Kb5avy Repeater Service

A front-row seat to the mysteries of the airwaves.

See that tiny dot in the Louisiana map? That’s NOVA (formerly PhantomSDR)—a free, open-source radio project on GitHub that is changing the game. It completely breaks the rules of traditional listening, with a super smooth experience, even with hundreds of people tuned in at once. It covers an incredible range.
We are the only one in the US listed there right now but are many more to come.
Whether you're a Linux devotee or a radio hobbyist, this project is a must-try.
From Listening to signals that have been bounced off the Moon or a radio station from Ukraine, Russia, Italy, or Argentina—even those cryptic Cuban "numbers stations"—all legally and over the air. While the setup for the providers takes some effort, the payoff is a front-row seat to the mysteries of the airwaves.
NOVA runs directly in your browser.
Special thanks to Steven (Magicint)

A new way to listen live to the Jazz fest!... A Software Defined Radio experience (SDR)

How to observe the next solar eclipse 2024 with an old cardboard box

I drew this illustration in preparations for our last solar eclipse. This method has its roots in the camera obcura. A device invented in 1682. Many artists used it to trace the projected images.
It has been around for years. NASA likes the solar projection technique, because it's one of the safest way to watch the eclipse.
This is an interesting project for the kids and to make good use of those empty Amazon boxes.

La cámara obcura fue inventada en 1682.
Una fácil construcción para qué los niños puedan ver el Eclipse Solar. Hice este dibujo para explicar un poco la construcción.

IS THE EARTH CHANGING?...DO WE NEED DIFFERENT TOOLS TO COMMUNICATE DURING EMERGENCIES?

Looking at the terrible fire in Maui takes you back to the sad days we've experienced during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
How our analog radios played an important role with our search and rescue operations.
--A Lesson to be Learned

When electricity fails, the Internet also fails. Digital communication takes a lot of computing power that also
translate into a large amount of electricity.
One single powerful analog transmitter, or a repeater on a mountaintop, or a high building, can deliver distress radio signals to handheld radios of analog beepers miles away. What we've learned during Katrina, when our repeater was taken over by the Emergency command center in Baton Rouge. Many police radios were ineffective because of interoperability issues. Some digital, other analog.

Apparently the residents of Maui didn’t have a chance. They've never received any emergency messages telling about the impending disaster.
Everything happened so quickly "like from zero to 100" some residents said.
We need to rethink the way we do things during emergencies.

Untarnished and adorned by a majestic facade of oaks.
This Radio Shack store stands proudly in Abbeville Louisiana. Perhaps one of the few physical radio stores left in the country that's still going strong.
Abbeville, is picture-perfect little town, south west of Lafayette, Louisiana.
Hey, It makes you want to forget about all the radios and start using your black and white film camera again.

Listening to the Hurricane Ian ham radio rescue operation with a tiny battery transceiver from Lafayette Louisiana.
Ian had a devastating impact in Florida and the death toll continues to rise.
There are many trapped people in flooded homes in need of help.
Tune to
14.325 Khz and the FL SARNET net.
A tiny all-band transceiver such as this one, can be used to call for help when everything else fails.
You can search directly from your browser our "New Orleans WebSDR" site, --don't need a ham license to listen and to relate messages.

Go to the Watch Net 14325 Khz up along with FL SARNET
1500z. Information provided by Doug : WX4NXE. Prayers for West Fl, & stay safe
Go to the New Orleans WebSDR
And click on the 14.325 link.
Ready to help and serve our friends in West Florida.

Some of the storm damages a few houses down the street from the author's home

DEAD CALM ON THE RADIO WAVES

A article I wrote for CQ magazine on a tablet that was about to die.

Was New Orleans Ready for Another Strong Hurricane?

BY ROBERTO DABDOUB,* KB5AVY

I thought we were.

Sixteen years ago to the day, in the aftermath of Katrina our 444.150-MHz repeater, on top of Ochsner Hospital in Jefferson Highway was one of the few links between New Orleans and the outside world. For a critical period our system was the only link between the state emergency operations center in Baton Rouge and various relief and emergency centers involved in rescue work.1
Old-fashioned
communications came to the rescue again.
And yes, our levees didn't break and flooding throughout the city was not as bad. However, communications were again a serious issue. As I write this article with what little battery life remains on my tablet, the temperature inside our house is 90°, we still have no electricity,
very little water pressure, we can't use our cellphones, and we can't go anywhere. The only thing left is my ham radio.

Despite the negative coverage the communication break-down received during Katrina because of interoperability issues, New Orleans solved many of those problems and officials here were better prepared to handle emergency communications. Errors of the pass have spawned a whole new system of emergency communications. Many power generators were placed high above ground to keep running even in a flood. This time however, many of them failed because of the high winds.
Ham Radio operators were also much better-organized.
Many of our repeaters have excellent coverage with back-up power generators. Newer HF transceivers can reach long distances using portable HF antennas, such as the popular magnetic loops, hey, they can work indoors.

My wife and I are retired healthcare workers, 40-plus years at Ochsner Medical Institution, the largest medical network in
Louisiana. Our home is located in Bucktown, not far from Lake
Pontchartrain. We can see the lake from the second floor of
our house. We are also near the infamous 17th Street Canal,
which is now home to one of the most powerful pumping systems in the world. We decided to stay at home. Maybe a big mistake, but we were not on the mandatory evacuation list because we lived within the levee protective system.

We trusted our leaders and the engineers responsible to
keep us safe. Our house got flooded during Katrina and we
lost basically everything. So we knew how devastating a storm
can be. We did everything possible to fix our house after
Katrina, following remediation recommendations, such as ele-
vating it, fixing the foundation, strengthening our radio tower,
and ensuring it was lowered and secured as Ida approached. (Special thanks to Edgar Rossell, W3CS, and Paul Carcamo, KF5FYK)

Sixteen years later, there we were again, waiting for another
powerful hurricane.
However, this time was a little different. We trusted our levees, we trusted our cellphones, and that was perhaps the
biggest mistake. I had my analog 444.150-MHz UHF repeater on the back burner, hoping that we wouldn't have to use it.
The DB-440 antenna is on a small 60-foot crank-up tilt tower.
Not as well-secured as I thought it was, but happy to have it, just in case.
When Hurricane Ida passed over our area, the house started shaking tremendously, it felt more like an earthquake. We held our hands and prayed. The wind was so strong and so

loud that we couldn't even hear each other. My wife yelled,

"CAN WE USE YOUR REPEATER TO CALL OUT IF WE NEED HELP?"

"OF COURSE," I said proudly (and loudly)
Minutes later, the electricity went down. Our internet-driven
Echolink system with 20 connectees ended up in limbo, followed by our remote-control server at the RemoteHams site.

Silence on the Radio Waves

When the electricity went down, everything went silent and
went dark.
The Wi-Fi stopped working. Everything was dead, everything went dark.
A voice on my Yaesu handheld announced "Attention
attention, the 911 system in New Orleans is now down.
After that announcement, we
knew we were on our own.
My Cox Communications landline does not work without
Electricity or the internet.
Our Sprint/T-mobile was also acting erratically, popping up messages like "Turn ON cellular data, " when we knew the data was already on.

We needed to stay in touch with our three daughters. Tirza

lives 20 miles away in Mandeville, Noreen is in Lafayette, about 150 miles from New Orleans, and Chantal lives in Denver, Colorado.
At that point in time, we didn't know where the storm was headed. It was moving so slowly and so erratically, and they were saying it could have gone anywhere
but we knew it was coming straight for us.

My handheld was next to me, so I felt confident that if we had to leave the house and
needed to call for help, we would be able to reach someone through any of the local repeaters. I'd already been in contact with Glenn Bourgeois, WX5RLT, from Des Allemand,

We've always trusted his weather predictions. Nine days before the storm, he'd told us this thing was headed our way.

Using my public WebSDR. I've also listened to all the predictions on 40 meters, including the Hurricane Watch Net and the Louisiana Service Net. I've also had a couple KiwiSDRs radios on line, radios that can be heard and tuned Throughout the world.
There was lots of activity on our repeater as well as other local repeaters, so things were pretty busy before the storm hit us. I knew someone would have relayed our messages if we've gotten on the radio.

The shaking and loud roaring continued and shingles from my roof and from the neighbors' started flying all over our backyard, bouncing off my tower.

Vinyl shingles, pieces of roof, wood fences, partially collapsed storage sheds, flying doors, tree branches, everything was coming at us forcefully. We saw a raccoon running desperately on the fence looking for shelter, then flying off, bouncing off our windows and our roof and from our cars parked in the driveway. It was terrible!

A small portable air conditioner in one of the bedrooms

upstairs detached from the window and fell to the floor. Water started pouring in from the damaged ceiling on the second floor. Our bedroom was hot and wet, not a place to go.

Using a 10-watt 918 SDR radio, I got on the air. The 20-meter band seemed to be open that night, and the MFJ 1786
loop was quietly nulling the noise. I've kept the loop inside
the house and it was tuned and ready to go. But no strong
signals were coming in.

I switched to Morse and a faint station answered. I couldn't
even get the call letters straight ... W3S? Then the band suddenly went dead. The fading, the QSB, was horrendous but it gave me hope, the hope that someone out there could have been listening and willing to help us, if I insisted hard enough.

That moment was precious; that moment was priceless! Ham radio did it again!

NOTES:

1. The author wrote about his experiences in Hurricane Katrina in “But You Are Helping, Roberto," CQ, Nov. 2005, p. 18 (N5UXT Angelo Glorioso)