Radio & disaster response

[TD-Horne]

As suggested in another forum I'm opening up a discussion about useful battery and battery supply tips related to radio & disaster response. I'm the Emergency Coordinator for the Amateur Radio Emergency Service© (ARES©). My job is to assist the other volunteers in getting trained personally prepared and appropriately equipped to perform their work in the event of a call out. In addition I'm trying to assist the ARES© Mutual Assistance Team coordinator for my Region in doing the same thing for those volunteers who's situation allows them to travel to a disaster area to assist and relieve the local volunteers there when the work overwhelms what they can do.

As I said in the other post you don't always end up doing what you planned to do and no one needs a pack of prima donnas standing around only knowing how to say "No dude. We came to save you with our radios. Were not here to do what you need done." So every thing we take along on a deployment, whether local or Mutual Assistance, has to be as versatile as we can find. As an example of the needed flexibility one of our local teams was assigned as human detour signs to guide evacuee traffic around the portions of roads closed by the initial storm and by the subsequent alluvial flooding. Several of us had brought along diffuser cones for our flashlights but not all of those were reassuringly bright. Some were too thick and dulled the light to much. Some could not function on the batteries that are available in a disaster relief supply chain, and some just burned through the batteries that people had brought for them too quickly. The supply chain can provide AA, D, and sometimes C batteries but they never have CR123s of the 18650 cells that a lot of modern flashlights will run on.

So what has worked for you.

• which brands of battery have given you the least leakage problems,
• what lash ups have you devised to make the best use of those sizes of Alkileak batteries.

One of my weird ideas was to convert a 2 D cell battery light to run on 2 Lithium primary or secondary batteries. Once those ran out add on a battery tube extension and put in the 5 alkaline batteries which would also produce the 7&1/2 volts, that the conversion emitter would need to operate, that would become available through supply channels. The extension tube could be holding another set of Lithium 3.7 volt cells and together those might carry me through the first 2 nighttime operational periods and I could have a third set in my larger kit bag. If we can be independent for the first 3 days then supply can catch up with the needs.

One of thing I came up with was carrying a small; as in 6AHrs; 12 volt Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePH4) battery in a waist pouch to power portable radios at their designed highest output, usually 5 watts. When you use the OEM power cord for the radio and connect it to the LiFePh4 battery the radio puts out full power. If you have to run it on a primary battery holder in place of the rechargeable battery the output is cut sharply. You don't always have an easy way to recharge the radio's rechargeable battery packs once your sent out on a particular task.

I'm sure that the folks here can come up with other ideas I haven't thought of. Most valuable would be power sources and multi use sustainment equipment you have tried which actually worked. We have quite a cache of equipment but recent exercises have me looking in another direction than team equipment and toward each volunteer being able to sustain themselves to some degree until support services have been stood up.

Tom Horne

 

[Poppy]

Tom,
When our CERT team gets called out, we meet at either the police station/municipal building, or at a mobile police command center. There we are giving a briefing, and are assigned tasks. We are typically dispatched in two man teams, and do traffic duty. Each team is given a radio.

They are rechargeable. I don't know the battery chemistry, nor do I know if they are removable. They are however charged while the radio is sitting in a cradle.

Each member has been minimally trained in radio usage and protocol. Each member has been trained in chain of command, and first aid. Also in how to use a fire extinguisher, and cribbage, and levers to move debri off of a victim.

IIRC there were a dozen training sessions, for 2-3 hours a night, once a week for three months.

I suggest that instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, that you contact your local police department for their CERT team coordinator. Explain to him/her that you have a group of volunteers, and ask how can you help.

One of the members of our team created a Ham Radio Club, and gave training so that each member can get licensed.

 

[Poppy]

One of thing I came up with was carrying a small; as in 6AHrs; 12 volt Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePH4) battery in a waist pouch to power portable radios at their designed highest output, usually 5 watts.

What radios are you using?
What voltage are they running at?
Are they rechargeable?
Are they desktop models that are plugged into a 12V output source?

 

[LEDphile]

Each member has been minimally trained in radio usage and protocol. Each member has been trained in chain of command, and first aid. Also in how to use a fire extinguisher, and cribbage, and levers to move debris off of a victim.

IIRC there were a dozen training sessions, for 2-3 hours a night, once a week for three months.

As this training is around disaster response, I'm assuming the training was in cribbing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_crib ), which is useful for stabilizing heavy objects that are in a precarious position, and not cribbage ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cribbage ), which is useful when you have a group of folks sitting around with nothing to do.

 

[Poppy]

As this training is around disaster response, I'm assuming the training was in cribbing ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_crib ), which is useful for stabilizing heavy objects that are in a precarious position, and not cribbage ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cribbage ), which is useful when you have a group of folks sitting around with nothing to do.

LOL... critical correction.
Good catch!

 

[TD-Horne]

• What radios are you using?

Kenwood THD7A, THF-6A, YAESU FT-470

• What voltage are they running at?

7.4 VOLTS

• Are they rechargeable?

YES

• Are they desktop models that are plugged into a 12V output source?

No these are portable radios

They will not put out their designed highest power of 5 watts when the lithium Ion batteries are discharged and you have to resort to clam-shell packs of primary batteries. The manufactures design the primary battery holding battery packs so that they will not provide enough voltage for full power operation. That forces you to buy more rechargeable battery packs rather than use primary batteries in a battery holding pack at lower cost. In some uses the rechargeable batteries will not take you through a 12 hour operational period although 2 of them will get you through 8 hours of moderate use. In heavy use, such as shadowing command staff or public officials to keep them in touch with incident command or their home office the duty cycle will be 50 percent. In digital radio telemetry use the radio has to hold up on a 100% duty cycle for several minutes at a time. Battery duration varies widely with what use you are making of the radios. The manufactures advertised length of service is based on a very low duty cycle which is not representative of the Disaster Relief environment.

Going by the disaster relief axiom that "2 is 1 and 1 is none' you have to equip so that you have 2 radios and the required accessories that will do any of the tasks that you have committed to being able to do for the served agency. That can mean using a portable and an amplifier to serve as a mobile radio or back up base radio. That can be made to work if you obtain an amplifier that does not require full power from the portable to drive the amplifier. With the radio operating at low power to drive the amplifier at lower than the amplifier's maximum power both will be able to withstand a higher duty cycle better than a 50 watt mobile radio and yet still at a power higher than the mobile radio's high output setting.

As one example if you are using one for Automatic Packet Reporting of a vehicle's location the track will not be continuous if you must set it to periodic rather than distance reports to preserve the battery capacity. Distance reports show the location of a unit moment by moment. Periodic will only tell you at the timed interval which means if they are off course or have been stopped you will only know when that time interval expires. Being able to track a shipment of water, food, or medicine in real time can be very useful especially in an area that is experiencing lawlessness.

Another example is a remote weather station on a wild fire. If the unit can be set to report every change beyond a certain value or longer than a certain time length than that information is much more useful to an Incident Meteorologist on a wildfire than one that reports at set intervals and may not report significant gusting which could signal the approach of the leading edge of a squall line which can be mortally dangerous to the firefighters building indirect attack line line construction thus having unburned fuel between themselves and the fire.

It's a kind of "Fibber McGee's closet" (Google It) of uses and it is never possible to know in advance what demands you'll have to place on your batteries.

Tom Horne

 

[Poppy]

Given that the voltage input from an external source is 12V - 16.0 V.

Would something like this work for you?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086TXVFGN/?tag=cpf0b6-20

 

[Poppy]

Tom,
I believe that you are on the right path.
Either buy more Li Ion batteries designed for the radios.
Perhaps you can use a 12 V source to recharge one as the other is in use, OR carry an external 12V battery that you can plug into the radio directly.

There are adapter battery cases, that will hold 4 AA sized cells. However, they will not put out full power, (as you noted). Four alkaline cells will only put out 6 volts, and four Energizer Lithium cells will put out 6.4 volts. From the outset, the four AA adapter will put out less and they will decline in voltage quicker than the 7.4 Li Ion cells that are designed for the radio.

 

[TD-Horne]

Tom,
I believe that you are on the right path.
Either buy more Li Ion batteries designed for the radios.
Perhaps you can use a 12 V source to recharge one as the other is in use, OR carry an external 12V battery that you can plug into the radio directly.

There are adapter battery cases, that will hold 4 AA sized cells. However, they will not put out full power, (as you noted). Four alkaline cells will only put out 6 volts, and four Energizer Lithium cells will put out 6.4 volts. From the outset, the four AA adapter will put out less and they will decline in voltage quicker than the 7.4 Li Ion cells that are designed for the radio.

Poppy

There are 3.7 volt lithium cells with a AA cell form factor. 3 of those with one dummy cell in a 4 cell pack would bring the voltage up to 11.1 volts. 2 of those with 2 dummy cells would bring the voltage up to 7.4 volts. Do you suppose either of those would cause the radio to reach it's full 5 watt output?

I've already used a separate portable battery and I found that it has one big advantage. By working with the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) prior to the flight I was allowed to bring the 10 Ah Lithium Iron Phosphate battery on the plain. They put up with it because those batteries are now getting common as wheel chair batteries and I was en-route to the Texas pan handle for a hurricane deployment into Louisiana. Luckily for the folks in Louisiana the storm lost power unexpectedly before we deployed and we weren't needed. After all they have been through in the last several years I'm glad that they finally caught a break.

Tom Horne

 

[TD-Horne]

if a hill is between them pretty much no band is getting thru,

I have used a High Frequency (HF) radio and Near Vertical Incidence Skywave Propagation to communicate across the entire state including the mountainous portion to the western side of the state with no problem whatsoever. The radio we used was about the size of an older portable radio and the antenna was wound into 2 chalk line housings. By extending out only the portion that you needed to get a good match to the frequency of interest the chalk line antenna can be used from 160 meters to 6 meters quite easily. I have also used a rather small low power antenna coupler; or remote antenna tuner if you prefer; and run both wires out to their maximum length and gotten excellent results. I would advise against trying that with an antenna tuner located at the radio because the mismatch that would still remain at the feed point and only a remote antenna coupler located at the feed point can fully overcome that. That wouldn't work on the move unless you used a horizontal loop antenna on the roof of a bus or truck. But on the move radio was not what Poppy was asking about. He wanted to be able to keep in touch with family both nearby and a little further away. NVIS is perfect for that application. The same antenna can be used as a very effective medium sloping inverted V to reach out to a 1000 miles and more in a single direction to reach more distant locations.

Tom Horne

 

[Poppy]

There are 3.7 volt lithium cells with a AA cell form factor. 3 of those with one dummy cell in a 4 cell pack would bring the voltage up to 11.1 volts. 2 of those with 2 dummy cells would bring the voltage up to 7.4 volts. Do you suppose either of those would cause the radio to reach it's full 5 watt output?

Yeah Tom, they are called 14500 Li Ion cells.
Fully charged they are 4.2 volts. So put into a holder in series, that would put them at 8.4 volts.
I was going to ask if you tested your Li Ion battery pack when it is fully charged, is it really 7.4 Volts, or is it really 8.4 V.
I suspect that it is 8.4V fully charged. Then YES you should be able to substitute a pair of 14500's in a battery pack.
Be aware they have only about 800 mAh.
If you could put them in the box rewired so that you could have four batteries, two each in series, and two pairs in parallel. Then you would have the equivalent of 1600 mAh.
If you decide to run multiple cells in series, it is important to use protected cells, and keep them balanced regarding state of charge. Else you run the risk of fire.

I was thinking of suggesting that you have someone 3D print an adapter that would hold a pair of 18650 or 21700 batteries that are wired in series.

LOL... that's if you wanted to get creative.

 

[DaveTheDude]

You might be interested to know that KEEPPOWER now makes a 14500 cell rated to 1100 mAh. This 300 mAh improvement over the previous standard for 14500 li-ion cells (a 37% increase in capacity) can be useful in a disaster response scenario, especially if you're cobbling together a homemade battery pack replacement for a more expensive, brand specific battery. It's worth looking into.

 

[Poppy]

Looking at the cost...
14500's are about $6 EACH so that's $24 for 1600 mAh.

You can get a 2 pack of 2000 mAh replacement batteries for $45.
That's $22.50 each.

You might be interested to know that KEEPPOWER now makes a 14500 cell rated to 1100 mAh. This 300 mAh improvement over the previous standard for 14500 li-ion cells (a 37% increase in capacity) can be useful in a disaster response scenario, especially if you're cobbling together a homemade battery pack replacement for a more expensive, brand specific battery. It's worth looking into.

Hopefully @HKJ will test and verify its claims.
That's surprising, and suspect, but KEEPPOWER has been well rated with their other batteries.

EDIT...I see that he did do a review.

Test of Keeppower 14500 1000mAh P1450C2 (Black) 2019

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Tom, if you decide to replace that FT-470, let me know. I fairly wore mine out, and I love that radio--my first HT.

Have you given any thought to SLABs or lawnmower/motorcycle batteries in a shoulder bag? Plugged into the adapter for the FT-470, it should run a loooong time. Pair a couple of so-equipped shoulder bags with some solar panels or a small generator for recharging one while using the other, you might just have something.

Good luck with your ARES EC role, I tried that one time, but I couldn't get cooperation. Probably poor leadership and organization skills on my part. Hope things run smoother for you than they did for me.

 

[TPA]

Having been through numerous hurricanes: I use alkaleaks almost exclusively for my true emergency lighting. Always charged, always ready, and you know exactly how much capacity they have and can see at a glance of how much power I have left available. A new supply gets purchased every 2 years and the old ones get set aside as spares. Most of the lights are stored without batteries loaded. If you're buying these at Sam's/Costco when they're on sale, it's cheap insurance, even if ultimately you toss them.

I do have some Mr. Beams MB530 (3x C batteries) lights around the house, set to the constant low glow which go to high when they see motion. I have them either on the floor or mounted with 3M Command strips. So, if the power goes out, I grab one and use that to navigate to where I keep the lanterns and lights stored. I do have a few BLF LT1 and LT1 Minis around and I like their glowing buttons...but those are only good for short-duration power outages. For anything long-term, it's the Costco / Duracell D-cell lanterns, a boat-load of them. I believe I have about 18-20 of them left now, and have needed to deploy all of them simultaneously. These are also cheap enough that I don't mind giving them to people who need them. IIRC I gave away 4 of them during the last hurricane.

When I'm able to have access to some 110v power in the area but not necessarily at the location I need it, USB battery packs and Haven Tents' Ridge Lights + BrightTech String Lights were very useful, as are the rechargeable lanterns/flashlights. All of these put out a nice warm, distributed light, which makes being without power feel a bit more humane and one step closer to normal again and less like an emergency.

On the radio side of things, sadly despite being a ham, I didn't touch my ham radios much during or after the storm. I did use my aviation radio though, which runs on USB-C or AA batteries. I was able to get some info about what the worst areas were looking via "fingers", 123.45MHz, along with hearing the various rescue, SAR, and SAR drone guys' activity. Even though we got hit with a Cat 5, a surprising amount of infrastructure here survived and was still operational. The state was very well prepared for this and it showed. After the storm 65% of the cell towers were offline. By day 2 it was down to 37% offline. After 7 days that was 10%... and keep in mind that most locations will be covered by more than 1 tower, so even with 65% out, most people still had cell service. The towers might be overloaded, but you could still get calls in/out if you tried. SMS always worked.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

We just got the Haven RidgeLight and find them pleasantly warm, kind of a ramping brightness. Do I wish the low was lower? Yes I do but nice at this point. Being able to connect them with a USB A plug gives options.

 

[TPA]

In general, I've not found any lantern / nondirectional light which dims down enough for my liking other than the BLF LT1/LT1 Mini. The RidgeLight dims down pretty nicely, but still too bright for sleeping in the same room with it for me. Then again, it uses so little power on its lowest setting that many battery packs will time out not sensing it there.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

In general, I've not found any lantern / nondirectional light which dims down enough for my liking other than the BLF LT1/LT1 Mini. The RidgeLight dims down pretty nicely, but still too bright for sleeping in the same room with it for me. Then again, it uses so little power on its lowest setting that many battery packs will time out not sensing it there.

Have you tried it in the white, semi Opaque stuff sack for sleeping? It still seemed too bright but did not test it. For overnight, I use good quality glow-in-the-dark products like at the County Comm website. They help orient where I can find a flashlight and a water source.

 

[TPA]

I normally use the Caspser glow plug-in nightlights at home and in hotels. They put out a dim warm light at night and use a microwave sensor instead of PIR for motion detection. When they sense motion they slowly fade up to a reasonable brightness, then gradually fade out.

I do keep a Sofirn SC31 Pro or BLF LT1 Mini on the nightstand with its illuminated button. The SC31's button is actually too bright for my liking at night.