REd Cross Satellite Trucks

[iafirebuff]

With all the tornados/flooding - FEMA and the Red Cross have set up shop in the parking lot of the Police Department I work at. Anyway, the Red Cross has 2 satellite trcuks - Chevy Suburban type vehicles - pretty cool looking. I will try to take some pics if they are still there Wed (the next day I work). Just curious - anyone know what type of transmissions they do? The microwave antenna on it has a camera mounted just like the mobile TV station vans have.

 

[chapelrun]

Most FEMA trucks are KU band only

I work for FEMA and although I don't work with satellite comm. The Mobile Disaster Recovery Centers (MDRC) use KU band to get T-1 data connections.

I don't know of any FEMA trucks that use C band.

 

[iafirebuff]

Thanks for the info! I will try to get a pic of the truck

 

[Davage]

I have some pictures of those Satellite trucks on my other computer. I could post a couple if people are interested. The Red Cross had one of those trucks at the Dayton Hamvention when I went there in 2007.

 

[truckracer]

I have heard they use Ku satellite links to get phone and data service going since in a disaster area most of the landlines are not functional.

They also have these mini - cell tower trucks that can create cellphone service for people using cellphone antennas and ku band data connections.

I think AT&T is big on this too.

 

[lumpkin666]

I have a picture of one that is just down the street from me. I posted it in linuxman's thread. I'm not sure what they are doing since they are setup during the day just down the street, and our community has more bandwidth/etc than most large cities due to our fiberoptic telecommunications company. I assume they are doing some broadcasting or something, but not sure.

FEMA also canvased the town and put up fliers everywhere advising people where to seek assistance.

 

[iafirebuff]

I have not seen the trucks in the last 2 days. They looked just like what a tv station has - complete with tv camera and a micorwave set up in addition to the ku dish.

 

[Machman]

Here's one of those mobile cell sites that I saw in Kansas. Unfortunately they never deployed the Ku dish, probably since local phone service was still available (they were just doing a training exercise).