Page 29 - DDME "The Disaster Forum"

guidance of some neighborhood icons in the electronic field, where I would spend my after school time and my weekends playing around in their workshops, I would spy into every radio, amplifier and television I can find, while asking questions that may have been annoying and redundant to grown folks. With my interest in electronics, I attend a high school that provide a full-time electronics and electrical program with a state-of-the-art electrical lab, and a group of classmates with equal interest and love for radios and electronics. After graduating high school, I went on to study Aeronautical Engineering due to my fascination with cockpits and all of their switches and gauges. It was easy for me to focus on a rear specialty of Aeronautical Engineering field called Avionics.
Avionics is short for Aviation Electronics, this allowed me to spend all of my time in cockpits and those aircraft small and hidden compartments with numerous electronic boxes. This chapter of my career allowed me to be specialized in Radio Communications, Navigational Instruments, Radars, Compasses & Electronics. I have work under the dash of helicopters, Private aircraft and commercial jets for years. With this love for communications, I then went on the managing the maintenance of Airport Control Towers and Navigation systems.
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Emergency communications is one of the key and critical priorities for every government within the Caribbean. Many time our communication infrastructures such as antenna towers are damaged during storms, for the fact that over the years installing a fixed rigid antenna tower was just fine and acceptable, but in recent years as the frequency and strength of hurricanes became increasingly dangerous, we as a country and a region must revisit our approach and strategies on how to maintain these critical antenna structures during a violent and deadly category 5 storms. It is the risk associated with having a 100-150ft Antenna tower standing in 150mph winds that is gusting at 165 mph. The size and design of a fixed antenna tower will ultimately determine if the structure will withstand or even survive a deadly category 5 storm or
multiple storms. What is more concerning to me is the risk of a tower crumbling to the ground or even collapsing on properties, which can cause lost of lives or serious injuries.
Across the Turks & Caicos Islands quite a few towers were taken down by Hurricane Irma, this resonates with me daily since the communications antenna tower for our Turks & Caicos National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) crumbled and rest itself across the roof of the facility that housed our decision-making team for the country. We have learnt valued lessons in past hurricanes and most definitely have to design our communications systems to survive these violent storms.
Mobile & Collapsible antenna towers have been the proposed solution to maintaining emergency communications and general communications for countries that can be impacted by hurricanes within this region. Here in the TCI we have seen our telecommunications companies Flow & Digicel taking this vital but critical step in preserving their communications systems, by utilizing trailer-based antenna towers
Having collapsible antennas systems is a great indication of adaptation to our climate and environment, due to identifying our risks and taken action to mitigate our damage. These antennas can be lowered to the ground prior to the storm and takes an estimated 30mins to be fully extending back into the sky up to 100ft, restoring communications in the shorted time possible. This is the concept should be applied to the protection and restoration of emergency communication systems and antennas for Emergency Services systems for any country within our region.
The purpose of a radio communication system is to provide two-way communications over a specific distance. The distance we are able to communicate, and to where we can communicate is of prime consideration and importance to the objectives, in doing so we must take a couple of things into
consideration, namely; Range and coverage is equally important as terrain and antenna height. There is a saying in the communications industry that would often echo the sentiments of “Antenna Height is Might”.
We then need to understand are we trying to communicate on a short- range aspect, ideally distances between 2-4 miles within line of sight of both radios that are on identical frequency, this method is called simplex communications; Operators must take into consideration thick walls and trees that may affect your range of communication.
If trying to communication over longer distances, we will need to consider the use of a radio frequency (RF) repeater to achieve the desired range. A repeater is made up of 4 items or sections, a) Receiving Radio. b) Transmitting Radio. c) Controller. d) Duplexer; all of which are housed within one unit. The repeater receives the incoming message on one frequency and transmits the same message on a different frequency. This simple concept allows for communications between 20- 50 miles away from the repeater. Operator must take into consideration terrain and line of site to the repeater station.
PARTNERSHIP IN PREPAREDNESS
It is advisable that you create a communications plan for your family, ask your neighbors if they have a handheld radio, if we all take this step of preparing together, we will be making emergency communications amounts ourselves easier.
Amateur radio operator has been known for their ability to create and maintain communications by connecting from one point to another in a method to pass messages and quick situational reports after storms. This simple step played a vital role over a decade ago in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Irma and Maria in 2017, when the state-run communications failed, Ham operator came to the rescue and was able to provide and transfer critical bits of information by partnering with their authorities and emergency crews.
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