My Radio Journal
Where I tell the stories behind the signals.
It’s a mix of amateur radio adventures, lessons learned, equipment discoveries, emergency communications, DMR and APRS, Coast Guard memories, and the occasional strange or funny moment that comes with a lifetime around radios. Some entries are practical, some are personal, and some are simply stories worth telling—but they all come back to the same idea: radio is ultimately about people, communication, and the connections we make along the way.
Me and EmComm: Knowing Where I Fit
My Coast Guard and CERT experience taught me to ask who I will work for and where I fit. Here is how I bring that mindset to EmComm through training, teamwork, a realistic budget, and a clear activation plan.
The Phone Patch That Saved a Life
A Coast Guard helicopter was on scene, but the crew could not find the man in the water among the many boats and other objects in the bay. Then I remembered an old idea from ham radio that connected the eyewitness directly to the aircrew.
THE 0400 MAYDAY CALL — A Coast Guard Memory
A quiet 0400 watch at Coast Guard Group San Francisco suddenly erupts with a clear Mayday call—and turns into my favorite almost-case.
Where’s Waldo? Building an Incident Command System in Coney Island
In July 2017, I created and led the Coney Island SAREX, a large-scale CERT exercise built around a simulated search for a missing vulnerable senior. With nearly one hundred participants, multiple radio nets, a formal Incident Command structure, medical support, and my stepfather playing “Waldo,” the exercise turned FEMA classroom concepts into practical experience. It was hot, complicated, occasionally funny, and a powerful lesson in why ICS has to be practiced—not merely studied.
The Night New York Went Dark
During the 1977 New York City blackout, a 13-year-old in Brooklyn helped relay radio traffic for REACT and the NYPD—an early glimpse of the role emergency communications would play throughout his life.
These journal entries are written with assistance from ChatGPT.
The thoughts, experiences, and final editorial choices are my own.