{"id":538,"date":"2018-10-07T20:47:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T03:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/?p=538"},"modified":"2018-10-09T20:33:40","modified_gmt":"2018-10-10T03:33:40","slug":"a-professional-comm-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/2018\/10\/07\/a-professional-comm-truck\/","title":{"rendered":"A Professional Comm Truck"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I had the good fortune to be invited to attend the United Airlines Family Day event at San Francisco International Airport. \u00a0They had a number of exhibits, games for kids, food and entertainment. \u00a0But what was most relevant to my ham radio hobby was a display of the SFO Fire department’s Mobile Command truck. \u00a0It caught my eye from a distance, because it was the general size and shape of a large fire engine, but had a tall pneumatic antenna mast raised above. \u00a0I had to take a tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is set up as a mobile command post for use in the event of a major emergency at the airport. \u00a0It might be used in a plane crash, a terrorist attack, an earthquake, or whatever. \u00a0This is intended to be a meeting place, set up close to the situation, where the various decision-makers can determine a plan of action and communicate with those who will be enacting the plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside was a beautiful, spacious, state-of-the-art \u00a0communications center! \u00a0There were multiple “slide-out” sections, each of which had two communications stations, I’m not sure whether I saw eight or ten total communications stations, but I was impressed! There were also conference tables and equipment racks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
My son admiring two of the communications stations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Each communications station had a laptop, some phones, radios, a large video screen, and a whiteboard. \u00a0The video screen was subdivided into four areas, and each area could watch a different video feed. \u00a0The truck had satellite and local TV feeds to monitor broadcast media, plus there were two cameras mounted on the top of the antenna mast, to give a live video feed of the situation near the truck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Two more of the communications stations<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The antenna mast had an the ability to connect directly to the airport’s WiFi system, as long as the truck could get a line of sight to the control tower. \u00a0As a backup, it had cellular data service and satellite Internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s tempting to compare this to our amateur radio club’s communications van. \u00a0We are a group of amateurs who use our truck about a dozen times a year to help provide communications for organized bike rides, hikes, races, and similar events, while the San Francisco Airport Fire Department is a group of professionals who must be ready to respond to a major disaster at any time, so it’s not surprising that our communications needs and gear are rather different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our radio club is fortunate to have a van which was donated to us by a local TV station. \u00a0It was formerly used for news production, and has a nice tall pneumatic mast, as well as robust power availability, via deep cycle batteries and a built-in generator. \u00a0It is more than sufficient for our use as a communications center for various public service events, but it looks rather meager compared to this. \u00a0Maybe I’ll do a walk-through of our local comm truck in a future blog post…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After I returned home, I found this YouTube video about the SFO Mobile Command unit, published by the Airport. \u00a0It’s less than three minutes long, and light on details, but gives a nice overview.\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rWNkZvftvUA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I had the good fortune to be invited to attend the United Airlines Family Day event at San Francisco International Airport. \u00a0They had a number of exhibits, games for kids, food and entertainment. \u00a0But what was most relevant to my ham radio hobby was a display of the SFO Fire department’s Mobile Command truck. Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ham-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ag6qr.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}