This material was presented to a semi-annual meeting of the communications leaders from ACS, ARES, CDF VIP, MARS, RACES, REACT, Red Cross, and other emergency response officials. They represented a population of 2,522,368 and an area of 13,860 sqare miles, being 11 counties, each of which may exceed the size and population of one or more states
The author is Bill Pennington, California State OES Inland Region Chief ACS Officer; ARES DEC; El Dorado County ARC; CDF VIP Operator, USAF MARS EC California, all volunteer positions. Bill is employed as a Warning Notification Controller for State OES.
As the Inland Region Chief ACS Officer, the area of Bill's volunteer work includes 35 counties totalling 72,080 Sq. miles with a population of 5,088,944 (last census). While in the private sector he installed many of the systems he writes about in this article.
As the Inland Region Chief ACS Officer, the area of Bill's volunteer work includes 35 counties totalling 72,080 Sq. miles with a population of 5,088,944 (last census). While in the private sector he installed many of the systems he writes about in this article.
AMATEUR RADIO? WHERE? WHY? HOW?
Query: "Where, why and how can we use our radios more?" Reply: Look at the communications systems your jurisdiction or agency uses and find weaknesses in them. Then, find a way to eliminate or minimize the effects of those weaknesses, using the Amateur radio operators and their equipment."
[Caution: these weaknesses usually only appear during an emergency or incident. Unless specifically designed to identify communications weaknesses, an exercise will most likely miss it.]
[Caution: these weaknesses usually only appear during an emergency or incident. Unless specifically designed to identify communications weaknesses, an exercise will most likely miss it.]
Background factors to consider:
- Most Public SAFETY agencies have several communication means that they rely on during both local and regional emergencies in their Emergency Operations Centers (EOC's). Public SERVICE agencies, such as the Red Cross, will have only one or two in comparison.
- Telephones for both voice and data (fax) are most prevalent. Usually there are several lines on the basic telephone system as well as direct lines for voice only between permanent county EOCs within a state or region.There are the phones which rely on microwave radio systems either through standard vault and tower systems (voice and data) or satellite systems (voice only as doppler shift almost eliminates data).
- Phone systems have the usual problems we have experienced or heard about:
- Massive overloading by people making welfare calls in the area of the incident is a major problem.
- Phone lines seem to catch the worst in the immediate area of a large scale incident.
- Both wire or fiber optic lines break, burn or get shorted by fire, flood or earthquake.
- Microwave system antennas seem to get knocked out of alignment by quakes and very dense smoke can cause distortion or attenuate the signal as to make the system unusable. Intense rainfall will cause "rain fade" and there goes the microwave signal again. Since the satellite systems use microwave they are susceptible to the same problems as standard microwave systems.
- Massive overloading by people making welfare calls in the area of the incident is a major problem.
Continues next week
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