ALERT NEWSLETTER – October 2013

Hi everybody and welcome to the October ALERT Newsletter. At our next meeting, October 8, we will be voting on a proposed amendment to the ALERT Constitution and Bylaws. The amendment is a follows: Amendment 3 ARTICLE IV Section 6. Upon written request by an applicant or member and after confidential review by the ALERT Board of Directors, yearly dues may be waived or reduced in cases of special need or consideration. If you are a current Operational or Support Member of ALERT I urge you to attend and let your voice be heard! Hope to see you there! …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 19 Uses For A Deactivated Cell Phone Have your replaced your old cellphone with a new, more advanced one? Ever wonder what to do with the old worthless one? Well here’s an idea for you – keep it charged and ready as an emergency backup. As much as we enjoy them, smartphones, for all their good features, are powered by batteries which seem to have the same capacity of a rotted out bucket. So, during emergencies, unless you have a reasonable assumption that the event is going to be short-lived, or if you have a method to charge the battery, such as a car charger or an inverter, you should ration the use of your phone. First, is should be said that immediately following a disaster DO NOT USE THE PHONEunless it is absolutely necessary. Please help keep the lines free for emergency response use. Secondly, when you do use the phone, try not to make endless calls tying up the phone circuits and draining the battery. Make any necessary emergency calls, such as to EMS, utilities, work, if you are prevented from reporting for your shift, and ONE family contact person. With the family contact person you can say “I will call again at 6 PM and let you know how things are going.” Then power the phone down. After powering down the new phone, dig out the older phone and use this phone for other purposes. What can an older phone do? Basically, with the exception of standard communications and internet dependent functions, every app and feature that you used to use and enjoy are still active and waiting for use. This allows you the option of letting the old phone taking the brunt of non-communications activities, and conserving the new phones battery. With that introduction, here are 19 uses for a deactivated cellphone: 1. Call 911. In the US the FCC requires that every telephone that can access the network be able to dial 911, regardless of any reason that normal service may have been disconnected, including non-payment. The rules require carriers to connect 911 calls from any mobile phone, regardless of whether that phone is currently active or not. The deactivated cell phone will still complete a 911 call, but the 911 operator will see a specialized number indicating the cell phone has been deactivated. It is usually represented with an area code of (911)-xxx-xxxx. Be aware though, that If your call is disconnected, the 911 operator will not be able to call you back. One interesting thing I noticed while researching this article is that since the deactivated phone is not “chained” to any one carrier; it will pick the strongest signal. As I type this I look at my new phone and it has one bar with ATT while the old phone has five bars from some provider, who knows where. So, if you are in trouble and have no signal with your new phone, pull out the old one and give it a try. Old “hunk of junk” may just save your day. I should mention that 911 operators are being plagued by calls from children whose parents give them their old phones for toys and don’t remove the batteries. If you give your phone to the kids as a toy, please remove the battery! 2. FM Radio My old phone has an FM radio built in. This keeps you in touch with the latest developments. 3. Flashlight Some cell phones come with a built in flashlight, and if not, we’ve all; one time or another used the display as a low light flashlight. 4. Clock When the waiting turns the minutes into hours, knowing the time is a great ability to have. 5. Alarm Clock You still have an alarm to wake you up. Some cell phone alarm clocks come with a snooze option. 6. Calendar When the waiting seems to turn the hours into days, you can see what day it is. 7. Date Reminders Usually if a cell phone offers a calendar they will also offer the ability to set a reminder alarm also. 8. Stopwatch Stopwatches are handier than you may think and are a lot easier to use then staring at the seconds on a digital clock or at the hands of a watch. 9. Timer Perfect for reminding you to take something off of the stove or to make that 6 PM call you promised. 10. Calculator Most cell phones don’t offer scientific calculators, but even being able to add, subtract, multiply and divide can be helpful. 11. Phone Book / Email Address Book How many telephone numbers do you really remember? You may not remember many, but, the old phone still remembers them all. 12. Text Notes You can still make notes on your deactivated cell phone, and even if it doesn’t give you the option of taking notes you can save the note as a text message and come back to it. 13. Sound Recorder You can use this for voice notes, memos or even as an audio log of the event you are experiencing. 14. Camera You can make both still pictures and videos. The insurance man might like this. 15. Games and Apps Any game or app that doesn’t require internet access is still usable. This helps calm nerves and fight boredom as you wait for your world to light up again. 16. Walkman Your music collection is still there waiting for you, and can help relieve the heebie jeebies, especially if the wind is causing strange bumps and other diabolical sounds. 17. Toy Admit it, you like playing with ringtones. 18. Fire starter Short out the battery terminals with a thin strand of triple or quad ought steel wool and you can start a “comfort fire” if needed. It helps keep the Wolf Man away on a cold. dark, miserable night. 19. Projectile In case the fire didn’t keep the Wolf Man away, you can “chunk it and run”. There is an old saying that ‘If it can go wrong it will go wrong and usually at the worst possible time’. So why not have a charged spare cell phone that can be used during emergencies? It makes sense to me.   Mark’s Almanac The tenth Month, October is so named because it is the eighth month on the Roman calendar. To the Slavs of Eastern Europe it is called “yellow month,” from the fading of the leaf, while to the Anglo-Saxons it was known as Winterfylleth, because at this full moon (fylleth) winter was supposed to begin. By whichever name you call it, October is a mild and dry month, the driest of the year, in fact. And, it is a sunny month with the amount of possible sunshine reaching the ground in the 60% or greater range. Weather shifts from autumn pattern to revisiting the summer pattern and back again. The Azores-Bermuda High shifts Eastward into the Atlantic, but, leaves weaken high pressure centers over the Virginias, which still try to block out approaching fronts. October is usually a quite month for tornadoes, with a 40% decrease in activity. Nationwide an average of 28 tornadoes occur in October and those tornadoes are usually weak. Our Hurricane threat continues, with hurricane activity increasing during the first half of the month, concentrating in the Caribbean, both from formation in the Caribbean and from the long track Cape Verde hurricanes, which enter the Caribbean. And, we still have the little “gifts” that the Gulf of Mexico occasionally will provide. But after the second half of the month the activity will begin a steady decrease. 28% of the year’s hurricanes occur in October. This is the month for Alabama’s version of “Indian Summer’s” arrival. Technically speaking Indian Summer doesn’t occur until “Squaw Winter” or the first frost arrives, but exact date when Indian Summer arrives varies with latitude. We live in Alabama, and while the earliest frosts have been know to occur by October 17, they usually wait until November. So, we, in our milder climate call the first warm up after the first cool down “Indian Summer”. The Yellow Giant Sulphur Butterflies are very noticeable as they continue to drift South-Southeast on their migration towards Florida. They prefer red things & if you have red flowers they will zero in on them. The Monarchs also will be seen gliding by in their migration towards Central America. Fall colors will become prominent & by late October & early November the leaves will be reaching their peak fall colors. Looking skyward, Mercury is in the glow of sunset, and using binoculars He may be seen 30 minutes after sunset, just below Saturn. Venus shines low in the west-southwest in the evening twilight, with Saturn to her right. Mars and Comet ISON rise together in the east around 3 am. Comet ISON will pass 6.7 million miles from the Mars on October 1st, and may become the first comet observed from the surface of another world if NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity can catch sight of it from the surface of the Red Planet. Viewed from Earth, at closest approach on October 1st, Mars and Comet ISON will be approximately 2 degrees apart. While Mars is visible to the unaided eye (it shines almost as brightly as a first-magnitude star), ISON is definitely not. The comet is still far from the sun and, as it crosses the orbit of Mars, it has not yet warmed enough to reach naked-eye visibility. Reports of the comet’s brightness vary from 12th to 14th magnitude, which means a mid-sized backyard telescope is required to see it. Hopes that Comet ISON would be a “Great Comet” or a prominent feature in the fall night skies are dwindling, as its brightness has so far been well below the estimates scientists had given. It’s on track to swing very close around the Sun, missing it by less than one solar diameter on November 28, 2013, and assuming it doesn’t break up during its encounter with the sun, it will emerge into dawn view, possibly with a long tail, in early December. Hopefully it will reach naked eye visibility. Jupiter rises around midnight and blazes high in the east-southeast by early dawn. Saturn glows in the southwest as twilight fades. Uranus and Neptune are well up toward the southeast by 10 p.m. The Draconid meteor shower peaks around the evening of October 7. This shower’s intensity is unpredictable. Usually it is a poor producer. However in 1933 and 1946 it produced major displays with thousands of meteors per hour. So it’s worth taking a peak. Just in case. October’s Full Moon is “Hunters Moon” in Native American folklore. Full moon will occur October 18, at 6:28 am CDT. ………………………………………………………………………………………. This month’s meeting will be on October 8 at 7PM at the National Weather Service Forecast office at the Shelby County Airport. Now if for some reason you cannot attend the meeting in person, you can still participate via telephone. The teleconference number is 1-877-951-0997 & and the participant code is 741083. I hope to see you there. Until then, 73 and take care. Mark WD4NYL Editor ALERT www.freewebs.com/weatherlynx