Blog

San Juan Capistrano recently purchased several cameras to replace aging equipment used by Tri-Cities RACES. These will allow volunteers to better provide valuable surveillance of public spaces during city events, contributing to the safe enjoyment of city events by all. 

The cameras are in the final steps of being set up for use on AREDN and a thorough review will be created after set up and first-round testing is completed. 

Tri-Cities RACES greatly appreciates the strong partnership we have with San Juan Capistrano and the city staff we work with there.  

Various access points and routers had AREDN firmware installed on them last week and were delivered this week to the Dana Point EOC for deployment to strategic facilties in support of the Dana Point AREDN expansion.

Tri-Cities RACES is grateful for the growing partnership of Dana Point Emergency Management and all staff currently and yet to be involved. 

The AREDN Portable kit has a couple new additions:

A Stratum 1 NTP server. Available on the mesh at : http://km6slfntp.local.mesh/index.html

This is built on a Raspberry Pi CM4 module, and takes advantage of the PPM feature that isn't available on the regular Raspberry Pi 4. This allows it to obtain and maintain far more accurate time. Detailed build instructions are available on the mesh here: http://km6slfntp.local.mesh/instructions.html

Maintaining accurate network time is critical for couple reasons.  Computers and devices that aren't on the same or very close to the same time don't play well with each other. You may have experienced this if you booted up and old computer, connected it to your router but still couldn't reach the Internet. Computers don't 'trust' other devices that think it's a different time or date. 

Maintaining accurate time is also valuable for evidenciary and investigative purposes. Innaccurate timestamps on camera recordings can cause confusion or invalidate potential evidence, and time stamps on files moved or edited help make sure emergency workers are working with the right data when it matters most. 

The other recent addition is a Raspberry Pi running Victron's Venus OS. This allows remote control and monitoring of the battery and solar charging system.

General and Regional AREDN news:

If you have a 2 GHz node, check to see if you are using the BroadbandHamnet SSID. If so, you may have noticed a reduced number of nodes or had issues connecting. The critical regional Saddleback node's 2 GHz equipment was switched to the AREDN SSID, harmonizing it with the 3 and 5 GHz SSIDs. I recommend switching all 2 GHz equipment intended for use on the regional network to use the AREDN SSID.

Additional devices are having AREDN firmware developed for them. Firmware for these devices is currently available in the nightly build section of the arednmesh.org site (https://www.arednmesh.org/content/nightly-builds) , and I expect stable releases for new devices to be released with the next stable firmware update, which I anticipate being available within the next 2 months or so. I'm currently evaluating a Mikrotic hAP AC3  

For February's 22nd's San Clemente Public Safety meeting agenda Item 9A, the committee unanimously supported a motion asking City Council to instruct staff to support the deployment of ARDEN and other equipment Tri-Cities RACES needs to best provide communications support to the city.

9A:

Tri-Cities RACES Emergency Data Network Facility Plan

Report by Deputy Community Development Director and consideration of a recommendation to City Council to permit the installation of RACES/ARDEN antennae equipment on City properties.