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From: David Kaye on 30 Jul 2010 17:40
jcdill <jcdill.lists(a)gmail.com> wrote:

>There was cell service AND WiFi internet signal at Black Rock City in
>2009.

They've had Internet for at least 6 years, but the cell service is a new
thing. Does this mean that some enterprising cell company brings in portable
cell sites? Otherwise I couldn't think of how else they'd do it. It's way
too far to get a signal in and out of Gerlach or Empire I'd think.

From: Bob Vaughan on 30 Jul 2010 19:49
In article <i2ut4q$a1k$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>,
jcdill <jcdill.lists(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>There was cell service AND WiFi internet signal at Black Rock City in
>2009. I expect the same will be true again this year. There has also
>been a VoIP-over-802.11-over-microwave payphone (free, no coins
>required) at BRC every year since 2004.
>
><http://portfolio.jcdill.com/Art/Burning-Man-2004/9804154_29ULW/4/665673686_3KQ2F#665680891_549PR>
>
>In years past when there wasn't any cell service, they had ham service
>to connect to public safety services (fire, police, etc.) for emergencies.
>
>jc


While there are ham repeaters covering BRC, the primary communication
system on the playa is a UHF LTR trunked system, with some conventional
UHF and VHF channels, as well as VHF-AM for the airstrip. The system
supports all of the official BM services, and provides mutual aid links
to cooperating agencies. I recall the number that I heard was about 60
talkgroups defined for various functions, and the activity level was
similar to SF or Oakland on a busy night. I forget how many radios
are issued, but i seem to recall it was >500.

One of the channels supported is MURS (I think they use channel 3. 154.570),
which is used as a form of 911 channel from participants to the dispatch
center. I haven't looked recently, but IIRC, there were about 20 UHF pairs
licensed, of which ~10 are used for the LTR system.

BM takes their comms seriously, and the comm systems are planned and
prepped well in advance of the event. There are some permanent comms
in place in Gerlach, but the primary system goes online early in the
build process, and is one of the later things removed.

--
-- Welcome My Son, Welcome To The Machine --
Bob Vaughan | techie @ tantivy.net |
AF6RR | P.O. Box 19792, Stanford, Ca 94309 |
-- I am Me, I am only Me, And no one else is Me, What could be simpler? --
From: News on 30 Jul 2010 20:47
Larry wrote:
> John Navas <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote in
> news:usm556dg9jo79qvdsk1d9ckdv37nolnrcp(a)4ax.com:
>
>>> I'm wondering how many hams had/have backup power for their rigs.
>> Quite a few in my experience.
>>
>>
>
> It's not really fair because I live in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo
> in 1989, but every ham here has multiple generators. I have a Honda
> EU1000i suitcase portable, a Honda EU3000is 3KW mounted on my service
> van, also a comm van in emergencies and a Chinese 6.5KW diesel genset to
> power my home off used cooking oil which I have thousands of gallons of
> in storage.
>
> All the hams here are similarly powered....
>
> The ham radio clubs have extensive communications vans and ham radio
> stations setup in every emergency shelter, usually in schools, across
> the counties. In addition, we have 5 networked VHF/UHF repeater systems
> located at hurricane-proof county communications sites all with
> extensive backup power on massive 800mph communications towers also used
> by cops/fire/services. The hospitals are all on a secondary ham radio
> VHF/UHV network powered by hospital emergency power systems. That
> separate network give them comms when all the phones go down and county
> emergency radio trunk networks are jammed.
>
> Then, there's SCHeart:
> http://scheart.us/irlp_web/main/
> Emergency powered microwave relay stations across SC operated by the
> state are used to interconnect yet another huge ham radio relay system
> associated with ARES, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service. On Heart,
> you can use a 1/2 watt VHF walkie talkie connected to one of its many
> repeater systems and talk from Charleston to Greenville as simply as
> talking across a mall on a Family Radio UHF set. Heart is explained on
> the website.
>
> Our extensive radio system plan and communications networks are
> explained on a pdf file here:
> http://www.wa4usn.org/CommPlan.pdf
>
> WX4CHS, the ham radio station callsign of the Charleston office of the
> National Weather Bureau, is also connected to these systems and to an
> independent HF SSB radio network connecting our weather bureau office to
> its remote substation offices in Savannah, Georgetown, Myrtle Beach,
> Brunswick GA and to every other National Weather Service office across
> the entire country. NWS is adamant about its support of ham radio
> services to the system. "Skywarn" is also a ham radio network of
> cooperating ham radio stations across America giving the weather service
> and its public broadcast functions thousands of eyes to warn of
> impending immediate weather threats such as tornadoes, floods, etc. I'm
> a Skywarn trained observer, myself.....
> http://www.skywarn.org/
> http://www.skywarnonline.com/
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywarn
>
> So, if you think ham radio is just a bunch of super CBers, a throwback
> before the internet, you're wrong. Thousands of ham radio repeater
> systems are all interconnected across the planet by internet links for
> licensed ham radio stations to use, as a hobby and in time of
> international disaster. Ask the Haitians! Without ham radio, Haiti was
> completely alone after the recent earthquake and before with hurricanes.
>
> The systems are efficient, rigidly controlled by control operators and
> very good at what we do.
>


Thanks for your service, Larry.
From: JC Dill on 31 Jul 2010 00:59
David Kaye wrote:
> jcdill <jcdill.lists(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> There was cell service AND WiFi internet signal at Black Rock City in
>> 2009.
>
> They've had Internet for at least 6 years, but the cell service is a new
> thing. Does this mean that some enterprising cell company brings in portable
> cell sites? Otherwise I couldn't think of how else they'd do it. It's way
> too far to get a signal in and out of Gerlach or Empire I'd think.

There has been internet on the playa (not necessarily for public use)
for at least 14 years. They streamed the burn from the playa to people
who couldn't make it out in-person in 1996, as well as posting daily
updates of the Black Rock Gazette online on the website:

http://itsbeach.com/burningman/onsite/brg/thursday/

The cell service in 2009 was from people putting in ad-hoc cell towers
and then using some other technology to transmit the calls back to town.
I forget the name of the technology but it was a hot topic a few weeks
ago when someone was discussing putting in a repeater that uses the
internet to carry the calls from his house (where he has no native cell
signal) to the cell provider - I *think* that's the same technology used
to get cell service in BRC in 2009. If you really want to know, Google
is your friend.

It's also *not* that far to Gerlach. In years past they would hold
Burning Man out in the middle of the playa (20 or more miles from
Gerlach), but these days it's ~2 miles from the road, less than 10 miles
from Gerlach. In 1996 they had problems with the internet-over-radio
signal to Gerlach (terminating on an ISDN line at the hotel) bouncing
off the playa because they hadn't accounted for the curvature of the
earth from the distant location on the playa to Gerlach. (Someone who
knows more than I do about radio can certainly explain this better than
I just did.)

jc
From: jcdill on 31 Jul 2010 11:45
Char Jackson wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:39:29 -0700, John Navas
> <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:25:12 -0500, in
>> <tp5756heqbtcf7nus76h321uk8p4phqud0(a)4ax.com>, Char Jackson
>> <none(a)none.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:51:16 -0700, John Navas
>>> <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:09:54 -0500, in
>>>> <ltm6565cdfeuvvhv3lm9et6g9h71aca2a8(a)4ax.com>, Char Jackson
>>>> <none(a)none.invalid> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:49:05 -0700, John Navas
>>>>> <spamfilter1(a)navasgroup.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Nope. Try again.
>>>>> Actually, he had it exactly right.
>>>> Nope, no matter how many times you try to claim otherwise.
>>> The number of times I claimed otherwise is 1.
>>>
>>> And you still haven't provided any data or facts to back up your
>>> assertion.
>> Wrong again.
>
> Nonsense.
>
> And you still haven't provided any data or facts to back up your
> assertion.

He won't. He never does.

You are trying to teach a pig to sing, and it's wasting your time and
simply annoying the pig. I suggest you put Navas in your killfile.

jc
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