Amateur radio operators provide eclipse communications backup
Ham radio operators Charles Morris (left), Tom Hauer, and Greg Fagot set up antennas on the Highland Lakes Amateur Radio Emergency Services command center on April 4. The command center will serve as emergency communications backup from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. April 8, the day of the total solar eclipse. Staff photo by Suzanne Freeman
Burnet, Llano, and Blanco counties have backup plans if normal communications fail during the total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8. Highland Lakes Amateur Radio Emergency Services members have already set up command posts at the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office, Marble Falls Fire Department, Baylor Scott & White Hospital in Marble Falls, Seton Ascension Highland Lakes hospital in Burnet, Llano County Office of Emergency Management in Llano, Llano County police dispatch in Llano, and MidCoast Central Medical Center in Llano.
The Texas Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service is set up in Blanco County.
“If the 911 dispatch system gets overloaded and cellphone systems get overloaded and people can’t call in, we will be able to keep communications going,” said Tom Hauer, KOYA, Amateur Radio Emergency Services coordinator for the South Texas region, District 8. “We are asking all our radio guys to be visible and let people know they are there. Some of them are setting up outside in their neighborhoods.”
Hauer’s wife, Toni, will be visible and connected at their home on RR 1431 in Smithwick.
All radio operators will have the ability to contact dispatch in Burnet, Llano, and Blanco counties during emergencies. The amateur radio service will be active on the following frequencies:
- VHF Voice and Data
- Command Net on 147.020 mHz Repeater (100 Hz)
- Monitor Backup Repeater 145.390 mHz (103.5 Hz)
- Monitor 146.520 Simplex
- Data 145.030 mHz
- Data 145.070 mHz
- Tactical Simplex assigned as required
- UHF Voice and Data
- State Operations Center 444.500 Repeater (110.9)
- Monitor 446.000 Simplex
- Data 441.075 mHz
- Tactical Simplex assigned as required
- HF Voice and Data
- State Operations – 7.255 mHz
- Data – 3.5945 mHz or 7.1001 mHz
“Anyone with an amateur license who has an issue can send us a message on those frequencies,” Hauer said. “The Highland Lakes-wide area repeater — 147.020 — that is the most important frequency.”