Category: Rants

2025 Tsunami Exercise Experience

In my last post, I encouraged participation in a very realistic EmComm drill hosted by our friends at LAXNortheast. I participated in this event and thought it would be a good idea to share my experience.

This Tsunami scenario is very real for me. I live in Southern Orange County, CA. My city of San Clemente is the closest municipal area to the no longer operating San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). At this site are a large number of underground “casks” that store spent, but active, nuclear material. This is a very dangerous situation considering the plant is in a Tsunami zone AND along the San Andreas fault line.

During the exercise, I set up a portable EmComm station at a campsite in the San Onofre State Park, less than 1/4 mile from SONGS.  I simulated that I was coordinating with the state park rangers to provide EmComm services as needed.

In this scenario, the focus was on Winlink. There were seven (7) tasks that each participant was asked to perform:
1) Maintain a ICS-214 activity log for all activities performed.
2) Send a Winlink ‘Did-you-feel-it’ (DYFI) report to the USGS.
3) Send a Winlink Check-In form.
4) Send a Welfare Bulletin message.
5) Send an ICS-213 General message.
6) Send a Winlink Check-Out form.
7) Send the completed ICS-214 form.

At face value, this looks like a straighforward series of steps that should be completed fairly quickly. What I found, however, was this is not as easy as it appears, especially if you are in the field.

I set a goal to complete the seven steps in less than 30 minutes. In reality, it took me more than 90 minutes to complete.

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Introducing the XT-60

In my previous Post – I went on a rant about PowerPoles (PP). It’s true, I do not use them anymore. What am I using instead? The connector that is used in the radio controlled aircraft universe – the XT60.

Electric RC aircraft gobble up huge amounts of current. Andthe con-nection between the motors and the power source must be reliable.

Similar to the universal use of Power Poles in Ham radio, XT60’s are THE connector used in RC models.

There are 3 reasons for this:

    1.  They can handle huge amounts of current
      Although they are rated for 30 amps. These connectors can easily handle twice that amount. In fact, I have seen YouTube videos that show these connectors can handle well over 100 amps for 10 seconds or more.
    2. They are highly resistant to vibration
      This may not be an important requirement for Hams, but it is good to know these connectors are not going to come loose.
    3.  They are more resistant to weather.
       Nobody is going to claim the XT60’s are waterproof. But they have more protection against the elements than a fully exposed PP.

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I Ditched PowerPole Connectors

A “Golden Rule” of Ham radio operations is the premise that all electrical connections are made with PowerPole (PP) connectors. This makes all our equipment so-called “interoperable”.

It is considered blaphemous to question their use in the Ham culture. Well, I gotta tell ya’ll, I have ditched the use of PP’s.

Just to be clear. I have no beef with PowerWerx, the leading retailer in the PP universe. I have ordered lots of stuff from them over the years. Their customer service, packaging, shipping, and product quality is first class. They are a great company.

There are 6 reasons I no longer use them:

    1. You must be properly trained on how to wire them up.
    2. Getting consistent, and robust connections is challenging.
    3. They are not weather-resistant.
    4. They get loose/sloppy after lots of use.
    5.  The market is overrun with cheap Chinese knock-offs that are horrible.
    6.  They are way too expensive.

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