On the morning of 9/13/08, in Kansas City and for many miles in all directions, owners of Kenwood TM-D700s monitoring or operating APRS were alerted to an “emergency” every thirty seconds. A ham had inadvertently set his APRS status to “emergency”, which resulted in an APRS “emergency” beacon every thirty seconds for the next two hours. Evidently other makes/models of APRS equipment and UI-View do not behave quite this way while in receive mode, but my TM-D700 really goes rather nuts over this detected condition, with audible alerts and a flashing display.
There are two individuals – well respected in the KC ham community, one of whom has done more to promote the use of APRS than the rest of the community combined – who were consulted about this alert. Both of them independently asserted that no investigation was warranted and that the alert should be ignored. They were both right – this time. The ham had not been in distress, and the alert was indeed a false alarm.
I did ask several stations to physically investigate, some via APRS message, but got no reply, or indifference, and no action. I was 40 miles away, hence my reluctance to drive there personally, given the presence of 1000's of hams much much closer to the offending station.
But these facts bring to light the question: How does one (who is not quite so willing to play “God”) know, without even investigating, that any specific call for help is definitely a false alarm?
Yes, of course there were some clues. One leader personally knew the individual represented by the call-sign, though the other did not. The alerting station in question remained more or less in motion first to the west, then south, then west, on busy public streets (without collision), until it stopped and shut down. The ham in question did not respond to voice-mode inquiries on various metro repeater frequencies, and neither did he respond to APRS message inquiries. As the vehicle arrived at the ham’s home QTH, it was finally intercepted by another ham who confirmed that the alert was unintentional.
I agree that it is worthwhile to pay attention to clues, but I maintain that such clues are hardly equivalent to conclusive evidence of a false alarm.
Not that the ham community is bound to behave like the aviation community, but since I belong to both, I draw on both disciplines for guidance. In the aviation world, a 7700 squawk diverts all ATC attention to the aircraft in distress. Pilots are trained to avoid inadvertent settings to this code, by first setting the last digit to a non-zero before changing the rest of the code, and paying attention so as not to pass through the zero on the last digit. Also, all beacons heard on emergency frequencies are pursued to their logical end. Yes, this sometimes leads to humorous stories like the one about an apartment dweller whose new television was radiating energy on the 121.5Mhz emergency frequency. No emergency declaration is ever second-guessed, and the Civil Air Patrol spends a significant fortune (our tax dollars) chasing ALL alarms, both real and false.
It is obvious to me now that if I ever need to declare an emergency on the ground, I should have no hope of being noticed or rescued by virtue of APRS. I have not yet inquired of local emergency management / law enforcement to see if their view of an APRS “emergency” beacon would constitute probable cause or justification for dispatch, but I think I will make some inquiries.
I’m quite sure both of these Kansas City amateur radio community leaders regularly ignore tornado warnings, fire alarms, and burglar alarms. They, after all, are obviously empowered by a feeling of omniscience that few can muster. I hope they never burn to death in a real fire, because in a real fire nobody is likely to beat them over their heads with a two-by-four to say “this is not a drill - you idiot!”.
I vehemently disagree with these leaders about ignoring emergency signals, and I am disgusted with their occasional arrogance, but they are still basically good people, basically good hams, and we agree 98% of the time. Unfortunately, the other 2% of issues have a tendency to get real ugly real fast.
So, before I actually throw my APRS in the trash can, I’d like objective input from many other hams. There may be no right or wrong answers, but before I publicly claim that my fearless leaders are absolutely wrong on this specific issue, I’d like to know that I actually hold the majority viewpoint on this issue. I could just as easily have a warped perspective.
Please tell me what you think about this, and more importantly, why.
73 DE KC0RRS Bruce
There are two individuals – well respected in the KC ham community, one of whom has done more to promote the use of APRS than the rest of the community combined – who were consulted about this alert. Both of them independently asserted that no investigation was warranted and that the alert should be ignored. They were both right – this time. The ham had not been in distress, and the alert was indeed a false alarm.
I did ask several stations to physically investigate, some via APRS message, but got no reply, or indifference, and no action. I was 40 miles away, hence my reluctance to drive there personally, given the presence of 1000's of hams much much closer to the offending station.
But these facts bring to light the question: How does one (who is not quite so willing to play “God”) know, without even investigating, that any specific call for help is definitely a false alarm?
Yes, of course there were some clues. One leader personally knew the individual represented by the call-sign, though the other did not. The alerting station in question remained more or less in motion first to the west, then south, then west, on busy public streets (without collision), until it stopped and shut down. The ham in question did not respond to voice-mode inquiries on various metro repeater frequencies, and neither did he respond to APRS message inquiries. As the vehicle arrived at the ham’s home QTH, it was finally intercepted by another ham who confirmed that the alert was unintentional.
I agree that it is worthwhile to pay attention to clues, but I maintain that such clues are hardly equivalent to conclusive evidence of a false alarm.
Not that the ham community is bound to behave like the aviation community, but since I belong to both, I draw on both disciplines for guidance. In the aviation world, a 7700 squawk diverts all ATC attention to the aircraft in distress. Pilots are trained to avoid inadvertent settings to this code, by first setting the last digit to a non-zero before changing the rest of the code, and paying attention so as not to pass through the zero on the last digit. Also, all beacons heard on emergency frequencies are pursued to their logical end. Yes, this sometimes leads to humorous stories like the one about an apartment dweller whose new television was radiating energy on the 121.5Mhz emergency frequency. No emergency declaration is ever second-guessed, and the Civil Air Patrol spends a significant fortune (our tax dollars) chasing ALL alarms, both real and false.
It is obvious to me now that if I ever need to declare an emergency on the ground, I should have no hope of being noticed or rescued by virtue of APRS. I have not yet inquired of local emergency management / law enforcement to see if their view of an APRS “emergency” beacon would constitute probable cause or justification for dispatch, but I think I will make some inquiries.
I’m quite sure both of these Kansas City amateur radio community leaders regularly ignore tornado warnings, fire alarms, and burglar alarms. They, after all, are obviously empowered by a feeling of omniscience that few can muster. I hope they never burn to death in a real fire, because in a real fire nobody is likely to beat them over their heads with a two-by-four to say “this is not a drill - you idiot!”.
I vehemently disagree with these leaders about ignoring emergency signals, and I am disgusted with their occasional arrogance, but they are still basically good people, basically good hams, and we agree 98% of the time. Unfortunately, the other 2% of issues have a tendency to get real ugly real fast.
So, before I actually throw my APRS in the trash can, I’d like objective input from many other hams. There may be no right or wrong answers, but before I publicly claim that my fearless leaders are absolutely wrong on this specific issue, I’d like to know that I actually hold the majority viewpoint on this issue. I could just as easily have a warped perspective.
Please tell me what you think about this, and more importantly, why.
73 DE KC0RRS Bruce
