Mother’s Day 2009 is a bit strange for me as yesterday I took The Mom to Seattle’s Pier 66 where she caught the first cruise of the season to Alaska. I wished her a premature Mother’s Day before I left, but that was about all I was able to do for her until she gets back.
So have a happy day with your mom or wife or both today, I’ll be at the range.
For the rest of you, or if mom isn’t looking over your shoulder, I have an interesting anecdote.
Last weekend, my neighbor across the street came a knocking to let me know that the neighborhood watch group would be meeting Saturday morning and that they’d like me to join in. This is the guy who, while the wife and I were at Firebase Blue for its pre-purchase home inspection, saw doing yard maintenance wearing a shirt that said “Shootin’ Deers and Drinkin’ Beers”.
At that time I figured I could get along with this guy, and yesterday proved I was right.
This “watch” meeting was more on the disaster preparedness side than the anti-crime side, but I did learn that our little neighborhood, with only two entrances, though no gates, and only about 25 homes, has a “Safety and Security” group assigned for during emergencies.
While there is no “Group Leader” assigned in the program they use, my neighbor across the street is on that group. I met two of the other three members yesterday’s with the fourth person a no-show at the meeting.
Hmm: Two entrances, Four people, 24 hours in a day.
Hey. That sounds like a short watch duty roster to me. Kewel! I want in!
At the end the group took a walk around the neighborhood and discussed who lives where, whos’ elderly, who has children that might need help if whatever happens happens while the parents were at work or what have you.
At the end of the day, I wandered back over across the street to the neighbors house to both thank him for the invite to the meeting and to let him know that I would be going to the rifle range today to meet a co-worker or two, and that if he’d like to come along that he was more than welcome. He scratched his chin and said, “You know, I do have to sight-in that 7mm I bought for my son.”
So, if his work doesn’t come-acallin’, he’ll be joining.
Kewel.
Damn Phil, how’d you manage to find a neighborhood like that in metro Pierce county? Some guys have all the luck.
Sounds like you guys need to get your Amateur Radio Licenses and set up comms.
(Radio Club of Tacoma has classes. So does Federal Way Amateur Radio Club, slightly farther away, but the schedule might work better.)
Research, Mike. Lots of research. I wanted this type of neighborhood and one without one of those covenant groups with the lawn fascist running around measuring grass height with a ruler. It took a while, but after yesterday, I think I found it.
D.W., we got that kind of covered as well. The county pays for someone to come out and set up residents with the program. If they can show that they’ve kept it up after a year (aka: four meetings) we get radios to communicate with the “Community Emergency Shelter”. Their just the little handhelds, but with the range on them, we can reach the 8 miles to the CES to let them know what we need or if we’re OK and to move on to those who need the help.
HAM equipment probably wouldn’t work too well as we’re near a pair of high tension power lines running from the Port into town. Maybe if they put it on the opposite side of the neighborhood from the lines, but even then I don’t know. I’ll ask next time around.
AS for comms, you should get what your neighborhood needs. Do you really NEED to be able to talk all the way across the county?
You might do best to lower your sights a bit.
First, you want to be able to communicate with all the key players in your neighborhood defense group. FRS will do just fine, and all those high-tension lines will do to FRS is maybe carry your signal farther than it would normally go.
If you want to be able to communicate with the government, by all means take their radios. Somewhere along the line, you might be able to snag one that has more than the one frequency on it so as to be able to communicate with the rest of the government, IF YOU WANT AND NEED TO.
The important thing is to be able to MONITOR what the government is doing via their radios, THEN you can decide if you are going to communicate or not.
Intra-group comms, yes, the best; excellent scanners, yes, the best; group-government comms, take them or leave them.
My guess is that if you have decent FRS-GMRS (for everyone), plus CB and a Marine VHF somewhere in your comm mix, you are doing just fine.
In most disaster scenarios, your basic need is to keep the group tight. The outside world can wait.
I’ve got enough of the FRS handhelds to supply the security group, and possibly the “light S&R” group as well, from my personal stash.
One of my first questions during the next meeting will be about who else has any.