How ACS personnel are informed of the status of the units the Field Teams actively support is an interesting process.

The Telecommunications Section of the Operations Support Branch at State OES has an action-response position to handle requests for OES communications resources or assistance, whether from Federal, State or local government, via the mutual aid system.

That position is the Telecommunications Duty Officer (TDO). One of the duties is a daily report of the active status of certain assets. The following is an example. Comm 60 is the mobile Hub.

Bulletin 384 described the communications vans supported by the ACS Field Teams.

Bulletin 385 described four mobile earth stations, a mobile earth station hub and VHF and UHF radio caches for law enforcement and fire response mutual aid.

This bulletin describes additional State OES rolling assets.

Bulletin 384 described some emergency support resources that the ACS program personnel deploy and support under designated circumstances with the supervision of the Telecommunications Coordinators.

Bulletin 383 covered some personnel and historical aspects.

Bulletin 382 briefly touched on the State OES earth-station program (OASIS or Operational Area Satellite Information System) and its 4 trailer-mounted earth stations.

Bulletins 382 and 383 described some of the background and history of the State OES ACS Field Teams. Now for some detail on the communications resources they help deploy and support.

Three OES Mobile Communications Units are ICS Type 1 Units, and are configured to support all types of Emergency Management communications operations. These 2-wheel drive units are built on 1-ton van chassis, and are equipped with a 25'-30' pneumatic mast to support antennas.

For the licensed FCC Amateur Radio Operators that make up most EMCOMM Units, the idea of supplying telephone service may seen 'off key' or contrary to what they want to do. Yet, as a matter of fact, units like the State OES ACS field teams are made up predominantly of FCC Amateur License holders - probably 90-95%. And this is typical of RACES units which serve governments that also have field transportable units.

Perhaps one has to experience the results of providing effective communications, albeit telephone over the satellite link or microwave, before one really grasps the significance of, and reward, of doing just that.

State OES, California, has developed Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) Field Teams to assist in the deployment of OES assets. These include it¹s trailer-mounted transportable earth stations and Mobile Communications Units (Comm Vans).

The genesis for the field teams occurred in the early l990's when a volunteer obtained and donated a used TV crew truck to State OES. He and several other volunteers prepared it for microwave and telephone. One memorable use of that Comm Van was the Oakland Fire Storm which burned out the phone lines. The field team put the Comm Van on the hills, made a line-of-sight microwave link to the Oakland-Bay Bridge Toll Plaza. There the received microwave signal was connected to the telephone system. That provided access to telephone lines at the Command Post for the Incident Commander.