Thoughts on the Neighborhood Watch Radio Program
Remember the flashing red light program? It cost many of you around $40 or more depending on the cost of parts... labor was free. It was a good idea for its time. If you don’t know you were to be able to turn on your light from inside your home and the post light globe would flash on and off in red. Over time it proved to be maintenance intensive for a variety of reasons but mostly because people never understood how not to deprogram it. There were tons of calls to reprogram the light. some from the same residents over and over as they would forget and make the same mistake again and again.
There were several cases where the light flashed for hours before anyone noticed and sometimes not at all. There were accidental turning lights on and then deprogramming the switch and not being able to turn them off. However, they have always been a good aid for the ambulance crew to find your home and have worked well for that purpose.
Soon thereafter, we came up with the idea of putting addresses on light globes to make it easier for emergency responders to find your address at night and that program has been a huge success. Many golden moments of life have been saved because of that project.
Now we are entering a new program designed for the safety of our residents. FRS Radios for the entire community is the goal. Some day we hope to have 24 hour monitoring of the network. Right now it is about 12 to 18 hours. A few dedicated people have taken the initiative and cultivated the habit of listening as much as they can. Many are CERT team members. You have to admire such dedication ... I do.
You turn that radio on and ask for help or what is going on in the neighborhood or to report a suspicious activity and you will most likely get an instant response. You see your water is off? Just give a call and ask about it. Afraid during a black out or storm? Turn on the radio we are all there with you. Listen all the time and be informed about what is going on. Call a friend and ask them to meet you on another frequency so you can talk. A lot of the CERT team members monitor all of Lincoln County emergency agencies by scanner and will pass on relevant information. Larry Henson announces park problems over the radio and our listeners pass it on to folks that ask what’s going on? Licenses of strange vehicles can be reported or be jotted down. Park speeder license plates could be reported... All manner of uses for this system are cropping up all the time. Have you ever heard of a system like this? I think not. As far as can be told we are the first.. Being first is not always without having its problems....
The two problems with the FRS radios at this time are:
· Cross talk from passersby on 101 many of whom are children using the radio as a toy. This can be irritating to adults but even more so for Seniors.
· Not enough of radios.
The first problem is dealt with technically, fairly easily. The newer and more expensive radios have an additional 32 frequencies assigned between each channel. So, between Ch6 and CH7, there are 32 extra frequencies. Written as channel 6 privacy code 16 for instance. Most travelers and children use just the main channels. And do not go off into the privacy codes. There are 22 X 32=704 combinations! The chances of them bothering us becomes quite low if we use CH6 Privacy code 16. That is where we want to go with this program.
Now, here comes the heat and I am the person resposible. At the beginning of this program we did not foresee the above problem. I told you to buy the cheapest radios you could find and told others that they could use their “years older” radios. We cannot do that if we want to go to the relative serenity of CH6 Privacy code 16 where it will be 99% LVH that uses that frequency. Further, I recommend you have a unit that uses rechargeable batteries so you have them good to go in an emergency. This will cost around $25 to $45 depending on what model you get.
I’m sorry I advised some of you wrong. Some folks have told others that would be @%$#** damned if they would buy another radio. Please, rethink that won’t you? This program is going to save your bacon in a crisis or in just day to day living. We also have a limited amount of radios that were donated to us. We can loan you one if you can’t afford to buy one or until you can afford to buy one.
In closing let me tell you how the coming transition to CH 6.16 is going to happen.
- First we will monitor it for at least a week to see that it lives up to expectations.
- Then we will pick a change over date and announce it, making CERT members available to help change radio frequencies for those that need help.
- Then for a month or so I will monitor CH6 and CH6.16 to help any stragglers.
- For a few months after the change we will monitor CH6 and CH6.16 during an emergency.. After that CH6.16 will be the only one monitored.
