The slim jim antenna (sold by N9TAX on eBay) has generated a lot of interest in our group. It offers up to 6db of gain on 70cm and makes an amazing emergency antenna. There is also the Arrow Antenna dual band J-Pole. The Arrow antenna works better sitting on the ground in my basement than an HT antenna outside! Last I checked it was only $39.95 and it is very portable.
Later this year we will have pictures of an easy to set up mount for emergency antennas.
EMERGENCY REMINDER CARD.
As a part of my grab & go kit, I have a Reminder Card. The following things are written on it.
1. Circle of Influence
2. Personal Safety
3. Best Antenna
4. Lowest Power Drain
5. Prosigns and 10 codes
6. ID every 10
7. WRITE IT DOWN!
8. Scanner
9. PDA Freqs.
Numbers 1 and 2 are closely related. The circle of influence is the radius of danger around any potential hazard. A service station with a large propane tank, for example, could be a hazard for up to 10 blocks in all directions. Any closer, and you are within the danger zone. Personal safety simply means that I will not operate under unsafe or unsanitary conditions and neither should you.
#3 - If you have an antenna with gain (like the slim jim or Arrow) you can operate with lower power and extend the life of your batteries.
#4 - A mobile radio on its lowest power setting draws a LOT more power than an HT on its highest power setting. Minimizing battery drain is CRUCIAL in an emergency situation.
#5 - It takes less time (and power) to say "QSL?" than it does to say "Did you copy that? Please acknowlege and everybody else stand by until he does.". Remember battery drain. Also, the shorter QSL or 10-4 gets you off the air quicker so that you can hear other stations calling you.
#6 - The FCC required that we ID every 10 minutes. I even use this card for normal training nets and traffic nets or else I will forget to ID.
#7 - DO NOT depend on your brain to remember all the traffic, help requests, help offers, and other things that come in. WRITE IT DOWN. A scribe is a BIG help in this case. With a scribe you can spend ALL your time communicating and the scribe can do all the writing. Using a standard yellow pad, write the time of the message in the left most column and a VERY brief description to the right. Brief means something like "N7ABC has 20 blankets to share". Why put the time on that? If someone needs blankets in the next hour or two, N7ABC is probably your guy. If a request for blankets comes in 6 hours later, he is probably all out.
#8 - I consider a scanner to be a crucial part of my communications setup. This allows me to keep up on the traffic on other frequencies without putting my radio in scan mode. This way I can hear if someone is calling me and I can also monitor other situations and opportunities. Having "scanner" on the list reminds me to toss the scanner in the grab and go bag if it is not already there.
#9 - I have lots of frequency info in my phone/pda. If you get a call asking for the PL tone for a given repeater, you do not have to change frequencies on your radio to find out that information. You can continue to monitor your main frequency while looking up the needed info in the PDA.
That's it for this week, more next week. Special training coming the second Wednesday in September. It will be repeated here on the blog.
72 de N7OZH
