Monitoring Strategies For Y2K
Monitoring Times Magazine - November 1999
Written By Haskell Moore - W5HLM
(Original text before editing)
Much has been written about the impending turn of the century, and the effect the date change may have on computer systems world-wide. Those two little digits representing the century within the date fields were left off many systems years ago in order to save disk space, and have now come back to haunt us in a big way. Unfortunately, this is an unprecedented event, and separating fact from hype has never been more difficult. No one can predict for certain how sustained or severe the impact to society may be. However, never has the Boy Scout motto of "Be Prepared" been more appropriate. And for those of us in the scanning, CB and ham radio community, being prepared means having our radios ready for action.
A full discussion of the potential affects of the Y2K are beyond the scope of this article. Instead, I intend to approach this as essentially a guide to scanning during a disaster, but will address the unique aspects of the Y2K situation as I perceive them.
If there are Y2K-related problems, as a scanning enthusiast, you can have a significant advantage over most other individuals who are dependant on the delayed and often-inaccurate news media. That is, if you have made the proper preparations long before the turn of the century.
Before making any purchases, it would be a good idea to assess how long you plan to be able to run your monitoring station in "disaster mode". Unlike a hurricane or a winter storm, where the duration of the outage can be anticipated based on past experience, no one can be certain how long we might be without electricity (or if we’ll even lose power at all). Whether you think this thing will be a "non-event", will last two weeks, or are preparing to hunker down for the next two years, it’s imperative that you decide a plan of action for you and your family. Then, based on whatever scenario you wish to believe, you can make your radio and power decisions accordingly.
Emergency Radios
The logical place to start is with the radios themselves. If you are reading this article, there's a pretty good chance you already have one or more scanners at your disposal. However, now is a good time to take stock of your equipment and consider what you may need to keep up with what's happening on the airwaves around you.
First, I recommend at least two scanners as a bare minimum. If this is important enough to have one radio, it's important enough to have a backup. Murphy's Law never takes a holiday, and in the middle of a crisis is a bad time to have your only scanner decide to die! Also, if things really do get interesting, it's almost a foregone conclusion that you'll need to break up break up your monitoring activities among at least two radios. For example, you may wish to dedicate one radio to a limited number of frequencies that may have an impact on your immediate safety (local police, fire, etc.), and use the second radio to scan a larger area to get a general idea of the big picture in your vicinity.
If you are serious about scanning, a high quality scanner can be a very wise investment. Personally, one of my favorite radios is the AOR 8000 (recently superceded by the 8200) which will allow me to monitor almost every conceivable public service frequency, as well as local television and radio (AM or FM) audio. And with the right antenna, it's short wave capabilities will allow me to keep up with unfolding events around the world. These radios don't come cheap, but quality seldom does. In my mind, having at least one high-quality, wide-band, portable scanner, and an ample supply of batteries for it, is essential.
If the agencies that you intend to monitor make use of trunked systems, then one of the Uniden TrunkTracker scanners should also be considered. And since they can also receive conventional, non-trunked communications, they are an excellent emergency scanner. The Uniden BC245XLT, which can monitor both conventional and trunked systems simultaneously, may be an wise investment.
To further complement your emergency communications capabilities, you should consider various types of radios that you may not normally utilize. For example, there are a large number of CB's in most communities, some in personal vehicles, some in homes, and many stored away in the garage. These are excellent short-range, inexpensive radios that can be quickly pressed into action in an emergency. You can operate one from your home with a magnetic mount antenna stuck on a metal garbage can lid or even a pizza pan. And though you may not be a CB enthusiast, in an emergency, you never know where a good source of information may turn up.
Among the radios I often use for monitoring are commercial radios such as a Motorola, as well as various Standard trunked and conventional models. The advantage of these radios are that they are typically very rugged, reliable, and are less affected by intermod than most scanners. However, they do have some important drawbacks that you should consider. First, very few commercial radios will work on over-the-counter batteries, such as AA’s. Most have dedicated battery packs that will last only a few hours between charges. So if the power is unavailable, these radios may be useless very quickly unless you have an alternate method of charging them. Also, most commercial radios are limited to one band, whereas a high quality wideband scanner will allow you to monitor several bands with one radio. And finally, since many commercial radios require a computer to program them, they are very inflexible in terms of being quickly modified if you new need to monitor frequencies other than those you’ve already programmed into the radio. Though I have several commercial radios at my disposal, I usually plan my monitoring strategy around conventional scanners that can be programmed quickly and easily through the keypad as my monitoring needs change.
Emergency Power
Of course, the best radios money can buy are of no use if you can't power them. And if there is power disruption, then you need to have given a lot of thought to how you intend to operate your equipment.
For portable radios with internal batteries, this is not a difficult decision. You need only to stock up on the proper size batteries for your radios. However, there are a couple of things you should consider. First, rechargeable batteries are usually a poor choice for emergency use. Typically, most rechargeable batteries have a very high self-discharge rate (that is, they actually discharge themselves when not in use). They may actually lose a substantial percentage of their capacity every day. And of course, there's the issue of how to recharge the batteries if the power is out. Even if you have a generator, you wouldn’t want to burn five gallons of gasoline to charge a set of batteries.
For emergency use, alkaline batteries may be your best bet. I find the best deal is to buy them in bulk at the local discount store. Most of them have excellent shelf life. I would recommend only buying those with an expiration date clearly marked on the package or battery. Having a battery tester, preferable one which measures the voltage under load, is also an essential item (I use the Radio Shack model 22-090).
If you are planning to use your scanner for an extended time during emergencies, it would be wise to load it up with a fresh set of batteries, tune in the local NOAA weather station, set the volume to a comfortable level, then time how long the batteries last. Based on this test, you can get an idea of the number of batteries you would need for how ever long you expect to use the radio. And again, it’s important that you have the volume turned up the a normal level for this test, since much of the current drain on a scanner is dependent on the audio level (which also implies that to get the longest listening time from your batteries, use an earphone whenever possible).
For those of us who plan to power larger radios, such as mobile scanners and ham or CB equipment, then 12 volt batteries are the way to go. There are many advantages to going the "12 volt route". For instance, your local recreational vehicle supplier has a full range of lights and accessories that operate on 12 volts. Radio Shack even makes a 12 volt soldering iron—an essential item for those inevitable repairs if the lights go out.
It’s important to note that your average car battery is not well suited for this task, since they are intended to deliver high current for a short duration. Also, repeated deep discharges of an automobile battery will soon diminish its capacity or destroy it. Marine deep cycle batteries, typically used for trolling motors and RV accessories, are designed for low current drain over a long duration. These batteries are a much better choice for powering electronics for hours on end, and are designed for repeated charge/discharge cycles.
For my personal home monitoring station, I chose only radios that could be powered by 12 volts DC as opposed to 120 volts AC. I then built a small junction box in a plastic enclosure with a male lighter plug and several DC plugs. This allows me to power all radios from one female lighter socket on the 12 volt battery. By having two of these batteries, I can use one battery to power the radios while the generator is charging the other.
There are a number of ratings on deep-cycle batteries (CCA, MCA, etc.), most of which are useless for the purpose of determining their capacity for our intended application. The one rating you need to look for is "amp hours". This is the approximate number of amps that a battery can deliver over a period of time before reaching it’s discharge voltage. Theoretically, a 100 amp-hour battery could deliver 100 amps of current for one hour, or one amp of current for 100 hours. In actual practice, a very low current drain will yield substantially more energy out of a battery than if were discharged at a higher rate. In other words, when using a 100 amp-hour battery, a 2.5 amp load may take 50 hours to discharge the battery, giving an effective yield of 125 amp-hours. However, discharging the same 100 amp-hour battery at 100 amps may only give you 30 minutes of power before discharging, resulting in an effective yield of only 50 amp-hours. So for our purpose of powering only a handful of radios and accessories that draw relatively little current, you should be able to obtain even more power from your lead-acid battery than the amp-hour rating for the battery.
To determine how long you can power your radios from a lead-acid battery, you need to know the amp-hour rating of the battery, and the total current drawn by the radios. For example, if I run all of my radios simultaneously, they draw a total of 2.5 amps, and my marine battery is rated at 80 amp-hours. By dividing 2.5 into 80, it is easy to determine that I can run all radios continuously for approximately 32 hours. For those using Citizen's Band or ham rigs, you need to check the current drain of those radios when "keyed up", since they draw considerable more current when transmitting than just receiving. Be sure to take this into account when calculating the expected life of your battery.
To determine the current drawn by each of your radios, you will need an ammeter, or a multimeter capable of measuring amperage. Then, you should measure each radio’s current drain, and label each radio accordingly. You will find that most 12 volt scanners will draw between one-quarter to one-half of an amp (250 to 500 milliamps) with the audio at normal level. With this information in hand, if it becomes necessary to ration battery power, you will be better prepared to determine how long you can run your radios from a specific battery. Just add up the total current for all radios being used and perform your calculations based on the formula in the previous paragraph.
It should be noted that the term "deep cycle" is a bit misleading—it does not equate to "deep discharge". In actual practice, you should never discharge your 12 volt battery (which is probably closer to 13.8 volts when fully charged) below approximately 10.5 volts. To do so may permanently damage the battery and shorten its life. Also, leaving a battery hooked up to a charger that continuously delivers a constant charge may cause the battery to overheat and be damaged. You should either monitor the battery during charging with a graduated-float hydrometer (available at most automotive, hardware or sporting good stores), or use a charger that has built-in circuitry to cut off the charge when the battery has reached capacity.
The other advantage of 12 volt batteries is that they can be recharged from your car by simply hooking them up in parallel with your existing car battery and starting the car's engine. The length of time to fully charge the battery will vary greatly, depending on your battery's capacity and the type of electrical system in your car. Of course, using your car as a battery charger implies that you have plenty of gas to run the engine for an extended duration.
When choosing lead-acid batteries for emergency backup, keep in mind that bigger is not always better. The bigger the battery, the longer it will take to charge it. Two smaller batteries may be better than one large one. Then, you can charge one with a generator (or your automobile) while the other is in running the radios.
There are a few special safety guidelines to consider when working with lead-acid storage batteries. First, if the battery is tipped to one side or falls over, the acid may leak out. This acid is typically strong enough to cause severe burns to skin, blindness if splashed in the eye, and damage to whatever it may contact. I've found that keeping the batteries in a battery box designed for use on a boat makes it a lot safe and easier to store and transport them. These can be found at most hardware or sporting goods stores, alongside the marine batteries, and cost less than ten dollars.
Additionally, when charging lead-acid batteries, they reach a point, usually at about 90% of their full charge, where they begin "gassing", that is, giving off hydrogen gas. In sufficient quantity, this gas presents a significant fire or explosion hazard. Be sure to provide adequate ventilation when recharging lead-acid batteries.
For those situations where nothing but a little 120 volts AC will do, you may wish to add an inverter to your list of required equipment. These devices convert low voltage DC (typically 12 volts) to 120 volts AC.
Inverters come in a wide range of wattage ratings, with various accessories and output quality. However, for emergency use, I’ve found that a 250 watt model offers about the right compromise between power and price. A unit of this size can perform a wide variety of functions such as heat up a soldering iron, charge and run a laptop computer, or power a small TV. If you do decide to use rechargeable batteries or commercial rechargeable radios in your monitoring arsenal, you can even use the inverter to power the charger.
Emergency Light
In addition to adequate power, you should also consider which antennas are most effective for your monitoring needs. If you live in an area where the signals are strong and reception is reliable, then just the stock antennas on the radio may be sufficient. However, remember that in an emergency, especially one that involves loss of power, much of the communications may be done in simplex, that is direct from one unit to the other, without the use of powerful repeaters. If this occurs, then having at least one good external antenna is advisable.
For those who us who live in fringe reception areas, our antenna needs are a bit more complicated. When deciding on placement, remember that higher is almost always better. This, of course, can reach a point of diminishing returns if the run of coax required results in excessive signal loss. Also, the strength of the signal getting your scanner will be greatly dependent on the quality of the antenna, coax and connections utilized. For monitoring-only applications, that is, where you will not be transmitting on the antenna, I prefer a high-quality 75 ohm cable TV coax. The impedance mismatch between the 75 ohm coax, and the 52 ohm antenna and radio circuit is usually so insignificant as to not present any major signal loss. Also, this coax is especially well suited for the 800 MHz range, where most trunked communications systems are found. Radio Shack has a wide range of antenna adapters available for converting one type of connector to another. These come in very handy when converting the "F" connectors found on cable TV coax to "BNC" connectors used by most scanners.
For typical monitoring purposes, I usually have at least one "all purpose" antenna available. The Radio Shack or Diamond discone will work well across most of the spectrum, though discone antennas offer no significant gain. And as far as "bang for the buck, the Radio Shack 20-176 VHF-Hi/UHF antenna at $19.95 is hard to beat. Several other more expensive, high quality antennas such as the Nil-Jon or the Scantenna from Antennacraft may also serve this purpose well. For 800 MHz trunked radio systems, you may also choose to simply use cellular phone antennas (which typically have about 3 db of gain) mounted near the radio.
For more specialized monitoring needs, you should consider commercial antennas designed for a specific band. Larsen, Maxrad, and Diamond all make quality antennas with varying degrees of gain for specific bands that can be useful in picking up weak or distant signals.
If you live in a community that has deed limitations or other limitations on the types of antennas you can have outdoors, then consider mounting them in your attic. As long as you don’t have a metal roof, there should be no significant signal loss due to mounting them indoors. I currently have about ten antennas in my attic, covering everything from shortwave to UHF. Of course, in a real emergency, the deed restriction committee is going to have other things on their mind, so you could probably get away with putting up all the antennas you want on a temporary outdoor mast until the emergency is over.
And speaking of multiple antennas, sorting out all of that coax can be a real problem, especially under stressful conditions. Radio Shack’s Universal Cable and Wire Markers (278-1648) are very handy for identifying the various coax feed lines coming into your monitoring station.
Another important concern in a power outage is lighting. It will do you little good to have an impressive bank of scanners and frequencies, and no way to see what you're doing. And a conventional flashlight may not be the best choice for extended use in an emergency situation.
I've found that the Black & Decker SnakeLight works well, and cast a broad beam over a short distance. Their unique "snake" design also allows them to be hung up or placed in a variety of locations to cast light over a small work area. For those who have 12 volt batteries available, there is an automotive version (model SLR1) which runs off of a 12 volt automotive adapter. Another option is the use of florescent camping lanterns. There are even several models that can run off of either internal batteries or 12 volt power supplies. The advantage of florescent lighting is that it not only lights up the radios, but the entire area as well. Typically, florescent lights have a relatively high light output for a modest current requirement. And again, taking Murphy’s Law into account, be sure to have extra bulbs for whatever lighting method you choose.
Other Emergency Stuff
For those who choose to utilize a generator for extended outages, either to power equipment or charge batteries, there are numerous issues to be dealt with. For those with access to the Web, there are several excellent links and link pages listed at the end of this article. They cover everything from guides to help you choose the right generator to safe methods of storing fuel. However, briefly stated, you need to decide if you are going to depend on your generator to power several large devices in your home, or if you only intend on using the generator as a power supply to charge your 12 volt storage batteries. The main difference is the cost; around $300-$700 for a small, 1000 watt model compared to $2,000 or more for a quality 5,000 watt unit. The amount of fuel, along with the attendant problems of fuel storage and containers, will vary greatly between the two extremes. And though a full discourse on generators is beyond the scope of this article, I will throw in one important tip: be sure to use some type of fuel additive in your gasoline to keep it from deteriorating (see STA-BIL link and FAQ’s below).
Finally, be sure to have a current list of frequencies you intend to monitor on a printed list! If things do get bad at the turn of the century, don’t count on having either power to run your computer, or phone service to connect to the Internet. A simple, straightforward spreadsheet or handwritten list may be the best source of information during an emergency.
Well, by the time most of you read this, we will be less than three months from the year 2000. I really hope that all of my time and preparations have been in vain. I diligently hope and pray that Y2K will be nothing more than a few minor inconveniences, if that much. But we owe it to ourselves and our family to be prepared as best we can. Let’s just hope for the best and prepare for the worst. One thing’s for certain: it should make for an interesting few days of monitoring!
Note: The author does not work for any of the companies mentioned, nor endorse any of the products of any in the article or listed on these Web pages. Radio Shack products are frequently referenced by the author because of their ready availability in most parts of the country.
Helpful Web Pages Related To Y2K Issues
Power Links
Exide’s Frequently Asked Questions for more information on
marine batteries.
http://www.exideworld.com/boatfaq.htm
Twelve volt battery chargers and inverters, as well as useful
technical information:
http://www.statpower.com/home.htm
Many useful links to other web pages regarding various
power-related issues:
http://www.ccsp.sfu.ca/epix/topics/power/power.html
Generator sales and information, as well as good information and FAQs:
http://www.mayberrys.com/honda/generator/html/maingenerator.htm
Jade Mountain Renewable Energy Products
http://www.jade-mtn.com/energy.html
Sta-bil Fuel Treatment
http://www.sta-bil.com/
Antenna Links
Diamond Antennas
http://www.rfparts.com/diamond/
Larsen Antennas
http://www.larsenet.com/
Maxrad Antennas
http://www.maxrad.com/
Rich Well’s Strong Signals Page featuring base and handheld
antenna reviews
http://www.strongsignals.net/
All articles are property of Haskell L.
Moore, and may not be reproduced
in whole or in part without written permission from the author.
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