Posts

Quad County REACT

Saturday, January 16th, 2010
by W8JKC

You may have noticed from my Twitter account (@w8jkc), that I told Quad County REACT that I was not renewing my membership for the 2010 fiscal year.
Why did I choose to not renew, and in effect, resign? Well let me explain.

I started out with REACT upon the recommendation of a member of my local fire department, this person thought that REACT would serve my needs and I could serve them. So I contacted the local team at the time, Multi-County REACT Response Team C-260, and was invited to their meeting. The meeting was held at the Massilon, OH FOP hall. At that first meeting, I filled out an application and was told they would call me after they had ran a background check, and that the membership would have to vote to accept the application at the next meeting. At this first meeting I realized that there were conflicts between select members and the officers of the team. The whole meeting was basically a fact checking session, where both parties kept checking and re-checking Robert’s Rules of Order, the Team By-Laws, and other documents because of a couple of issue that had arisen previously.

After that meeting, the select members mentioned above, approached me as we were all leaving and said they had something in the works, and asked for my contact information. Me being the curious person I am, supplied them with my information. I got a phone call about a week or so later, and in that phone call 1 of those members told me that, the board was running the team for their own agenda, 2/3’s of the members on the team were not happy with any of it, and that they were planning to start their own team and split off from MCRRT, they also invited me to attend their first meeting which was held in the roll call room of the Canton Police Department. This is how Quad County REACT Team #6134 was formed, and how I became one of the founding members. That was back in late 2007 around the month of November.

Now, at first everything was going great, both teams worked on an agreement to basically split the county in half and only run calls in their half of the county. There were however, minor disagreements between the teams over time, but they were eventually worked out.

One of the biggest problems during my tenure with Quad County REACT, was the incident where Ohio REACT Council, and MCRRT C260 sent a letter to the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce, saying that Quad County was no longer a recognized team under REACT International, Inc. and that we were not insured any longer. (See the letter here.) You can read a full write-up of this incident in my blog’s archives here.

After that, we started taking over all of the events in Stark County and surrounding areas that we covered. Over time it finally came down to where MCRRT only had one event (that I knew of) that made them any money.
Departments started calling us, instead of them, because they heard how much better we were than MCRRT, from their colleagues and other departments/agencies. I can still remember one call, from Jackson Township, which was weird because they previously had always called MCRRT, and not Quad County, and (as far as I knew) didn’t even have our phone number. It turns out that because we worked an event in Jackson Township with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Festival (the balloon liftoff), they had received our phone number and contact information from the HOF committee. This kind of referral to our time is what we wanted to happen with all of the departments, they would hear about us by word of mouth from other departments or agencies. You may not realize it now, but people talk about stuff like this. A word of advice, if you do something wrong or bad, people will talk about that one bad thing more than all of the good stuff you do.

During the end of 2007 we focused on getting our team started and working with the community.
In 2008, we worked on getting more agencies and departments to call us for emergencies, and for people to call us for events. (We did a very good job at this, I might add.)
2009 was sort of a rough year for us, with the trip to Maryland (see blog post here), and other important issues.

In late 2007 I approached the Board of Directors and offered to setup and maintain a website for the team, I explained that it would make us more professional, get the word out about our team and what we do, and because I already setup my own web server that the cost would be low to them. While skeptical at first, they agreed and I went about purchasing the domain name of quadcountyreact.org on December 26 2007.
It only took me about a week to get the original site up and running and add all of our information to it.
I worked behind the scenes on my own personal time, to optimize the site for search engines, spread the URL to other REACT teams around the U.S. (I think I got a link to quadcountyreact.org from about 20 other REACT team websites in total to date), I submitted most of our events to calendarofohio.com which is owned by The Canton Repository (the local newspaper), basically I took the initiative to spread the word about our site on my own, in the best interests of the team.

I custom wrote and coded several projects which were integrated into the site, The weather alerts on the left hand side, automatically checked the NOAA server for the latest data every time the page was loaded. I added a Computer Aided Dispatch System (Tickets CAD from OpenISES), and custom integrated it into our member roster page for ease of updating the roster. I added the team emergency phone number (330) 57-REACT, (Google Voice) and set it up to forward to the top 3 board members phones at the same time. I also set up email addresses for all of our members, however they were rarely used by anyone except me. I also added a custom email list, which replaced our conventional paging system through USA Mobility. We had to cancel our contract with USA Mobility because of lack of funds. Team members were unwilling to pay for a pager. My email list replacement was setup for free, because it used text messaging capability’s on the members’ cell phones. I even added a custom script that would automatically forward any text message that was sent to (330) 57-REACT to the email list.

I worked countless hours over the course of the last 2 years to make subtle changes to the site, either to make the site better, or add more information.

The only complaint about the site I received was that the Board couldn’t update the site on their own. Every update had to go through me.
The were reasons I set it up like this. First, the site was completely coded in PHP from scratch and even the smallest typo or change could have major effects, even going as far as bring the whole site down until I fixed it. Secondly, the server the site was hosted on is on my home network, behind a firewall, and the only open port was 80 which served the web pages. There was no way for anyone outside my local network at home could hack in and change anything. I couldn’t even get in from outside the local network. This allowed me to insure that not only the site was secure, but also the other sites I host, and my network were secure.

All of the hosting, design, maintenance, services, etc that were part of the site, were completely FREE for the team’s use. The only thing the team ever paid for was $15 to register the domain name. That’s it. Every thing else was either at cost to me, or a free service. You tell me anywhere else commercially that you can get hosting and domain name registration for a whole year for that price, not to mention all the design and services. No where.

I had a verbal agreement with the board, that as long as I was a member of the team, I would continue to host, update, maintain, etc in regards to the website, and if I ever decided to resign or leave, that we could work something out for them to transfer to another server or a paid company’s services.

The reason I decided and chose not to renew my membership for the 2010 fiscal year, is because the current Board of Directors for the team (not all of them, just a few certain people) are in my opinion running the team straight into the ground. They only support their own agenda, and any ideas I had to benefit the team were quickly shot down. I took it upon myself to help this team, and I can name a few times where a Board member would try something, I would check our governing bylaws, and remind them about a certain section to make sure they were operating the team within the bylaws.

I took it upon myself for at least 6 meetings I can remember to take down minutes because the appointed team secretary didn’t show up.

I even took it upon myself to completely rewrite the team’s bylaws, adding line numbers, fixing typos, while still keeping all the wording in the original in them. Once again, my work was quickly shot down.

So I feel that this team is heading in the wrong direction, that the current Board of Directors of Quad County REACT will lead the team to disbanding, and that I wasn’t being taken seriously for anything I tried to do.

The last meeting I attended in which I told them I was not renewing, I also informed them that I no longer wished to host, update, or maintain the website. I also decided that all content designed, or written by myself would remain in my possession as these things took numerous hours to work on.

Legal Notice: This blog post is posted in accordance with REACT International, Inc. Policy Statement 6-01, “Public Announcements” which can be found at http://www.reactintl.org/pubs/RI_policy_10-10-04.pdf and is protected by the First Amendment of the United Sates Constitution, Bill of Rights, Freedom of Speech/Expression. Correspondence relating to this blog post may be addressed to justin@w8jkc.com

Weather & Information Images (WX-IMG)

Sunday, December 27th, 2009
by W8JKC

I have updated my WX-IMG products and have included the WWV image in this release.
To add these images to your site please see http://www.w8jkc.com/copythis.php?q=1
You are free to add them to your website, Facebook, MySpace or similar profile, including web signatures.

Also included in this release is my simple email address spam blocking image script. It is very simple to add to any page, but requires basic knowledge of HTTP URL structures. However it is explained completely on the page linked above.

I have changed the methodology behind the Weather Spotter Image too, it used to refresh the data every time the image was accessed or loaded, which means every time somebody viewed a page that had that image in it, the information would be retrieved again. This works great, however now that more people are using that image I am using way too much bandwidth and I am sure the NWS and NOAA did not appreciate me requesting the information so many times. This is especially true because they usually only update the information once every 24 hours (around 6am). I have changed this to only request and update every 7 hours, which means 3 updates per day. Currently the update times are (EDT) 0700, 01400, and 2300hrs each day. I believe this is the most effective use, because we have had some afternoon and some evening storms.

If you have any questions or concerns you may email me at:
or you may simply leave a comment below.

Merry Christmas

Thursday, December 24th, 2009
by W8JKC

To all of my family and radio operator friends, I wish you a Merry Christmas. May that new rig you\’ve been looking at be under your tree.

Server Transfer

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
by W8JKC

I have transferred all of the websites I host, including w8jkc.com to a new server. This server should be faster and will allow me to reassign the old server to other duties.

Weather Alerts

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
by W8JKC

I have setup a new custom Weather Alert and SkyWarn Spotter Activation script through PHP and Twitter for Stark County, Ohio.

This project is currently in Live Beta Testing and I am encouraging anyone to \”follow\” the account, and if you wish have them text messaged to your phone.

For now, this script will tweet any time someone views either of my WX-IMG for Stark County, which are currently used on many different websites.

This script will alert under any of the following conditions:

• Flood Warning
• High Wind Warning
• High Wind Watch
• Flood Watch
• Tornado Watch
• Tornado Warning
• Severe Thunderstorm Warning
• Severe Thunderstorm Watch
• Frost Advisory
• Freeze Warning
• Wind Warning
• Wind Advisory
• Wind Chill Advisory
• Blizzard Watch
• Blizzard Warning
• Winter Storm Watch
• Winter Storm Warning
• Winter Weather Advisory
• Any \”Special\” Advisory

• Spotters are encouraged to report
• Spotter Activation is expected
• Spotters have been activated
• Spotter Activation may be needed
• Spotter Activation will likely be needed
• Spotter activation is possible on \”day\”

\”Day\” meaning one of: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.

I plan to integrate this with my WX-IMG and WX-JS projects on a new project/website called WX-W8JKC which can be found in the near future at http://wx.helin_w8jkc.com

I also plan on setting it up to check for Weather Alerts every 5 minutes and Spotter Activation every 2 hours, This will help to make it more reliable and help to prevent spam tweets with the same message.

The URL for this new Twitter account is http://www.twitter.com/starkohiowx

If you have any questions, comments, complaints, praise, etc; please email me at justin@helin_w8jkc.com

2009 Pro Football Hall of Fame Festival

Friday, July 24th, 2009
by W8JKC

Yep, its that time of year already. Friday July 31st marks the official start of this years festival.

Last year, over 700,000 people attended one or more of 15 events during the 10 day festival.

With the help from over 4,200 volunteers and other people we made this festival a huge success.

It\’s time to make it even bigger and better. For the 2009 Grand Parade alone, over 40 amateur radio operators are signed up to assist with route communications. Aside from the Festival committee\’s UHF business band radios, we are the parade\’s line of communication.

Here\’s how to identify an amateur radio operator helping with the parade: All Hams will be wearing a bright (color to be announced on Aug. 6th) shirt, with the HOF Festival logo on the front, and the letters A.R.O. on the back.

For those that want to monitor the communications during the parade, you can program your scanner for the WD8AYE repeater (147.120), and the HOF Committee\’s channels (464.550 and 464.500). All three channels have PL enabled to prevent interference.

Are you a amateur radio operator visiting Stark County for the Festival? Why not chat with us on one of the many local repeaters?
It is easier just to print off this map and carry it with you.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or just want to say hello; please leave a comment or email me: justin@helin_w8jkc.com

Motorola MDC-1200 Radio Numbering Scheme

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
by W8JKC

If your agency, or business is using Motorola MDC capable radios, then you can utilize this numbering scheme. This makes it easier to identify what type of radio and which unit # or radio # is transmitting at any given time.

I reccomend setting MDC to \”post only\” which will make the radio transmit the MDC at the end after the user releases the PTT on the radio.

First, lets start off with some background information. Motorola\’s MDC-1200 system is capable of using the characters A,B,C,D,E and numerals 0-9.

You can use any combination of these characters when setting the ID.

But lets make it simpler.

Let\’s assign these characters for certain radio types.

A – portable/handheld
B – base station
C – \”car\” or mobile
D – dispatch
E – EMERGENCY

Use these combined with the radio or unit #. For example.

My HT1250 portable is currently programmed to ID as A506. My unit number is 506 and its a portable radio.
My CDM1250 mobile is programmed to ID as C506.
Now I also have the \”emergency button\” programmed on both of these.

I programmed the ID on both so when the emergency button is pressed it reverts to the ID of 506E. (Notice the reversal)

Whenever either of my radios is in emergency mode, and I press the PTT it shows 506E.

Now if I cycle the power and reset to normal operation it will go back to A506.

This lets Dispatch know that my emergency button was pressed, and when I return to normal operation.

Now lets put this numbering scheme into use on an example department situation.

Lets say we have a small town fire department with 5 stations, 5 squads, 2 engines, a tanker, a tower, and a couple of other trucks. These apparatus are housed in 4 stations around the area. Our department has 30 portables also.

Each station has a base, each truck has a mobile, and each truck also carries 2 to 4 portables also.

Now we have already given each a unit number.

400 – Chief
401 – Asst. Cheif
402-409 Upper Staff
410 – Station 1
412 – Engine 1
415 – Medic 1
417 – Tower 1
419 – Grass Truck 1
420 – Station 2
422 – Engine 2
424 – Tanker 2
425 – Medic 2
430 – Station 3
435 – Medic 3
438 – Air/Scene Command (Truck 3)
440 – Station 4
446 – Utility/Support (Truck 4)
450 – Station 5
452 – Engine/Rescue 5
455 – Medic 5

For mobiles in each apparatus we put C and the unit number such as C446 for Truck 4. Truck 4 carries 2 portables so they both ID as A446.

Station 2\’s base would ID as B420.

At this point you can see how easy it is to set up MDC for every radio in your department.

If you find this information useful, or you want to suggest differently; please comment below or email me justin@helin_w8jkc.com

How to find your new job on the internet

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
by W8JKC

With the way the economy, stock markets, the way they are right now; many people are unemployed and looking for a new job.

But how do you use your computer and the internet to find that new job? Yes there are places such as Monster, Craigslist, and others.

Here\’s a little fact, many companies post \”secret\” openings to their own website, days or even weeks before putting them on others.
What are the chances that you would actually look at that companies site, before they posted the job to other sites? Slim to none.

So know that you know where to look, what is the easiest way to find these company websites in your area? Thats where special \”job search engines\” come in. These websites are extremely customized search engines that only crawl the web for specific words such as opening, position, and others including locations.

Here are a few job search engines to help you find only hiring companies websites:

http://www.simplyhired.com
http://www.linkup.com
http://www.indeed.com
http://www.dice.com (Technology Jobs Only)
http://www.usajobs.gov (Government Jobs)

Do you know of any other \”job search engines\” or other ways to find jobs? Feel free to submit them below. Have any questions or comments? Submit them below too, or email me justin@helin_w8jkc.com

10 Firefox Add-ons you should check out

Saturday, April 11th, 2009
by W8JKC

I am a member of several online technology communities, email lists, chatrooms, and other places where computer geeks and tech enthusiasts debate on the best hardware, software, and many other items.

My pick for the best web browser is and has always been Mozilla Firefox. Why? Because it\’s completely open source, free, and it\’s extendibility.
Anyone can create an add-on for Firefox using a publicly available SDK and documentation. Now the question is what add-ons do I have in my Firefox?

I use the following add-ons and am always checking out new ones. I recommend you check these out, you never know how much easier it could make doing even what you consider the simplest task.

• Ad Block Plus (ABP) – This removes most if not all advertisements from pages, blocks pop-ups and pop-unders, and even items that you choose that are not advertisements. Free subscriptions to common advertisement URL lists are also optionally included.
• Bookmark Backup – This creates a daily backup of your bookmarks and if you choose, other settings in Firefox. Great for syncing between two or more computers, such as work and home, or laptop and desktop.
• Google Gears – Not just for Firefox, allows websites that have added the Gears scripts to save common files to your computer for faster load times when you visit the site again. A Gears enabled site will prompt you to allow it.
• Grease Monkey – Cool add-on that allows user created \”scripts\” to be used to change the way a page is displayed while its loading. Some user scripts include automatically switching back to the \”old\” Facebook layout, instead of loading the \”new\” one.
• Tab Mix Plus – More of a customisation than an add-on it allows you to choose how pages are displayed and loaded in tabs.
• Twitty Tunes – Allows you to \”tweet\” which page your viewing, a short description. Also allows you to \”tweet\” which song you are currently listening to in compatible players.
• IE Tab – Nice add-on because it allows you to use the Internet Explorer program to load pages inside of a FireFox window or tab. Great for older webpages that don\’t work right in FireFox.
• Shareaholic – Allows you to send pages to many Social Networking and Bookmark sites such as Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Myspace, along with many others from a simple button on your navigation toolbar.
• Open IT Online – Allows you to view documents and files without installing additional software using sites such as Google Docs, Google Apps, Zoho Viewer, Snipshot, Pixlr, Picnik and others.
• DownThemAll! – A Download manager that has even faster downloading capabilites than the built in downloads window in FireFox. Great for downloading large files, and documents.

If you use different add-ons, and would like to recommend them to other people, leave a comment below, or email me justin@helin_w8jkc.com

How to Protect your Computer for Free

Saturday, April 11th, 2009
by W8JKC

I always hear the same question from my friends and family, \”How do I protect my computer from viruses and spyware…?\” or it\’s variant \”What is the best virus scanner or spyware program…?\”

While I can\’t tell you exactly which is the best software to suit your needs, I can recommend the software that I use on a daily basis with My Windows Vista /Ubuntu 8.10 (dual booted) laptop.

On the Windows side, I have installed and use 2 programs to protect from viruses and spyware. The first one which protects from all sort of attacks and malicous software is called AVG Free. This program is developed by a company called AVG Technlogies (formerly Grisoft). To download see here or skip directly to the Windows download here.
I have used AVG on all my computers for the last 3 years with no problems since I installed it. Before AVG I had used either McAfee or Norton depending on which computer I was on and after installing it, I found that the previous program failed to detect some spyware and even a couple viruses on 2 occasions.

The second program I use is a firewall to block all malicous connections to and from my computer. This program is called Comodo Internet Security and it is developed by a company called Comodo Security Solutions. While the benefits of using this program are numerous, the down side is that after you install it, most if not all of your normal everyday programs have to be \”trained\” into Comodo so that it does not block them from accessing the internet or your files. This is fairly easy to do, as it will pop up on your screen, but it may get annoying for the first 2 weeks of using Comodo. During the setup of Comodo you have 3 options to choose from. The first is install the firewall only, the second is install the AntiVirus only, and the third is to install both. I chose firewall only, but feel free to choose any of them but keep in mind that it may give you errors and conflicts with AVG. See the Comodo site here or skip directly to the Windows download here.

When in Ubuntu I also use AVG, they have a version for linux and other operating systems.

To protect my whole network, my DSL modem is directly connected to a Smoothwall Linux Firewall/Router box. This helps protect the whole network with IDS, ICMP blocking, and many other features, It even allows URL, MAC, IP, and many other blocking options for outgoing connections.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to submit them below, or you can email me justin@helin_w8jkc.com.
I would love to hear what programs you use, and why you use them.