Hi Everyone,
I have returned from the Bundy ranch, and am working on the ongoing project
of setting up emergency radio communications systems for rapid deployment in
situations like the Bundy family found themselves, following their stand against
government tyranny.
I spent the best part of a week working for the safety of everyone at the
ranch after being asked to go to Nevada by Stewart Rhodes. Stewart and
the Oathkeepers organization made it possible, and I will work with them any
time.
I am not disappointed at all with what we did on
this first excursion to Nevada, considering the short 2 days we had to
prepare.
My Dodge Minivan already had a scanner and a dual
band FM 2 meter and 70cm radio and I had another just like it with me, that I
set up at a local motel in a room that had good position that we could talk to
the ranch, which was only 9 miles away. I added a CB so I could get information
from the truckers on the way down, before I left home. I had also installed a
dual band radio in Stewart's rented SUV and he was able to put that vehicle into
the patrol rotation later using ham frequencies.
I had gone to the ranch on Friday shortly after I
arrived, riding with another one of our crew, and gathered up those with Ham
licenses, which turned out to be only two people on the whole site. One of them
is a good friend from Kalispell and he agreed to be the anchor on site with a
split band operation and a dual band antenna that I had with me. We picked a
location to set up that antenna and I told him I would be back the next day to
do it.
That night we got the drone strike threat and an
hour later my tech class ham friend showed up at the motel and said he was going
on patrol.
We had been told to start up a night patrol with
constant radio contact to patrol within about 25 miles in either direction from
the ranch for the safety of everybody on site, and for advanced warning to get
any info about what we saw out to the ranch and also out of the area however we
could before any communications blackout could be put into effect. Using the
dual band radios we were actually able to talk up to about 50 miles away at
times depending on terrain.
I set up an antenna and dual band radio at the
motel room and used a long term storage pack to run that radio so it couldn't be
shut down by turning off the electric power in the room. That radio was easily
able to talk to our patrols because it's output was around 70 watts, and we used
one 65 watt mobile, a dual band 50 watt mobile, and some dual band handhelds
with external antennas to do a once per hour radio check to make sure everyone
was alright and still patrolling. We did this from Friday night through Tuesday
night, all night long from about 9 PM until about 5 AM each night. During the
day I used an HF rig I had borrowed from WR7DW and a vertical antenna on my van
to contact W4SVS in Florida, and WR7DW , and also K7BIR in Montana and several
times we were able to all be on the same frequency simultaneously to maintain a
signal path.
On HF during the day we used 14.345 on 20 meters,
and later in the night we would switch to 80 at 3.838 . We could vary the
frequency as needed to get around interference, and the whole system worked
quite well considering. We were able to maintain contact at all times and the
patrol operators had some short range encrypted units to use between each other
if they had to stop and should they get separated by a few hundred feet. These
worked out to over a mile very well.
To see the whole band plan we are using see this
document.
Here is our local band plan for the Eureka and
Kalispell area.
Our obvious big deficit was having enough
people with at least a tech class license to go on patrol, and we could
have done a much better job if we could have had a few more high power mobile
dual band radios for the vehicle, but I stayed with a Kenwood TM281 65 watt unit
because they are low cost, have pretty good power, and it's what I could get on
short notice, and the biggest reason is that it's so efficient that most any
cigarette lighter socket will allow full power operation at 65 watts. We used
magnet mount dual band antennas so we could switch the radios from vehicle to
vehicle quickly to increase our transparency to the public. We even equipped
our handheld dual band radios with magnet mount external antennas and increased
their range dramatically.
So much for what we did. Now for what we
could do given a little time and some money for
preparations.
The ideal situation would be to have a
communications crew, all with ham licenses, which could be composed of mostly
tech class guys, along with at least two or three guys with General or Extra
class licenses. These guys would travel with several comm units consisting of
one or two mobile vans with all band capabilities, and a few vehicles with
patrol FM capabilities. With a little more prep, we could set up a mobile
command center in a travel trailer that could be pulled by any big pickup with a
2 " ball hitch to a site within about 10 or so miles of the center of action,
and set up in a matter of a couple of hours. This trailer would have all band
HF, VHF, UHF and digital capabilities including wireless internet to encrypted
internet pier 2 pier secure data and chat, and digital HF single side
band digital com on the ham bands.
Ideally we could use a bumper pull 24 or 26 foot
travel trailer with rear bedroom and a front dinette. The front dinette could be
converted to permanent ham shack and the rear bedroom could be used by an off
duty general or extra class ham for sleep so we could run a triple rotating
shift 24/7.
This trailer would be comm HQ and a place where
vehicle radios and handheld radios would be put in rotation for patrols,
(checked in and checked out) and could be located off site in some higher
location if possible. It would have the capability of talking nation wide and
world wide. This could serve as the communications hub for any operation around
which we could run one or two vans with like capabilities using various spots on
higher ground to back up these long range comms, and to relay from patrols to
the trailer if the need arises. The trailer should have back up power including
solar panels and a generator and storage batteries to be able to run the trailer
and the radio gear during any power outage for extended periods. With the right
planing we could equip this trailer with a big power amp, and a crank up tower
that could swing a 3 element beam. While in Nevada I was able to talk repeatedly
to Florida and Montana with only 100 watts and a vertical antenna, but 500 or
1000 watts would guarantee very solid HF communications almost regardless of
band conditions. We can just switch bands and crank up the power to get the job
done as needed. The beam antenna would amplify both incoming and outgoing
signals for maximum range and effectiveness.
I have already talked to my Extra class buddies
here in Eureka, and I am sure if we had some kind of trailer to work with we
could set this up in a couple of weeks or three, assuming we had about 10 grand
to put into the radio and power part of the project. While in Nevada my whole
station was solar powered.
If you have any ideas to add to this feel free to
jump in. We would like to finish our preparations with the comm van first and
then pick up a few more radios for other vehicles for FM dual band
operation.
If anyone reading this has any questions please
feel free. None of this is set in stone, and any time you get a bunch of ham
radio guys in a room together you are going to have lots of good ideas floating
around.
If you would like to contribute to just the radio communications part of
this project you can send donations to my PayPal account at the following email
address:
pstramer@eurekadsl.net
Please make a note in the box as Radio Project
For Checks, make them out to:
SLC Distributing
PO Box 116
Eureka MT 59917 put Radio Project in the memo line
or you can call us with your credit or debit card at 800 889 2839
Two more things.
1. In over 30 years of patriot activity I have NEVER asked
outright for any kind of donation for my own projects or anything else for that
matter, but this is very important, and the safety of the patriots at these
kinds of activities may well depend more on communications than
anything.
You will probably never hear of me asking for money again after
this project is completed, but we can and will get this job done one way or
another, and depending on what the rogue government does this project could be
ongoing for a long time.
2. Everything we did and will do is and was perfectly lawful and
according to FCC regulations for Ham Radio in safety and emergency
communications protocol and will be kept that way regardless of what other
patriots do with their radios. We will NOT give agents of government any excuses
to persecute us for trying to help people who are literally in the crosshairs of
tyrannical government agents.
Donations will be used strictly for the communications project and are not
tax deductible.
My time is voluntary and the funds go to purchase radio gear or power
products and related equipment only.
At your service,
Paul Stramer KC7MEZ 800 889 2839 pstramer@eurekadsl.net Look up my
ham station on http://www.qrz.com/db/KC7MEZ
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