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SKYWARN REPAIRS COMPLETE,
VOLUNTEERS ACKNOWLEDGED |
 Fundraising
and volunteer efforts, forwarded by members of the Stone County Amateur
Radio Club, have resulted in the completion of repair work and upgrades to
key elements of the Arkansas Skywarn “severe weather” emergency reporting
system that serves Stone and Izard Counties.
A cluster of ten VHF and UHF HAM radio “repeaters,” located throughout
northern and central Arkansas, makes direct communication possible between
HAM radio operators and the
National Weather Service (NWS). Called the “Holley
Skywarn Link System,” it derives its name because its “hub” is located
at Holley Mountain Airpark atop Holley Mountain, just
northeast of Clinton in Van Buren County.
Without this relay system, full time direct
HAM radio
contact would not be possible within much of this
Skywarn
networking region, which extends from near the Missouri border on the
north all the way south to Little Rock.
Ice storms earlier this year, along with doing heavy damage across the
region, collapsed half of the KWOZ Radio broadcast tower, downing Skywarn
components. “Lightening and ice are our worst enemies, and ice destroyed
our Mountain View antenna system,” Jim Collom, developer of Holley
Mountain Airpark, confirmed.
According to Collom who – working with a group of fellow HAM radio buffs –
instigated the start of the local communications networking system a
decade ago, the downed tower “left a hole in our system and we’ve been
playing catch-up, trying to get it all back on the air, since then.”
Explaining how the volunteer network interfaces with the official
emergency alert system, Collom said “At that point where the Skywarn
service is needed, the National Weather Service contacts a volunteer
amateur radio operators group called Arkansas Skywarn.” Based in Little
Rock, members of this group send out a regional call for “visual reports”
from “spotters.”
Spotters are licensed HAM radio operators who receive special NWS
training. Learning to recognize specific weather conditions like cloud
types or formations of developing severe weather, this training enables
volunteer spotters to report inclement conditions with accuracy, in terms
that NWS professionals readily comprehend.
As spotter reports come in, NWS personnel in Little Rock compare each
visual sighting with the images on their radar screens. This visual
confirmation process ensures that severe weather warnings, transmitted
from NWS to commercial broadcast radio and TV stations throughout the
state, are as accurate and immediate as possible.
“In 1993, we linked just the Holley Mountain single repeater into the
Central Arkansas Radio Emergency Net’s tower in Little Rock,” Collom
recalled. “In ’94, we went on and expanded it with remote receivers at
Conway and Mountain View. Shortly thereafter, we decided that it would be
better, instead of running one large transmitter, to go ahead and install
repeaters at more locations. And it’s just continued to grow from there.”
With repeater towers now based in Batesville (147.270mhz), Calico Rock
(147.180mhz), Conway (147.030), Fox (145.110mhz), Jacksonville/Cabot
(145.470mhz), and Mountain View (147.120mhz) linked to the Holley Mountain
Airpark hub in Clinton (145.370mhz), any licensed HAM operator can use the
system for emergency communications at any time, “just by putting in the
right PL codes,” Collom affirmed. He explained that this makes the system
tremendously important during any type of regional emergency.
“Imagine if you had a daughter or son that was located in Homestead,
Florida, when Hurricane Andrew, a category five storm, went across,”
Collom proposed. “You wouldn’t hear anything for days.” Collom said this
is one of the main reasons that HAM technology still has a tremendous role
to play in the digital age.
“HAM radio is not dependent on telephone lines, switching circuits, or an
Internet server.” Collom stressed that even if the Holley Skywarn Link
System went down, HAM operators here in Arkansas could communicate with
just about any HAM operator, anywhere on the planet, at least once a day.
“If you think your cell phone coverage is bad on a good day, after a major
disaster such as Andrew, it’s usually off for days or weeks,” Collom said.
“A lot of our Skywarn and HAM systems have both battery back-up and
emergency generators.” Collom elaborated on the stability of the
volunteer-mobilized network, explaining that during major disasters, such
as the Northridge, California, earthquake,
CAREN members in
Little Rock operated one of the major HAM radio traffic handling stations
and went around the clock for 73 hours, making nearly 1000 contacts,
because circuits were overloaded and telephone calls couldn’t get through.
“It’s a true uplifting experience to pass a message to a family that their
son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren are fine, without injury, but have
not had a phone to make contact,” Collom shared. “And then pass the
message back, ‘Will call as soon as phones are back on. We love you all.’
“During severe weather you may listen to your scanner at home (see
frequencies, above) and hear the warnings going in to the National Weather
Service,” Collom advised, noting that a few minutes more advance warning
may make all the difference sometimes. “Any time you hear the ‘bubble up
tail tone’ on any of the Skywarn system repeaters, you know the system is
up and active in Skywarn mode,” he said.
Collom also said special thanks is owed to Ricky Shuttleworth, Jack Oyler,
John Parker, Keith Parish and Thomas E. “Tem” Moore for their work on the
current fundraising, repair and upgrade projects in Stone and Izard
Counties. “We met in early May and set the goal of June 10 to get the
repair done.”
Collom also complimented
KWOZ’s Gary
Bridgeman and the folks at
AETN for “having been very courteous to us.” He credited both
companies for allowing repeater antennas to be housed on their broadcast
towers. “And our hats are off to the guys in Little Rock that actually man
and operate our Skywarn and CAREN systems during all NWS call-ups.” Collom
acknowledged, “Jerry & Pat Dixon, Dale Temple, Scott Derden, Dave Weaver,
and so many more. The volunteer time is what keeps the operations going,”
he affirmed.
For their role in the design and implementation of this system,
Jim and JoAnn
Collom each received award certificates from
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in 1997. In September of 2002, because
the system continues to serve as an outstanding example of a
volunteer-driven emergency communications network, Jim Collom – who
personally hand-coded the 5000 lines of DOS computer programming required
to operate the integrated network -- received a Lifetime Achievement Award
from the American Radio
Relay League (ARRL), Newington, Connecticut.
“I’m proud that I instigated, back when I did, to start the system
locally,” Collom confided. “And I’m also proud that we’re on such a fine
location, on top of Holley Mountain, to be able to provide the hub for the
Skywarn service. But the bottom, bottom line is that the whole group is
proud that we’ve done it, because if it saves just one life, it’s worth
the investment and long hours of family time sacrificed.”
Over $2000 from 65 individual donors plus an uncountable number of
man-hours have been contributed to the recent repair project. Future plans
include expanding the system with a dedicated link to the CAREN
(146.940mhz) repeater on Chenal Mountain by combining the 147.345mhz
repeater with a full time link on the Holley Skywarn Link System, adding a
UHF repeater at Quitman, another at Damascus/Bee Branch, and one on the
south side of Greers Ferry Lake near the Bluffs, plus building a “spare”
repeater component, so that if equipment at one location goes out of
commission, it may be replaced immediately to keep the whole system
operational. In addition, there is now serious interest for Heber Springs
(145.430mhz) to join the system soon.
For more information about HAM radio or to make a contribution in support
of the Holley Skywarn Link System, contact Rickey Shuttleworth,
870-269-4612, KB5UGL, or any member of the Stone County Amateur Radio
Club. |
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