Originally published by CA State ACS office, Nov 4, 1996, as EMC Bulletin 052

Query: “Are there any training standards for communications units that serve government?”

What does it take to be an expert in something?

A management workshop, based on Harvard business school techniques, divided 110 people into eleven groups of ten people each. The groups were asked to list all of the attributes that came to mind. After a period of time they were told to stop writing lists and vote on their top eight. Then all eleven groups combined their results into the following top eight attributes:

​More than one professional in the field of Search and Rescue or Emergency Response Management has been known to say that “hams can be too much of a good thing.” What they refer to is the propensity of hams to respond en-mass to a call out without regard to their own skills, physical limitations, body condition, time commitment, and mental state.

​This piece is from 1993, but it’s still true to this day! 

Let’s face it, for the fact that it is: some governments don’t really understand about Emergency Communications Units; they don’t really understand how to work with and utilize volunteers, including hams, some of whom are professional communicators.

The “us and them” mentality of the Public Safety community has been in existence forever, or so it seems.

​The use of abbreviations, 10 Codes and other terms and jargon came into being as a sort of verbal shorthand for personnel to communicate over the radios.  Departments nationwide had 9-Codes, 10-Codes, 11-Codes, Q-Codes, numerical status codes, etc.

Originally Published: June 17, 1996
We get inquiries about why volunteers are not called upon after they have some kind of agreement with a local official. Here, in the words of an unnamed emergency management agency official, is one perspective on why they are left out.