QRZ! Ham Radio 5/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 5.iso/files/races/1990.001

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SUBJECT:   DESIRABLE TRAITS IN A VOLUNTEER
                              1 9 9 0

           S T A T E   R A C E S   B U L L E T I N S

TO:    ALL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCIES/OFFICES IN CALIFORNIA VIA THE ARS
INFO:  ALL RACES OPERATORS IN CA  (ALLCA:  OFFICIAL)
       ALL AMATEURS               (ALLUS:  INFORMATION)
FROM:  GOVERNOR'S OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES, SACRAMENTO  (W6HIR @ WA6NWE)


RACESBUL.098                                 DATE: Jan.  1, 1990
SUBJECT:   DESIRABLE TRAITS IN A VOLUNTEER
     "What are the desirable traits for a Level 1 volunteer?"
     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:
1. Reliability.
2. Participation.
3. Being a team player.
4. Dedication and commitment.
5. Ability to cooperate.
6. Acceptance of responsibility.
7. Support; speaks well of his/her organization before others.
8. A success in his/her vocation.

Those are the top eight that beat out all others. What others
might you add? This can be a good discussion at any
organizational meeting.                 ---KH6GBX

RACESBUL.099                                 DATE: Jan. 8,  1990
SUBJECT: DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 1
     This is the first of a series of suggestions, observations,
findings, and criticisms by Amateur Radio operators. This opening
statement applies to each and every subsequent part in this
series and will not be repeated in the interest of brevity.
     Amateur Radio operators and served organizations met after
the October 17, 1989 magnitude 7.1 earthquake in northern
California to identify, discuss and document the good and not so
good on both sides. From the thousands of words provided us in
numerous after-action reports, I have boiled down the following
as the most frequent findings. I'm sure there are many reports
that were never provided us so we can only quote from those that
were.
     We are indebted to those hams and agencies that shared their
findings with us. As is our practice, we have sanitized the
reports to eliminate individual names and callsigns. Most of
these findings can or should be helpful to any volunteer or paid
individual and organizations in their future training operations
and exercises. Most of the findings apply to sound practices and
procedures anywhere -- not just to an earthquake in California.
It is in this spirit that we share these with you. In an attempt
to categorize the findings I have broken them down into the
following broad categories: Management, Operations, General,
Packet, Plans/Preparedness, and Training.


                           MANAGEMENT
1. "Sometimes ARES people forgot to look at the big picture.
Decisions were then being made by people too close to the
situation or  people too weary to comprehend the scope of the
event."  Solution: "Identify before a disaster a list of people
able to serve as supervisors or managers."
[To be continued in RACES Bulletin #100. -KH6GBX]

RACESBUL.100                                 DATE: Jan. 15, 1990
SUBJECT: DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 2
MANAGEMENT (continued):
     2. "Managers sometimes made decisions without consultation
with those in the field."  Solution: "Those overseeing the
operation must also consult with, or be in touch with, those on
the line."
     3. "The Resource Net sometimes filled in vacant slots with
the first ham that came along."  Solutions:  "(a) Every ham
should be told to bring every piece of gear and every kind of
clothing and to make sure that they are in excellent health.  (b)
Hams should be told to bring whatever is known to be required and
to meet in a staging area."
     4. "People would come from long distances and then discover
overstaffing. They would then feel unwelcome and return home."
     5. "Every city ARES EC should have liaison with the local
hospitals."
     6. "Better coordination of housing for hams coming from out
of area is needed."
     7. "The employer having dibs on the body makes active
participation hard." (See General comment number 2).
     8. "Better resource management needed -- database would have
been useful."
     9. "Personality conflicts arose during the course of the
operation."  Solution:  "People don't have to like each other in
order to work with each other. When possible, parties with
disagreements should wait until after the incident to resolve
them. If the disagreements are interfering with the running of
the operation and the parties involved cannot reach resolution on
their own, then they should agree to sit down with a higher level
of management with a specific list of problem behaviors and their
suggested resolution. The mediator/manager must help them devise
a solution with the good of the group or the operation in mind."
[To be continued in State RACES Bulletin #101.  -KH6GBX]

RACESBUL.101                                 DATE: Jan. 22, 1990
SUBJECT: DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 3
                           OPERATIONS
     1. "There were complaints that some portions of the ham
community did not understand the magnitude of the problem and so
provided little support."  Solution:  "A status or situation
report (SITREP) must be broadcast periodically."
     2. "Two hams may be needed at each station -- one to serve
as a runner and one to serve as the ham."
     3. "Use tactical calls. ID with a ham call only when needed
to fulfill FCC requirements."
     4. "Staying overnight makes it nice to have two people."
     5. "There is a greater need for ham radio discipline; hams
need to follow/listen the Net Control Station (NCS)."
     6. "There are shift change problems if you do not provide
enough time for shifts to do a turn over or for a supervisor to
give information out to each new operator. Relief should be
present at least 30 minutes before the shift ends in order to do
the turnover properly."
     7. "H&W (Health & Welfare) is important but we need a
structured way to address it. Maybe we need to split our [ARES]
personnel into H&W and ARES? H&W and tactical communications are
two very different missions!"
     8. "Remember to be courteous on the air -- even during a
disaster."
     9. "Many messages lacked clear 'TO' and 'FROM' addresses.
Remember that radio callsigns are not acceptable addresses."
     10. "There was confusion over tactical callsigns and the
overuse of callsigns between any two stations in communication
with one another. Use the ham callsign only once: at the end of
any two-way exchange or once every ten minutes -- whichever is
less."
     11. "We are communicators -- we shouldn't be making
decisions."
(To be continued in State RACES Bulletin #102.   -KH6GBX)

RACESBUL.102                                 DATE: Jan. 29, 1990
SUBJECT: DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 4
OPERATIONS (continued):
     12. "Brief relief operators!"
     13. "We need to (a) work 8 hours and be off 8 hours; or (b)
consider 8 hour shifts instead of 6 hour shifts."
     14. "Backup power is needed for strategic repeaters."
     15. "Lack of equipment in Red Cross communications
center(s)."
     16. "Always send 2 people on any assignment."

                          PACKET RADIO
     1. "Packet is useful for logistical traffic in a long
operation."
     2. "Surprised not to see packet used but maybe it wasn't
planed out?"
     3. "Packet grossly underutilized."
     4. One county suggests packet may not have worked because
"Many of the packeteers are also the best voice operators."
     5. One person suggested packet also not desired because
people have a need to "talk" in a disaster -- "not to type in a
disaster".
     6. "Cities need more information about our [ARES] skills;
statistical information desired by many cities would have been
great to go via packet on a preset form."
     7. Felt packet not used enough "Because lack of packet
portability; contact companies now to purchase equipment."
     8. "Strategically placed packet for resource availability
and equipment requirements would have been very helpful."
     9. "Packet radio was needed."
     10. "Places that needed packet may have been without
electricity."
     11. "It is hard to decipher manuals for packet during a
disaster. Have drills involving packet with other peoples'
systems."
     12. "If cities and counties establish a RACES unit they can
buy and have radios and packet terminals in place ready to be
operated by any qualified ham operator."
(To be continued in State RACES Bulletin 103.   -KH6GBX)

RACESBUL.103                                 DATE: Feb.  5, 1990
SUBJECT: DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 5
                             GENERAL
     1. "Conflict between employment and volunteering; have EOC
and Red Cross write letters to employers and maybe send a press
release to the job."  (Also see Management #7.)
     2. "At County Communications is a small room for us with a
lack of antenna drops and it has to be bigger. Technical
improvements are needed."
     3. "Have procedure manuals at County Communications."
     4. "Label the ends of all coaxial cables [at any facility]."
     5. "Headsets are needed on all base stations at any
facility."
     6. "There was a clear need to handle the ARES resources
management better in the 'X' area, but the job did get done. The
problem again is not the quantity of hams that are licensed but
the quality. Only a small handful was willing to come and provide
emergency communications when the chips were down. We must
continuously address the issue of values and quality of Amateur
Radio and not over simplify any exclusive quantity of
technological advances."
     7. "Use this event as an incentive to work out the kinks."

                            TRAINING

     1. "How do you train those who won't participate and be
trained ahead of time?"
     2. "How do you train the untrained?"
     3. "We need to discipline ourselves better in following a
directed net. Give practice in passing traffic."
     4. The need for traffic handling reiterated.
(To be continued in State RACES Bulletin #104.   -KH6GBX)

RACESBUL.104                                 DATE: Feb. 12, 1990
SUBJECT: DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 6
                      PLANS / PREPAREDNESS
     1. "Radio clubs of companies (firms) should be involved with
the ARES EC of the city in which the company club is located."
     2. "We need to preassign hams to support the Emergency
Broadcast System."
     3. "Need to establish Memorandums of Understandings with
different repeaters/groups before a disaster."
     4. "Include an AM/FM radio in your list of necessary field
response equipment."
     5. "Pretest equipment.  Use simple radios."
     6. "Now is the time to check over radios and power cables."
     7. "Separate power supplies are needed for radios."
     8. "Some volunteers are not properly signed up Disaster
Service Workers and this is jeopardizing the volunteer and
his/her dependents."
-KH6GBX

RACESBUL.105                                 DATE: Feb 19 , 1990
SUBJECT: ATV - Part 1/4
     A proper demonstration of airborne Amateur Radio Television
(ATV) requires several factors coming together precisely at the
chosen time and place.  They are:
1. Good weather for flying and steady camera transmissions.
2. Good visibility and adequate light.
3. Competent camera operator. (No aimless panning.)
4. Camera operator capable of describing what he is shooting.
5. Being on target at precisely the right time for those watching
the demonstration.
     Murphy's Law says that if something can go wrong, it will.
There are marvelous opportunities in "live" ATV demonstrations
for Murphy to step in and show his stuff. Here are a few examples
I have seen:
1. Rain, snow, windstorm or other hostile weather problem.
2. ATV crew can't find targets of interest to those watching the
demo.
3. The receiving antenna is set up on the wrong side of the
building to "see" the ATV aircraft.
4. Some of the government officials and hams scheduled to see the
demo don't show up.
5. Some key viewer shows up minutes too late to see the demo.
6. The ATV crew, either in the aircraft or at the receiver site,
discovers they forgot a crucial connector, cable, or piece of
equipment.
7. The camera operator is untrained in how to shoot and pans
dizzily, leaving viewers unimpressed and woozy.
8. Battery goes dead.
(To be continued in RACES BULLETIN 106)

RACESBUL.106                                 DATE: Feb. 26, 1990
SUBJECT: ATV - Part 2/4
     These problems may be overcome by a few simple steps:
1. Prerecord aerial ATV demos. Pick your clear weather day and
record a "perfect" 5 minutes long video. Anything longer may bore
the viewers.
     (a) The video should always be shot in the area of interest
to those for whom the demo is being made. Select known landmarks
and points of interest. These might include the courthouse,
freeway through town, a fair or other outdoor event, lake or
reservoir activity, hospital, city hall, or any other location
that viewers can readily identify. Always ask the agency for whom
you are going to demonstrate if there are any particular points
of interest they want to see.
     (b) Look for unplanned targets of opportunity. These can
often be some of the best material to demonstrate ATV. Targets of
opportunity could be a traffic accident scene, a fire, racetrack
action, any outdoor crowd, downed aircraft (not yours!),
etcetera.
2. Proper camera technique. DO NOT PAN. We must remember that the
majority of viewers are unfamiliar with seeing things from a few
hundred feet up in the air -- and in motion. Hollywood uses a
device (Steady-Cam) to keep their aerial shots rock solid -- no
jitter, jump, bump and vibration. Since they cost more than some
airplanes we use, the basic rule that bears repeating is: DON'T
PAN. DON'T ZOOM.  That leaves two basic techniques for ATV:
(To be continued in RACES BULLETIN 107.)

RACESBUL.107                                 DATE: Mar.  5, 1990
SUBJECT: ATV - Part 3/4
     (a) Level, straight line flight. The camera picture travels
at the same ground speed of the aircraft. The camera operator can
announce where he is and in what direction he is traveling. Help
the viewer to locate where you are. If the viewer cannot identify
with what is on the  screen, ATV serves no purpose. The sooner
the viewer knows where he or she is in respect to the picture,
the better is your work. It helps when the pilot can make all
turns in one direction. If all turns are left-hand turns, all
camera shots can be out the left side and vice versa. In this
manner the picture never leaves the ground. In other words no
shots of sky, camera gyrations, shots of your feet, the back of
the pilot's head, etc. If you are only recording and not
transmitting live, shut off the camera when you don't want to
record and transmit junk. A good camera operator can literally
edit on the spot.
     (b) Orbiting the target. The aircraft does 360's over the
target or a helicopter hovers or does slow flight 360's.

When the ATV transmitter, whether airborne or on the ground, is
too far from the receiver to adequately provide a high quality
picture, either (a) don't show it or (b) videotape it in the
field and retransmit it later when you have a Circuit Merit 5
path. The ATV aircraft may be down in a canyon, for example,
taping an incident. It is out of range of the receiver for a CM5
path. After recording what it wants to transmit back to the EOC
or IC (Incident Command), the plane can climb to an altitude
sufficient to assure the reception of a CM5 playback
transmission.
(To be continued in RACES BULLETIN 108)

RACESBUL.108                                 DATE: Mar. 12, 1990
SUBJECT: ATV - Part 4/4
     Aerial ATV platforms I have seen or used have included slow
flying fixed wing aircraft owned and operated by the RACES
personnel, Highway Patrol helicopters, Civil Air Patrol aircraft,
and county fire and police helicopters. Needless to say, fixed
wing aircraft must be of the high wing variety.
     Because of Murphy's Law and daylight limitations, it is now
standard operating procedure for the State RACES ATV unit to
prerecord ATV demonstrations. In this manner the crew can pick
ideal flying and lighting conditions. Targets with which the
viewers can relate are determined in advance. When the day (or
night) of the presentation arrives, a proper video demonstration
can be made to the local government officials regardless of how
hard the wind is blowing outside, the downpour or snowstorm in
progress. The officials aren't interested in the aircraft
installation, hardware, wiring, cameras, radios and so forth.
They are interested only in results. Good results. They are used
to seeing helicopter news video. ATV results can be close in
quality with the right equipment and skilled operators. If it
isn't or it's still in the gee whiz hobby stage -- don't
demonstrate it. More harm can be done by failures. The memory of
them is long lasting.                                  -KH6GBX

RACESBUL.109                                 DATE: Mar. 19, 1990
SUBJECT: COMM WILL ALWAYS FAIL! Part 1/2
     "You can depend on it: communications ALWAYS fail in a
disaster!" So reports Joseph Scanlon, Director of Emergency
Communications Research Unit, Carleton University in the Alberta
(Canada) Public Safety Services INSIGHT publication. The
following excerpts from his article are food for thought,
education and planning:
     While working as a consultant, I was asked by an engineer
how often communications fail in a disaster. I replied, "always."
He looked at me in disbelief; so I asked a colleague, Dr. E. L.
Quarantelli. His reply? "Communications always fail in a
disaster."
     Though that's a fact--and there's lots of evidence to
support it--the hardest message about disasters to get across to
emergency managers is that, at times, now matter how well
prepared, they won't know what's going on.
     Take the tornado which hit Edmonton, July 31, 1987. There
was damage and destruction including downed power and telephone
lines. Traffic routes were impassable. There was flooding, enough
to block many north-south arteries. There were toxic chemical
incidents. Emergency radio systems--police, fire and
ambulance--were overloaded. Part of the phone system was
destroyed. No one, for a time, could possibly know what happened.
     That doesn't mean that Edmonton's plan, based on a central
EOC, didn't work. It means it took time before the EOC had the
information needed to make useful decisions.
     Any disaster--no matter how well handled--has some
communication problems, some uncertainty.
(To be continued in RACES BULLETIN 110.)

RACESBUL.110                                 DATE: Mar. 26, 1990
SUBJECT: COMM WILL ALWAYS FAIL! Part 2/2
     Effective emergency planning must assume such problems will
occur. It must accept that there will be periods of uncertainty.
And it must have systems in place to overcome the inevitable
failures of communications.
     I always liked what the mayor of one Canadian city once told
me. He said that everything had gone wrong during an exercise,
and that when things become confused during a real disaster, he
was in good shape because "confusion seemed normal."
     A word about disasters versus emergencies. Emergencies are
serious events which require coordinated response to protect the
health, safety and welfare of people, or to limit damage to
property. Disasters are not just large emergencies, but differ
substantially in nature. Disasters are disruptive and cause
organizations and systems to break down. The recognized stages of
response after a disaster are:
          - confusion (individual response)
          - decentralized response
          - coordinated response
          - cleanup
          - recovery
Disruption is a key feature of the confusion, and decentralized
responses stages after a disaster.
                            * * * * *
This concludes the article by Joseph Scanlon. He has spent 19
years studying crisis and disaster, examining the problems of
emergency planning, and emergency management.  -KH6GBX

RACESBUL.111                                DATE:  2 APRIL, 1990
SUBJECT:     WHAT SHOULD AMATEURS EXPECT?  (PART 1/2)
     This series of bulletins has, on several occasions,
addressed the subject of what government agencies can and should
expect from RACES members.  Herein are some thoughts on what the
Amateurs who volunteer their services and the use of their
personal radio gear should expect from their governmental
sponsors.
     First and foremost, RACES sponsoring agencies owe their vol-
unteers a real effort to learn about radio Amateurs,  their
capabilities and limitations.  This applies both collectively and
individually.  A realistic appraisal of RACES as an auxiliary to
the full time professional communications staff and equipment is
basic to their effective utilization.   Such an appraisal must be
accomplished before the emergency situation which causes the act-
ivation of the RACES.  Individual members of the RACES can only
be effectively utilized if the RACES coordinator evaluates the
members, just as full time paid staff is evaluated, and hopefully
placed where they will be most useful when needed.  This too must
obviously be done in advance. (To be continued in RACES BULLETIN
112)

RACESBUL.112                                 DATE: 9 APRIL, 1990
SUBJECT:    WHAT SHOULD AMATEURS EXPECT?  (PART 2/2)
     Utilization of Amateur Radio Communicators by government
agencies in disaster communications has a long history.  Disaster
service workers are well aware that communication is vital and
often unavailable due to equipment failure or simple overload of
the normal facilities.  RACES groups can offer extensive and
flexible augmentation to meet communications needs, often
supplying not only skilled personnel, but their own privately
owned communications gear.  Modern Amateur capabilities include
passage of high speed, high volume, virtually error free hard
copy between field and headquarters,  and headquarters to head-
quarters.  This in addition to real time voice communication.
Some cases RACES units are even capable of supplying airborne
video images directly to command centers.
     To summarize, Amateur Radio Communicators who volunteer for
RACES units should expect active support, as opposed to mere
passive acceptance.  The RACES is a proven communications tool,
offering governments expanded and flexible communication in
emergencies, at little or no cost.  Like any other tool it must
be understood, exercised, and cared  for.   Fortunately for
sponsoring government agencies, RACES people will take care of
most of these needs on their own, with proper guidance.   A
reasonable effort by the sponsoring agency, and appropriate rec-
ognition, can yield impressive results.
                  BILL MUSLADIN, Chief State RACES Officer,
                  W6HIR @ WA6NWE.CA.USA.NA

RACESBUL.113                                    DATE: 16 APR 1990
SUBJECT:  DO WE KNOW OUR CUSTOMERS?  DO OUR CUSTOMERS KNOW US?
     As volunteer communicators, RACES members can and often  do
make real contributions in emergency and disaster situations - if
the government agencies we work for are aware of us and our
capabilities.   If the RACES is known only by a limited  group,
most likely the agency that controls it, much of its usefulness
may well be lost.  The RACES is supposed to serve all branches of
government involved in emergency services, not just the agency to
which it is assigned.  Thus a RACES unit assigned to a fire
department may pass traffic for law enforcement,  medical,
logistical units, and others.  If any or all of these agencies
are unaware of the RACES communications abilities and facilities,
they obviously are not going to use them.  Even if an agency is
aware of the RACES, it is unlikely to utilize it if confidence in
its reliability has not been established in advance.
     Establishing awareness of and confidence in the RACES is not
necessarily an easy task.  After all, the agencies we deal with
are often highly trained professionals, unused to working with
and trusting "amateurs".  Exercising together is probably the
most effective method of creating the required level of trust.
Regular contact between all the agencies that may need the RACES
services in an emergency is vital between exercises.  Since the
RACES is very likely to be "the new boy on the block",  the
impetus for these contacts will likely come from the RACES unit
itself.
    In short, training and becoming effective as a communications
unit is only part of the job.  The rest involves a selling  job.
Radio Officers take note.
BILL MUSLADIN, Chief State Radio Officer    W6HIR @
WA6NWE.CA.USA.NA

RACESBUL.114                                 DATE: Apr. 23, 1990
SUBJECT: THE AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR IN TIME OF NEED - Part 1/4
                  by Russell E. Bankson, N6GWL
                Pacific Region, Civil Air Patrol

****************************************************************
                        ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Russ Bankson has been a licensed Amateur Radio operator for 7
years.  He has been deeply involved with volunteer emergency
communications operations, plans, and system development for over
forty years.  A Lieutenant Colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, he
spearheaded a period of major CAP communications development in
California as its director of communications.  Russ is active for
in the Amateur Radio Emergency Service of the American Radio
Relay League.  One of his favorite activities is speaking before
youth groups and encouraging their interest in radio,
electronics, and the sciences.
*****************************************************************

     What does an Amateur Radio operator do as a public service
volunteer who sometimes works during an emergency?  The basic
concept of the volunteer Amateur in emergencies is to provide
communications for the safety of life and protection of property
for the community during emergencies when established
communications for and between public service agencies are
overloaded or not functioning.
     Let's get down to the nitty gritty of how the Amateur
tactical communications net performs its services.
     When an emergency or disaster happens in a community, the
Amateur Radio public service volunteer checks into pre-
established nets to report conditions in his locality and his
availability and capability.  If there is a need for Amateur
radio communications, when directed he may report to the
emergency operations center, fire department, hospital, Red
Cross, shelter, incident commander, forest service, Amateur radio
net control station, or to the area as directed where the Amateur
is needed.  As long as all established communications are
available, he does nothing but monitors and is available in the
event any communications system becomes overloaded, fails, or is
not available between agencies.  (To be continued in Part 2.)

RACESBUL.115                                 DATE: Apr. 30, 1990
SUBJECT: THE AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR IN TIME OF NEED - Part 2/4
                  by Russell E. Bankson, N6GWL
     This sometimes means more than coming to the assignment with
a hand held transceiver.  Following the October 17, 1989
earthquake the Amateurs had to install antennas, coaxial cables,
lights for operating positions, power supplies for mobile
transceivers used as base stations, maps, phone numbers, writing
materials, battery charging systems, personal survival kit,
tools, transportation, fuel, money, expertise, dedication and
professionalism.  Many of the locations worked around the clock
for many days.
     So far nothing has been said about what communications
service the Amateurs provided during the earthquake emergency
when phones were disabled and electrical power was off and there
was danger to life and severe damage to property.  I am going to
relate some of the messages the Amateurs handled following the
earthquake in Watsonville, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Oakland and San
Francisco.  Within twenty minutes after the quake the Amateurs
had checked in to the reporting nets, checked their neighbors for
well being, and had reported to the Red Cross Amateur Radio
stations.  Immediately the tactical emergency net was
established.  This was done because there was no power, no
reliable phone communications between the Red Cross Chapters, and
a major threat to life and property existed.
(To be continued in part 3 of 4 parts.)

RACESBUL.116                                 DATE:   May 7, 1990
SUBJECT:  THE AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR IN TIME OF NEED - Part 3/4
                    by Russell E. Bankson, N6GWL
a. Boots, sox and rain gear needed - who can supply?
b. 22,000 pounds of fresh fruit - who can use now?
c. People finder dog teams are coming.
d. Man with infrared people finder arrived from New York -
report where?
e. Need canned food, cots and tents.
f. Nurses' thermometers broken - need replacements.
g. Helicopter is loaded for Santa Cruz - where to land?
h. Need prescription filled - drugstore is closed.
i. Hard hats are needed.
j. Shelter is closing - moving where?
k. Amateurs near Cypress overpass disaster must have dust masks.
l. Amateurs coming from over 200 miles away.
m. 1500 homes in Oakland were damaged.
n. Several truck convoys going to Santa Cruz from Bay Area.
o. More Amateurs are needed - some have been working around the
clock.
p. What communication paths are open?
q. Message from St. Croix, Virgin Islands, Red Cross worker:
   I want to come home.
r. Supply truck is missing for 14 hours - report if found.
s. Operator needed for the blood bank.
t. Hospital needs radio circuit with blood bank.
u. Two Red Cross emergency power generators will not start.
v. Need more shelter managers for replacement.
w. Oakland Disaster Control wants Amateur service at the EOC.
x. Cellular telephones being sent to Watsonville and Santa Cruz.
y. Fresno is sending supplies to Watsonville.
z. State Office of Emergency Services Region Two office is on two
Amateur Radio frequencies.
(To be continued in part 4 of 4)

RACESBUL.117                                 DATE:  May 14, 1990
SUBJECT: THE AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR IN TIME OF NEED - Part 4/4
                  by Russell E. Bankson, N6GWL
     This is just a small example of the many types of messages
handled by the tactical net of Amateurs.  If you use your
imagination you can visualize the service the Amateur provides
during floods, hurricanes, fires, lost people, earthquakes,
hazardous material spills, internal telephone failures in
hospitals, snow storms and other communication needs.
     Why did the Red Cross need to use Amateur Radio communi-
cations?  Communications were needed to activate shelters for
thousands of displaced people.  Feeding, providing clothing,
accepting donations of supplies, transporting supplies where
needed, providing safe routes between cities, storage of
supplies, communications between leaders with responsibilities,
assignment of personnel to tactical positions, keeping track of
hundreds of assigned volunteers, providing change of shift
personnel around the clock, communications with Western Red Cross
Field Office and other chapters, communications with other
agencies such as the Navy, Air Force, Department of
Transportation, fire departments, police, State Office of
Emergency services, damage evaluators and hospitals.
     When the need is there, the dedicated public service Amateur
Radio operator is there, doing volunteer public service.

RACESBUL.118                                 DATE:  May 21, 1990
SUBJECT:   PUBLIC SAFETY DISPATCHERS/TELECOMMUNICATORS
     I had the opportunity recently to present two seminars on
the use of Amateur Radio operators to the Western States
Associated Public-Safety Communications Officers conference in
New Mexico.  They were attended by dispatchers, communications
managers/directors, engineers/technicians, and vendors.  Most of
the dispatchers admitted that they knew virtually nothing about
radio hams and thought -- until now -- that they were the same as
CB'ers.  I was stunned by the latter assumption until it dawned
on me that we hams -- and the served agencies -- seldom take the
time to brief or educate the public safety communications center
employees.  Seek out opportunities to do this.  Tell them how
phone patches work and how they may originate from outside their
own 9-1-1 area.  How hams must pass a rigorous examination.  How
flexible ham radio systems are and how they can augment and
support the public safety mission in time of emergency.  How it
is better to understand and work together before the emergency;
that any other time is too late.  It is vitally important that
any such contact and liaison be done (a) by a ham familiar with
public safety communications and (b) completely in non-ham radio,
non-technical lingo.  The latter is more important than the
first.                    -- KH6GBX  (W6HIR @ WA6NWE.CA USA.NA)

RACESBUL.119                                 DATE: May 28, 1990
SUBJECT:       DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 1/3
   Only one state and parts of two others are free from any
threat of earthquakes.  For this reason we continue to receive
requests from volunteer communications services and the agencies
they serve for any helpful information.  I attended a military-
civilian-common carrier critique following the October 1989 Loma
Prieta (S.F. Bay Area) earthquake.  It was a candid exchange of
comments and observations by high ranking individuals.  The theme
was "Lessons learned from the earthquake".  I am sure that you
will be able to adopt one or more of the following statements to
your own area.  How many can you find?
   An Army general said, "Too many people show up wanting to be
helpful.  They should know in advance where they fit in or stay
out of the way.  If people don't know what to do or where to go,
then someone isn't doing their planning job properly."
   A big city emergency management director said, "We didn't need
ham radio operators.  Our biggest communications problem was we
didn't have any interdepartmental radio communications without
cellular telephones."  [The contradiction is clearly obvious to
ham radio operators!  This city has no RACES program but no
shortage of hams who wish it did. ---KH6GBX]
             (To be continued in part 2 of 3 parts)

RACESBUL.120                                 DATE:  June 4, 1990
SUBJECT:       DISASTER CRITIQUE - PART 2/3
   A big city fire department battalion chief said, "One: our
plans did not work.  They should all be redone.  The Incident
Command System works but it took more than a few days to make it
work.  Two: if you don't control the media, they will control
you.  Three: a mobile command post is extremely important.  Four:
we were hampered by a lack of simplex radio channels.  Five:
there must be a mechanism to coordinate volunteers."
   A county emergency management director said, "Communications:
some lost or overtaxed it so bad we lost it. You must have
redundant communications.  Volunteers: you should have a plan on
how to deal with and manage volunteers. They showed up uninvited
in (one hard hit city) and nobody could use them.  On the subject
of ICS (the Incident Command System), you should all adopt it.
Finally, in the recovery phase, we didn't do as good a job as we
should have. We should train people how to use the ICS for the
recovery phase, too."
   A gas and electric utility representative said, "Everybody
needs to work on their communications systems. Our phones were
overloaded for the first five days. Our mobile radio system was
useless because our mountaintop remote base stations were all
out. Generators failed because we don't use them. We all have to
run them under load for more than just a few minutes."
   A state emergency management official said that we need to be
more proactive by moving up certain resources to the periphery of
the incident, rather than await dispatch from greater distances.
She also said that we all should start placing as much emphasis
on recovery operations as we do in response.
                   (To be concluded in Part 3)

RACESBUL.121                                 DATE: June 11, 1990
SUBJECT:       DISASTER CRITIQUE - Part 3/3
   An emergency medical service official said, "We instituted the
earthquake plan and it really helped. The earthquake was not a
catastrophic event but it did validate our planning. Lack of
intelligence the first few hours is a problem -- it was zero.
Communications needs to be established much more quickly. We need
to set up a communications system in advance. One hundred of the
112 hospitals in the earthquake area were affected in one way or
another."  [Note: Several states have regional or statewide EMS
radio communication systems.  California does not.]
   The critique day concluded with management and communications
workshops. Some key findings of the latter were that a four to
eight hour communications battery backup is no good if there
isn't a generator available. Batteries are simply a switchover
bridge between commercial and generator power. Emergency power
generators will fail when you really need them if they are not
exercised and maintained frequently.
   A briefing on Amateur Radio was given to the communications
workshop. Most of the governments that do not have a RACES
program have little understanding of ham radio; at the time of
adisaster is too late to find out. I explained that the RACES is
a mutual aid resource similar to fire suppression, law
enforcement, engineering and others. They are trained in
emergency management procedures and operations, the ICS, public
safety, disciplined operations and teamwork. A MARS
representative concluded by explaining the MARS resources
available to the military community.    ---KH6GBX

RACESBUL.122                                 DATE: June 18, 1990
SUBJECT: HOW TO FIND HIGH TECH SUPPORT - PART 1/2
How To Find High Tech Support by Timothy R. S. Campbell,
Director, Department of Emergency Services, Chester County, PA
     Implementation of a new information system for emergency
planning and response may be simple for computer literate
personnel. However, when viewed from the perspective of a
computer novice, these first steps can seem very intimidating.
Many computer implementation schemes assume that the person
designing the system, network, or databases is familiar with the
operation of other computers, software, and/or databases.
     So how can a newcomer approach this challenge logically?
     First, never forget that the purpose of a computer system is
to assist human beings in doing their jobs faster. Computers do
not inherently make people more efficient or more effective. They
merely allow data to be manipulated, stored, or retrieved with
breathtaking speed. They reduce mundane routine activities and
free up personnel to do those imaginative and creative activities
that only humans can do.
     Secondly, remember that you have absolute control over the
computer. You can turn it off while it cannot turn you off. At
worst, losing data will set you back a few days or weeks but you
will never be as far behind as you were the day before you
started to computerize.
     There are significant resources that can be utilized by an
emergency management professional in implementing a computerized
system for disaster management. It is up to us in the emergency
management  professional in implementing a computerized system
for disaster management. It is up to us in the emergency
management field to identify those resources in our home
community and begin to involve them in our emergency management
program.

RACESBUL.123                                 DATE: June 25, 1990
SUBJECT: HOW TO FIND HIGH TECH SUPPORT - PART 2/2
How To Find High Tech Support by Timothy R. S. Campbell,
Director, Department of Emergency Services, Chester County, PA -
Part 2/2
     One of the first groups to look to is the Amateur Radio
community. While we in emergency management have traditionally
looked upon them as solely communicators, a closer look at the
Amateur Radio community reveals that they are engaged in many
more activities that have impact on modern emergency operations
through the use of technology. For example, Amateurs are
presently operating satellite communications from their own
satellite. Emergency management does not have a satellite.
Amateurs are doing video transmissions, wireless bulletin boards,
and packet radio operations which are the equal of any in use in
the commercial or public safety field. While your emergency
Amateur Radio group may not involve people in these particular
activities,,, they will know of people in the community that are
engaged in them. Such individuals will almost certainly be
familiar with computer operations and can provide a wealth of
information to you. So begin by sitting down with your ARES or
RACES coordinator and find out if there any packet radio
operations or wireless bulletin boards of other Amateur clubs
active in your community that can assist you.
/Signed/Timothy R. S. Campbell, Director, Department of Emergency
Services, County of Chester, PA