you can drink it for many days. You'll know the next day how bad things are. If it's bad, you'll have water, and you'll not care about skipping a bath or two. . If it wasn't bad, just empty it and take your bath.
It's virtually free insurance.
I'll also buy a case of Ramen noodles. 20 bucks can feed you for like a month. Not the best nutrition granted, but it's food and you'll not starve.
Josh - Also a good idea about the Ramen, as long as you have a way to heat the water.
Josh - Good idea about filling the tub!
The ARRL has always imphttps://www.facebook.com/share/p/siLJw7qgkweUK6Ef/membershipressed me as being arrogant. Years back, I wanted to join but only for the membership. I did not want the magazine as it was chucked full of ads. So I asked have the cost of the magazine and mailing deducted from the total membership fee. Nope, no dice so I told then to keep their organization.
Jim - Thanks for your comments.
The recent disqualification for ARRL Northwestern Division Director of Dan Marler, K7REX (challenging the incumbent) was yet another case of the ARRL not wanting to be transparent on many topics, thus they also were vague in their lotice of the disqualification to members in the division. I am dissatisfied with the ARRL explanation, as Dan also sent his replies to the Ethics Board to the members in the division. I stand wit Dan Marler.
N6UOW - Agreed! In my opinion, K7REX was the superior candidate for Northwestern Division Director… but what do we “mere members” know ☹️
Steve, are you sure about this? I just read “The Ecosystem of Becoming a Ham” and that "never progress within amateur radio" issue could easily be referring to those who get their ticket (any class) but then lose interest, never participate any any ham activity, and eventually let their license lapse. We know this is an issue, and that's how I read it. Yes, the piece discusses licensing, but that's more in the vein of encouraging new hams, not really about upgrading license class. It also includes phrases like this: "Local clubs are an absolute necessity in helping new hams navigate from getting their ticket to becoming radio active" and "giving new amateurs the inspiration and motivation to get active in one or more areas of the hobby".
So I don't think that tech license holders are being disrespected.
"If something's hard to do it's not worth doing. So just stick that guitar next to your shortwave (ham) radio, your karate outfit and your unicycle, and we'll just go watch TV" -H. Simpson, giving advice to his son.
https://youtu.be/hYjCbgM87sQ?si=FpJAaoiCvWQdK1gP
Ready - Ah, the wisdom of Saint Homer 😊 Thanks for that!
Paul - Thanks for offering your perspective. There was more depth that went into my conclusion than what I included in the article. Just to state one cynical perspective, Technicians generally aren’t interested in buying multi-$k (thus, profitable) HF radios that are the highest revenue ads in QST. Another is “lost” revenue from not selling ARRL General and Extra study guides to “happy Techs”. I thought long and hard whether to express this opinion, and ultimately concluded it was warranted, and someone ought to challenge ARRL’s apparent bias against Techs.
Perhaps there a bias, and you mention a few reasons why that might be the case at the ARRL. But is there really? Now, I've got my Extra (novice -> advanced -> extra), and even with that I'm not the typical "ARRL-approved" ham as I spend over 99% of my ham time building stuff, and less than 1% of the time actually "communicating", so I'm probably not is a position to personally notice any ARRL bias.
However I do think that times are changing (as they always have) and the ARRL and other ham organizations need to evolve. But it's a big ham world out there, and (for example) while I have absolutely no interest in contests and DX-hunting, should QST stop giving the contests so much coverage? I would personally say yes, but many others enjoy that part of our hobby.
When it comes to the ARRL there is much to gripe about. But as for disrespecting techs, all I'm saying is that I didn't see it in Minster's article.
"Amateur Radio is communication of last resort". While I find that technically true, and hams scream it from the mountain my feeling is that ship has sailed. If a self-appointed EMCOMM ham shows up at a disaster comms site uninvited he will be (hopefully politely) shown the door. FEMA certifications and an existing working relationship with the local Emergency Communications Director is a prerequisite. I know of several ham groups that have those conditions established, which is terrific.
It depends on what exactly the ham radio operator is expected to do. I have no interest at all in interacting with FEMA or any of the first responders directly. That's not useful to anyone. And consider most state emergency responders have received massive grants to keep their hardened repeater systems running, both as a result of post-9/11 acts and FCC narrow banding implementation. However, if I can get a welfare message out of the area for my neighbor's family via the NTS, I think that's quite appropriate.
Let the pros do their thing. That's what we paid taxes for.
Ready - Agreed that Amateur Radio EMCOM remains highly useful as a personal EMCOM capability.
John - I think Amateur Radio EMCOM still has a role, but the scope of where it’s truly useful and offers a unique capability not provided by other systems or orgs… is narrowing, given the increasing capabilities of, for example, Starlink. We really need to understand where Amateur Radio should, and more importantly, shouldn’t be applied.
I'm not so sure that Starlink is going to be "all that and a bag of chips" when the SHTF. Consider that even small towns have multiple 100 Gbps links to the outside world. Sure, that's carrying a typical day's traffic and most of the data sinks would be down in a disaster, but there's still far less bandwidth available overall to Starlink compared to a typical fiber. Once you start enabling VoIP and FaceTime calling at a disaster shelter the bandwidth will be chewed up pretty quickly.
Interesting read linked below, deconstructing the starlink Ku-band OFDM carrier. Apparently the receiver is capable of 200MHz reception. For comparison, that's about the same as one or two cellular bands, or one half of a neighborhoods' (150 homes passed) "narrowcast" cablemodem carrier (as of 2022).
https://radionavlab.ae.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/starlink_structure.pdf
I know that beam forming and other techniques can allow for a good bit of reuse, but there's still going to be guard bands between nearby satellites to prevent interference. Still better than nothing, and probably more practical than passing NTS messages over a voice repeater.
Ready - One of the reasons for my admiration of Starlink as a 21st century broadband infrastructure is that both the network (the satellites / inter satellite links / ground stations) AND the user equipment is continually evolving. Here's a hint of how Starlink thinks it can evolve to even higher capacity with lower orbits, bigger satellites, and more flexible use of spectrum allocated for satellite use - https://www.satellitetoday.com/connectivity/2024/10/15/spacex-requests-starlink-gen2-modification-previews-gigabit-speeds/
One aspect of amateur radio that many Technician licensees seem to miss is they have full access to modes such as DMR, C4FM, D-STAR, AllStarLink, Echolink, and more. Those modes open up the world for hams with a Technician license in the United States.
I view the hobby of amateur radio as being a bit like golf or bowling. The major limitation is generally the human, not the game. Yes, we compete against each other because that's in our DNA. But improvement in any of these games (amateur radio, golf, bowling) is really about striving to improve one's own ability to understand and to do. These activities are contests within ourselves to become better. That can be one of the deeper benefits of any hobby.
You should look out for modes that can do store & forward. This way your station can do something useful while you are away - eating, sleeping, helping...
My way is to use solar power for my (mostly) VarAC QRP station and let it run around the clock, as long as I am at home. If you wish to send me a short message (< 500 characters), you can reach my station from the US east coast most nights on 40m. Or send the message to VO1CBL or G1BVI. They will automatically inform me so I can fetch your message from there.
Alexander - good points all. VARA HF / FM, and using the excellent third party app VarAC just really changes the paradigm of reliable use of HF for email, etc.
Tom - Thanks for your comments. Yeah, "work the world" via Amateur Radio really is different in this era of ubiquitous, inexpensive broadband Internet access that makes it easy to communicate nearly anywhere, starting with a portable radio and an RF to Internet gateway.
EMCOMM and Starlink: Starlink makes is much easier and comfortable to provide welfare traffic. But it also needs infrastructure to work. Power supply for the Starlink terminal etc. is obvious.
But most smartphones must be charged once a day or so. And the operator himself must be self sufficient from clothing to water. I a community burdens could be distributed beforehand. The energy supply could be thought quite a bit bigger, to only name one topic.
Alexander - Good points, but in "mass shelter" provisioning provided by organizations such as FEMA, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. I've seen that provisions are being made for charging up phones as part of the sheltering mission. This is pragmatic - the sooner those being sheltered can connect with insurers, family and friends, etc. the sooner they can move on from being sheltered. The IEEE MOVE team - https://spectrum.ieee.org/ieee-move-van-disaster-relief and ITDRC - https://www.itdrc.org both make provisions for emergency broadband communications and especially charging individual phones. But point taken, the power system for an individual Starlink unit needs to be oversized to operate for several days, and the other loads such as laptops and charging up phones.
We live on different continents with different climates, different cultures etc. Especially here in central Europe we have a very high population density and and much more stable infrastructure, especially houses, than large parts of the USA have.
An extremely popular German TV entertainer, Thomas Gottschalk, escaped with his family to California. He did a few TV features about the differences. "If you want to hang up a picture, you do not need a hammer drill or even a hammer. Simply take a nail and press it into the wall with your thumb."
The result is, that we have had only very local catastrophes over the last two generations. Hardly anyone has suffered some real hardship after a tornado etc. Hardly anyone, from inhabitants to the state, is prepared for something big. But I see it looming, considering the $%/) German Energiewende. Lots of power plants have been decommissioned without considering that the sun does not shine at night and even the wind dies down from time to time.
General preparedness: You should have some containers for drinking waters. At camping outlets you can get cheap containers you can fold for storage. Fill them when needed.
The water supply in my community has an emergency power supply for two days and uses ground water. So besides some bottles of water I rely on empty containers that I will fill when something like a storm is coming or even after something has happened.
For food supplies you should look at what you normally buy and how long it can be stored. If you can store it, buy respective normal food stuff in bulk. Sometimes you can get it cheaper and are also protected from food inflation a bit.
I just came back from holiday. We took a carrier with drinking water with us that was way beyond its best before date. Normally we drink tap water. This carrier will be replaced shortly and will refill our emergency storage. BTW: The glass bottles we use for this will be sent back to the well and refilled there. The well might not be happy that we have kept carrier and bottles for 3 years. They count on a turn over within a month or two.
Emergency power supply: The power consumption of much communication gear has come down (Starlink Mini, QRP), has have battery prices. This shouts to combine both! This leaves the question how to charge the batteries, as batteries are still way too expensive to power anything reasonable for weeks with a single charge.
You can use regenerative power sources, especially solar panels. This is the way I go for my shack and the fridge most of the time. And/or you can use a gas generator with a charger. Or use the grid when it comes on for a few hours.
The combination of generator and battery has important advantages: You can always operate the generator with high efficiency to charge batteries, while you discharge the batteries with your communication equipment using very low currents. The generator only runs a few hours a day.
10 years ago cooling/freezing combinations used about 1 kWh/day. These days you can buy comparable fridges that consume around 200-400 Wh/day, depending on climate. This way you not only can include the fridge into your preparedness considerations. Also remember that there are medications that must be cooled.
Technical class, ARRL, NA2AA: That ARRL statement should not have been worded as it has been. But I believe that Steve is a bit blue-eyed: Search for "prepper radio", "baofeng" etc. and you find lots of people that simply want to legalize their exiting equipment. If all you need to do is to memorize a few facts and come out with a license, you hardly ever need to come in contact with our world.
The ARRL should try hard to get those people interested in our world! Try to be seen in local gatherings. For example offer a "fox hunt" for children. Or show what ham radio has already done for the local community.
I did not get the same meaning out of the CEO's comments, to wit: "There is a significant percentage of people who become licensed and then never progress within amateur radio." To me, what he meant was that many people get licensed and then become INACTIVE. Having administered ham exams since 1984, my experience is that we rarely see new licensees after they get their license, for a variety of reasons.
Curt - Thanks for your comments. To your statement "we rare see new licensees after they get their license" is (respectfully) solely from the perspective of the observer. If one is active on HF and they don't see new licensees on HF, does that de facto mean that they're not active? Ditto operation on VHF / UHF repeaters? It's entirely possible that new licensees are active, but in areas that most Amateur Radio operators doing traditional activities, just don't see. One example is operating on their portable radio into their personal hotspot that's connected to extensive repeater networks (or just chat groups with no wide area repeaters). Another is operating on AREDN and other microwave networks. Yet another example is the many "hackers" that are getting their Tech license solely to experiment with more sophisticated radio technology (and more spectrum, higher power levels) that are possible as an Amateur Radio Operator. They have little interest in traditional Amateur Radio activities, so "don't register as being active" from the perspective of many existing Amateur Radio Operators.
Thus I don't quite buy into the plaint that "new licensees aren't active" unless and until there's some actual research and rigor applied to that statement, like followup contact WITH those "new licensees that aren't active" to find out the real status of their Amateur Radio involvement.
The board's makeup and agenda is reflective of a very small, and getting smaller, segment of the amateur radio community that has demonstrated little interest in experimentation and new technologies in, or new audiences and applications for, amateur radio. Combine that with the board's active unwillingness to allow dissenting voices a place at the table and is it any wonder that new licensees don't join and renewals are declining?
Bill - I agree. ARRL is now aggressively into a new era of self-selection which, in my opinion, their support base (and corresponding financial situation) will downsize radically. With their actions, they won't be getting my $60 / year of support when my 3-year membership (subscription) expires in late 2025, and honestly, I don't think I'll miss not having access to ARRL "members only" info... though I will take the opportunity to dive back into previous periodicals to download the few interesting items for my personal archives.