Editor’s note: Magdalena Valderrama is the Program Director at Seigler Springs Community Redevelopment Association, a 501c3 nonprofit organization specializing in facilitating collaboration among neighborhoods, tribal nations, county agencies, municipal advisory councils, special districts, and nonprofits for community resilience in wildfire mitigation and watershed restoration. Magdalena is a longtime member with FAC Net. In this blog, she highlights a network of community members working with radios to increase general awareness and safety from wildfire and other hazards. The original version of this blog post was updated at the request of the author on 11/13/23 to remove references that might be offensive to radio operators who are equally dedicated and trained but are not paid for their work, including CB operators; to explain more clearly the obstacles that radio operators might themselves face as they try to warn their neighbors; and provide cost of entry figures rather than a broad range of setup costs.
The wave of megafires since 2018 in northern California has led to new interest in emergency management communications using radios. This is because radio systems have long been able to function completely independently of internet and cellphone systems, a feature that is useful during wildfire and other disasters when communications towers may go down.
For immediate emergency management purposes, FEMA encourages using ham radio for CERT operations, the Community Emergency Response Teams, and the National Association for Amateur Radio offers the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) to aid government agencies and nonprofit organizations. But can more accessible systems also be of service?
“When the Valley Fire hit, even though I had a radio, there was no quick way to alert my neighbors” recalls licensed ham radio operator and Cobb Alert Net founder, Mel McMurrin. “The local ham repeater might alert a dozen or so friends, none of which were in the path of the fire. I had to resort to knocking on doors, ramshackle group texting and calling neighbors one by one. People weren’t answering their phones, older friends didn’t text. And eventually, cell towers, landlines and the internet went out…taking Facebook and online scanners with them!”
In 2016, along with other wildfire survivors in Cobb, California grappling with the County tally of 1300 structures and 4 lives lost the year before in the Valley Fire, Mel presented an idea to the newly formed Cobb Area Council and their equally new Communications Committee about empowering residents to warn each other of approaching danger in conjunction with the official alerts from the County Sheriff’s office. The council agreed, and Mel and a few others, including my partner and I, got to work.
CAN members staffing an information and programming booth for the public. Left to right: Magdalena Valderrama, Mel McMurrin (CAN founder), Darlene Warner, and Larry Stottsberry. Photo credit: Magdalena Valderrama.
The basic arrangement is simple: a first tier of a handful of fully licensed ham radio operators, scanner listeners and experienced CBers whose expertise forms the core, a next larger tier of licensed General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) operators who serve as neighborhood group leaders, and a final tier of neighborhood residents who prefer to use the simplest Family Radio Service (FRS) radios. The group leaders look out for bulk discounts for the FRS radios, program all the radios, and make sure everyone knows which radio frequencies they are allowed to access. Weekly practice for 20-60 minutes and test alerts ensures that everyone knows the proper procedures for using the airwaves, including emergency protocols and that their radios are functioning.
Ham radio (and CB) are popularly thought of as long range communications. One of our neighbors regularly talks to operators in New Zealand via ham radio. By comparison, GMRS radios have an effective range of between 1-70 miles, especially when used in conjunction with radio repeaters that are at existing radio tower sites . And under similar conditions, but with line of sight blocked only by a few buildings or trees, the little walkie-talkies can now reach a realistic range of 0.3 to 1 mile. Costs are comparable (see table below).
An example radio traffic test for CAN, known as “What’s for Dinner.”
As of this date, the total number of CAN participants is 270, scattered over 85 square miles and 7 large hamlets. Of this number, a handful are ham operators and 34 are licensed GMRS operators. In addition to sending out warnings of local fires, the group has tracked spot fires and reported them to the local fire department, warned members of sudden highway closures during snowstorms, and sent out regular reminders and announcements about things like being sure not to leave burn piles unattended, or a recent Tree Mortality & Fire Prevention Virtual Town Hall. The Cobb network has given birth to a similar (GMRS only) network in the north county that operates from a repeater on Mt Konocti.
Raffles, contests, and fun simulation exercises have helped grow the group and keep everyone involved. As we all know, community engagement is key to community resilience.
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Great information Magdalena! One of my rural communities is also working with the local ham radio operators regarding evacuation planning preparedness. The first evac drill they did using just cell phones crashed the system. Now their road ambassadors have radios, they have been trained in protocols, and regularly have practice calls. I will forward this article to them. We have also been talking about them going “on the road” and doing presentations about this to other rural communities in our county and to talk about their road ambassador program. Great work, Magdalena and cheers to all those great community leaders.!
Thank you Gloria. I’m looking forward to hearing about the road ambassador version!
Thanks for this article, very enlightening! I’ve launched a GMRS emergency communication program as well. But we’re still “fledgling” so great to read about others experiences.
Thanks Magdalena and FAN for spreading the word! BTW we can be found at Cobbalert.net and facebook.com/CobbAlertNet
Just so it’s clear: we don’t coordinate with the County Sheriff’s office, though we certainly pass on alerts if we miss them or hear them incorrectly, and we keep our phones charged for those alerts as well as our radios! I always say your phone is radio #1. Our angle has been to get the word out as quickly as possible. Back when we began, official evacuation notices often trailed the request by incident commanders by scores of minutes. We want people to be aware before their phone warns them AND if cell towers or internet are not functioning.
In general GMRS/FRS is a great solution for the average citizen for neighborhood alerts and communications, because of the low barrier to entry ( inexpensive radios and no FCC test), basic parity between GMRS radios and UHF ham radios, and FCC rule changes that now allow FRS radios to talk to GMRS radios on repeater output channels, so even little $10 radios or “toys” can connect people to a network spanning miles. Lots of hams and CBers now use GMRS so there is a wealth of experience in radio operations there. The only caveat is, it’s a relatively small bunch of frequencies and is gaining in popularity, so it could get too crowded to be effective in the future.
Hi
Starting to build a GMRS repeater system…
I am a ham operator and just lived through the storm of 2024 Wells Beach Maine…Google it to see videos.
I am wondering if you have guidelines…HOW TO’s…etc ..that I could use.
How to approach people to get them interested….Target groups?
Here is stuff I have running … https://www.qrz.com/db/KC1ETT
Thank you in advance
Jimmy white
KC1ETT
WELLS BEACH MAINE
Hi, Jim, thanks for your patience. I’m sorry you had to go through that storm. I will connect you up with Mel for the technical stuff. As for approaching people and getting them interested, we found that starting with existing groups has been really helpful.
Below are some things that worked for us.
1. As the story mentions, our local municipal advisory council was the first audience. The advantage we found was that since it was community members that had proposed the advisory body to the county board of supervisors, it was the community that could set the agenda. Look around for a similar community body that formally has the ear of government. Having a place, in actuality and figuratively, to discuss the disaster and plan events to teach locals rocketed us forward.
2. Safety fairs and other events that first responders participate in are great places to have a booth where you can attract people’s curiosity. Put out an attractive sign and offer a raffle ticket for a pair of the FRS radios in exchange for providing their contact info. Think of small things like this that will engage people so they don’t just walk by.
3. Work with other safety-minded groups who may be providing starter evacuation kits. You can give them an information sheet to include in the kit. Your local government Office of Emergency Services should be able to put you in touch with the local community organizations that are active in disaster (COAD), including groups like the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, United Methodists, Lutheran Church, and many more.
4. Offer to speak at a civic or business club about your project. Elks, Lions, Moose, Toastmasters, are good bets. And every town has their own special gathering group. Here, we stumbled onto a group known as the Judge’s Breakfast, where a retired judge had long ago started holding a breakfast meeting at a local restaurant so that he and his supporters could hear about the issues and successes in the area. The restaurant set aside a section just for them, assigned a server to take their orders, and allowed a projector to be brought in for whoever might be speaking.
These are just some of the ways to get going on your new network. Good luck to you! WRBX 225
Hi Jim,
Good on ya!
I note you already operate a Bridgecom repeater. They make a GMRS one that is our primary. It does multiple tones ( ” users”) which is essential for us to differentiate emergency traffic for 2 different zones. Our backup ( lower elevation) repeaters are Retevis RT97s a surprisingly good low cost performer ( but only capable of one tone.) Our 3 repeater system uses same output tones/ different inputs.
We went down road of old Motorola gm300s and Kenwood TKR820d…to much maintenance ( if you have test equip and love that kind of thing…go for it!)
The bulk of our operators are FRS using Retevis RT22. These are little miracle radios. They can be programmed with multiple tones on same frequency which is essential for us and even with 2 Watts we have seen trancieive 60 miles+.
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