I'm both an amateur radio operator and use radio communications as part of my regular job. I was volunteering at Rocky and we had some serious issues at one point which I'm not sure whether they were malicious interference/inadvertent "sitting on the mic", or impending repeater failure. The repeater owner mentioned earlier in the day that the repeater's batteries had issues.
The typical options for time-out timers for ham radios are far too long in my opinion. My professional radios' timers are 30, 60, and 90 seconds. My ham rig's options are 1 minute or 3 minutes. Yes, on a regular "rag chew" it would not be unreasonable for someone to tie up a repeater for over a minute, but for purposes of a rally net, transmissions shouldn't be longer than 30 seconds at a time, IMO.
I can understand the trepidation for publishing the radio info, because I have been to some of the same crisis situations that Keith refers to, and broadcasting the information to the world is not ideal. It has to be remembered, though, that security by obscurity isn't a real solution - anyone with a mild working knowledge of ham radios or even radio scanning will find the rally net given a few minutes at the beginning of day 1.
I've done radio work for Targa Newfoundland too, which uses commercial radios rented from a pro radio company (more likely donated, but that's beside the point) on licensed commercial frequencies. Again it doesn't take any time at all for a radio-savvy person to sleuth 'em out, especially if you know the company being rented from and bother to look up their standard licenses in the online government database. The point is, no matter how diligent you are at protecting the identity of your comms frequencies, people are going to find them out, and if they can monitor them, they will. This is why it is vital to keep sensitive details off the radio.
Personally, I think that having as many competitor cars as possible on the radio net is a good idea. They're part of the rally, obviously, and having them able to break in and alert the net (and officials) to a situation is a valuable resource. The details of the incident (concise and without identifying information) reported from a radio-equipped car right on the scene may only be a few seconds to a minute quicker than getting it radioed in from the next blocker/radio position after that car has continued down the road, but it is quicker, and eliminates one exchange of words/ideas (preventing "telephone tag" mistranslations of the situation).
One thing I would like to see entertained is having more than one frequency in use. In the areas I've volunteered, it's quite difficult, as there may only be one repeater that suitably covers the stage. However, there are a lot of situations IMO where time is spent discussing logistical situations, exchanging time details, etc., while start/finish reports aren't able to be reported (and/or potential emergencies aren't able to get through). I've seen portable repeaters tried, and they're of limited success because they can't be put in an area which covers the whole stage/leg. In the situation where there's only one repeater suitable, arranging for various simplex frequencies to be "reserved" for timing/scoring, logistics, etc., would be helpful.
The typical options for time-out timers for ham radios are far too long in my opinion. My professional radios' timers are 30, 60, and 90 seconds. My ham rig's options are 1 minute or 3 minutes. Yes, on a regular "rag chew" it would not be unreasonable for someone to tie up a repeater for over a minute, but for purposes of a rally net, transmissions shouldn't be longer than 30 seconds at a time, IMO.
I can understand the trepidation for publishing the radio info, because I have been to some of the same crisis situations that Keith refers to, and broadcasting the information to the world is not ideal. It has to be remembered, though, that security by obscurity isn't a real solution - anyone with a mild working knowledge of ham radios or even radio scanning will find the rally net given a few minutes at the beginning of day 1.
I've done radio work for Targa Newfoundland too, which uses commercial radios rented from a pro radio company (more likely donated, but that's beside the point) on licensed commercial frequencies. Again it doesn't take any time at all for a radio-savvy person to sleuth 'em out, especially if you know the company being rented from and bother to look up their standard licenses in the online government database. The point is, no matter how diligent you are at protecting the identity of your comms frequencies, people are going to find them out, and if they can monitor them, they will. This is why it is vital to keep sensitive details off the radio.
Personally, I think that having as many competitor cars as possible on the radio net is a good idea. They're part of the rally, obviously, and having them able to break in and alert the net (and officials) to a situation is a valuable resource. The details of the incident (concise and without identifying information) reported from a radio-equipped car right on the scene may only be a few seconds to a minute quicker than getting it radioed in from the next blocker/radio position after that car has continued down the road, but it is quicker, and eliminates one exchange of words/ideas (preventing "telephone tag" mistranslations of the situation).
One thing I would like to see entertained is having more than one frequency in use. In the areas I've volunteered, it's quite difficult, as there may only be one repeater that suitably covers the stage. However, there are a lot of situations IMO where time is spent discussing logistical situations, exchanging time details, etc., while start/finish reports aren't able to be reported (and/or potential emergencies aren't able to get through). I've seen portable repeaters tried, and they're of limited success because they can't be put in an area which covers the whole stage/leg. In the situation where there's only one repeater suitable, arranging for various simplex frequencies to be "reserved" for timing/scoring, logistics, etc., would be helpful.
(jk)
