First responders could boost their radio communications quickly at a disaster site by setting out just four extra transmitters in a random arrangement to significantly increase the signal power at the receiver, according to theoretical analyses, simulations and proof-of-concept experiments performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The NIST work, described in a forthcoming paper,* may provide a practical solution to a common problem in emergency communications. The vast amount of metal and steel-reinforced concrete in buildings and rubble often interferes with or blocks radio signals. This was one factor in the many emergency communications difficulties during the response to the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
MELBOURNE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The State of Florida Division of Emergency Management awarded Melbourne-based viaRadio Corporation an annual contract worth $419,533 for a County Warning System Pilot Program following a competitive bid. Beginning March 1, 2009, the pilot program will actively cover Brevard, Orange, Pasco and Polk Counties.
The company will also provide the State with more than three thousand HEARO receivers as part of the contract. Officials will use the technology to communicate with county staff, emergency management team members and in some cases residents of each county on subjects ranging from urgent safety concerns to road and school closures.
SINCE the onslaught of the horrific bushfires there has been criticism that we have no phone-based communication system for use in emergencies.
It has been reported that there has been a system "on the table since 2004", but that bureaucratic delays and bickering between the Commonwealth, states and territories are holding up progress.
A proven working model was presented to the national emergency management bodies in 2001 by myself and a technical expert from Western Australia.
GREENVILLE — In recent years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has spent tens of millions of dollars to improve the emergency communications systems across Kentucky.
All it took was one ice storm last week to knock out electricity and phone service, isolating desperate communities in Western Kentucky.
In different counties, police and firefighters lost the radios connecting them to dispatch centers; county leaders couldn't use telephones to call Frankfort for aid; and emergency officials scrambled to connect themselves to the outside world by any means available, relying on ham radio operators or relaying messages to friends in nearby Tennessee who remained online.
The Kentucky Department of Public Health soon will launch three national satellite radio network channels dedicated to providing communications among public health agencies, hospitals and emergency medical services across the country.
The channels will enable public safety agencies to move around without losing critical communications, and participate in a nationwide two-way satellite radio conversation.
In last week’s article, I looked at the five common mistakes organizations tends to make when attempting to integrate emergency communications across a number of federal, state, municipal and volunteer agencies that are responding to a natural or man-made disaster.
Experience has also shown the degree that with proper planning and coordination, especially in advance, emergency communications can be extremely responsive.
What mistakes will cause emergency communication systems to undergo excessive stress or possibly fail in a disaster, and what steps should be taken to improve performance?
One of the biggest challenges for emergency communication centers is the wide range of situations that require responses -- including man-made emergencies and natural disasters. Many of the best-known examples, such as Hurricane Katrina, required multiple waves of response that spanned months.
The Department of Homeland Security is looking to up its annual research around router communications security fourfold – from around $600,000 to about $2.5 million – in an attempt to stave off router hijackers and misconfiguration.
The effort, code-named BGPSEC, is focused on the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is considered by some experts as among the Internet’s weakest features, and adding digital signatures to routers, according to reports.
A Network World piece quotes Douglas Maughan, program manager for cybersecurity R&D in the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, as saying: "BGPSEC is going to take a couple of years to go through the process of development and prototypes and standardization. We're really talking ... four years out, if not longer, before we see deployment."
CHICAGO (Reuters) - A new light-bending material has brought scientists one step closer to creating a cloaking device that could hide objects from sight.
Beyond possible military applications, it also might have a very practical use by making mobile communications clearer, they said on Thursday.
"Cloaking technology could be used to make obstacles that impede communications signals 'disappear,'" said David Smith of Duke University in North Carolina, who worked on the study published in the journal Science.
The Arizona Public Safety Communications Commission Statewide Radio System Demonstration Project is piloting a deployment of Motorola's ISSI Gateways on Project 25 Networks between live Project 25 (P25) networks.
The prototype installation culminated many months of multi-agency collaboration and provided "connected coverage" with the Regional Wireless Cooperative in Phoenix and the Yuma Regional Communications System.
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