Founder's Corner – Our Goals

How did I get here?

I'm the shyest of amateur radio operators. In the '90s I picked up my technician ticket shortly after it went "no code." There were earlier attempts pick up Morse code, but I didn't have the ear for it-- which is odd, since I have a pretty good ear for other digital communications. After getting my license I didn't do much with it, as my only real interest was in packet and satellites. It's more interesting to me to get things to talk to each other.

After moving to Columbus in 2001, I became involved with the local Red Cross chapter. The day-job was on-call, so volunteering for the Disaster Action Team for shifts seemed to fit right into my schedule. I got involved at a national level later that year for Hurricane Lili and had a very educational experience. Eventually I moved from DAT over to the Communications Team and worked a number of local mid-scale disasters and numerous drills as a participant and later as a supervisor.

Michael and I worked at the same company for a while. He had been deployed to help the firm cope with Hurricane Katrina so we had some common experiences. I took an interest in some of his deployment kits that he was designing and thought his skills could find a home helping out with the Red Cross' communications team. Eventually we found the perfect opportunity to work together on their Mobile Communications Center. I hope we'll be able to capture some of the lessons we learned on that project and pass them on to the community. They were some really good times and I grew a lot from them.

What I expect from DisasterCommOhio.org?
As the Internet first began to be commercialized and take off, it was perceived as a threat to the amateur radio hobby. Arguably there was a lot of competition in the late 80's and early 90's for interest and talent. With technologies like echolink, IRLP, winlink, and APRS there's plenty of synergy to be found.

The DIY/Maker movement and easy-to-use microcontrollers like the Arduino project is lowering the barrier for hands-on experimentation, tinkering and hacking electronics. It's not much of a stretch to find a link between these activities and experimenting standard radio technologies and the exciting field of Software Defined Radio.

Social Media began to seriously take off in 2006 when Facebook opened up to adults and Twitter came online. The 2010 earthquake in Haiti highlighted social media's disaster response possibilities, and the 2011 Arab Spring demonstrated it's power to effect social change.

The main thing that I want to accomplish with DisasterCommOhio.org is to get amateur radio enthusiasts working with the hardware- and software-hackers as well as the social media gurus in the area. If we can enable a few partnerships like the one I have with Michael we can accomplish a lot more than just a few fancy radio trucks. Fancy radio trucks are pretty neat though.

---Kevin Liston, N8WDU, Co-Founder of DisasterCommOhio.org