HPWREN Team Participates in Ramona Air Show

During the June 24-25 annual Ramona Air Show, HPWREN participated via a public display at the Ramona Air Attack Base of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The HPWREN display was housed in the airplane maintenance area, and was frequented by a number of visitors.

The display was coordinated with CDF staff in support of the HPWREN team's collaborations with the public safety community. The display featured explanations regarding sensors and camera data, as well as a Cedar Fire animation narrated by Ron Serabia. HPWREN co-PI Frank Vernon and his staff at SIO created many DVD copies of the Cedar Fire animations, while Kim Bruch had led efforts for a first responder collaboration timeline handout; both the DVDs and the handout were well received at the airshow. Additionally, the HPWREN display included two posters, specifically a 3'x8' banner and a more general HPWREN program poster, which provided an overview for airshow participants.

A significant number of visitors was very interested in the HPWREN exhibit information and collaborations, which also included a ROADNet display related to seismic research and other sensor data. ROADNet contributed greatly to the exhibit, and featured a local strong-motion earthquake sensor, which had been installed, maintained, and demonstrated by Todd Hansen. This sensor allowed for visitors, both children and adults, to jump on the concrete to see the resulting waveforms on a real-time data display.

The HPWREN team also deployed an ad-hoc link, featuring a loaned set of 4.9 GHz Trango-Atlas radios, with good results of more than 30 Mbps throughput to another location a few miles away. The 4.9GHz Public Safety spectrum makes interference potential much more manageable.

Despite the heat and humidity, this year's airshow drew nearly 10,000 people. For those who missed the event, a brief description is at http://www.ramonaairshow.com/.

This Ramona Airshow photo, taken across the top of a CDF fire-retardant tanker during the Air Show, shows the HPWREN exhibit setup in the CDF maintainance shop area above the airplane elevator on the right.

CDF once again displayed the awesome performance and capabilities of its firefighting aircraft during coordinated drop runs for a special show. Many more photos, including a 160MB CDF airdrop movie, 1024x768, 15fps air drop movie, are available at /Photos/20060623-25/.

Overall, it was a good airshow, with tolerable heat due to subtropical showers and lightning as captured by HPWREN cameras.

Ron Serabia, HPWREN First Responder Coordinator

Please note: Product names used in this article are only meant to as examples, and are not intended as an endorsements of product suitability for any applications.

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