[geeks] computer room gallery 8-)

[Rick Hamell]

> More and more high-speed packet backbones are popping up as people
> discover how unreliable internet connectivity can be.  I'm in the midst of
> turning up a multi-point system for the Emergency Operations Center for
> Prince Georges County, MD.  Its a 1200/9600 baud system locallly with a
> 56K backbone to the Maryland Emergency Management Association....all
> speaking TCP/IP over AX.25.

	Heh... that reminds me of a story... the State of Oregon was doing
an emergency effectivness drill. The goal was to test how their emergency
communication procedures worked in case of a large scale disaster.

	Upon hearing this one of the local ham radio clubs asked to be
involved with it as a "backup." Most of these guys have laptops with
packet radios attached. 1200 buad or less. They also have portable
generators as backup power. One guy has the radio hard wired into his van,
effectivly making it a mobile station.

	Well the first "test" was to move a piece of information from
Portland to Salem. It's only a distance of 50 miles. The official test
procedures was to use cell phones to communicate the information
verbally. What anybody failed to realize is that a large portion of the
cell phone towers down the I-5 corridor are not backed up by generators,
and the UPS's on some were only sufficent for 15 minutes of load.

	The Govenor got the first two messages fine via the cell phone
method. After about 20 minutes, they stopped recieving messages due to the
(simulated,) power outage that affected the cell phone towers.

	The backup plan was to relay handwritten messages via couriers who
traveled in 5 mile hops down the main road. This worked pretty good until
some wondered what would happen if one of the main bridges was washed
out. An alternate route on that highway was an extra 45 minute drive.

	The packet radio guys stepped in from there and handled 100% of
the Govenor's communications for the rest of day's test period. Their
communication time between the two points was about 8 minutes each way,
going through three hops.

	Rick