Oakland County
Amateur Radio Public Service Corp (ARPSC)
W8OAK
Repeater 146.900 MHz/100pl
Weekly Net 8 pm Thursday
Hospital Radio Net 7:30 pm last Thursday of month
Except for 20 November 2008 and 18 December 2008
W8OAK
Repeater 444.325MHz/107.2 pl
Packet
144.950 MHz/1200 baud
W8OAK-3 BBS, and W8OAK-7 KA-Node
APRS
144.390 MHz
Web
Site: http://www.arpsc.com
General Business Meeting Minutes for
On 5 November 2008 at 7:00 pm, Joel Goldberg W8HIU, Emergency Coordinator (EC) for the Oakland County ARPSC, called the meeting to order in the County Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The order of business included:
(I). Report
from the Emergency Coordinator (EC), Joel Goldberg W8HIU:
Efforts are moving along to find someone to step into Joel's Emergency Coordinator position.
Members must have the new Oakland County ARPSC identification card with the blue stripe. See Steve Iannucci for this at the meetings.
A General Membership Meeting will be planned for February 2009. Recommendations for topics are requested by Joel.
Our new training coordinator is Mike Smith - N8GUZ who will be working with Larry Hornsby KB8POD and others.
(II). Report
from Steve Iannucci, Oakland County Emergency Response and Preparedness
(ER&P):
Oakland County ER&P is under a new command. Dr. Thomas Gordon has taken the place of Mike Strum.
Steve introduced Mike Hall, Sheriff's Department, who is the Operations Manager of Crim Fitness Foundation which assisted the Brooksie Way Half Marathon and 5 K Run. Mike came to thank all the ham volunteers. Joe Miller KJ8O passed out t-shirts to the volunteers, with exception of the XXL size which is not yet ready.
The main page for the Oakland County web page http://www.oakgov.com will have an email subscription service. If one puts in their email address and what department they are interested viewing, he/she will be notified of any web page change.
(III). Report
from John Fleming K8UP, District 2 Michigan Section ARPSC Emergency
Coordinator:
5-6 December 2008 is Skywarn Recognition Day. Joe Miller KJ80 later noted this event runs 7 pm Friday 5 December 2008 to 7 pm Saturday 6 December 2008. National Weather Service (NWS) will have their amateur radio stations up and running for contacts. The purpose of the contest is to contact as many of these stations as possible. If interested, contact Joe Miller.
8 November 2008 is a meeting at the National Weather Service (NWS) at White Lake. Maury Davidson K8SJD, Assistant Liaison to NWS plans to be there. There will be a discussion on 2009 weather planning.
2008 Field Day Contest results will be in the December 2008 issue of QST.
The Michigan Section ARPSC is in the process of picking a replacement for Oakland County's ARPSC Emergency Coordinator (EC). If anyone is interested in this position, please contact John. Applicants need to be a member in the ARRL, should be heavily involved in ARPSC activities, and must know how the organization works.
Query: Will this appointment be a joint activity between the ARRL and County? Answer: Any decision will be made by John Fleming K8UP District Two ARPSC Section, Joel Goldberg W8HIU (current) EC, and Dale Williams WA8EFK Section Manager of Michigan ARPSC. Also the county has to be comfortable with the selection.
Joel Goldberg W8HIU also adds that the County and State Police make the appointment for RACES Officer, which could have two operating leaders, one for RACES and one for ARES.
(IV). Report from Rory Locke KC8SZR, Net Manager and Reports:
Our W8OAK net is every Thursday at 8 pm and averages 25-30 check-ins. Joel Goldberg W8HIU added that the administrative team rotates with every weekly net and needs to have enough net operators to do the same. A long ranging emergency requires many volunteers to keep it running.
(V). Report
from Randy Love WF5X, AEC and Repeaters:
ARRL November Sweepstakes for 1.8-28 MHz phone is coming up the weekend of 15-17 November 2008. VE testing is not yet available.
Packet at the EOC has been a problem and one problem appears to be our Packet Outpost Message Manager. Apparently, this software program won't run 24-7 for months before becoming corrupted. Randy has it again working, but our packet reliability is still a question. The digi-repeater is now in a different radio and is working somewhat better. Our radio running APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System) doesn't put audio out in the speaker jack at this time.
Our new printer works on all three computers. However, the only computer with full printer capability is the one in the console.
Randy requests anyone finding something wrong with the repeaters, please let him know. There has been one repeater complaint, but detailing is not enough to define the problem. One member mentioned our repeater could be heard in Oscoda and Alabaster (Iosco County), but this may be due to ducting enhancement.
(VI). Report
from Marcia Fleming - N8FE, Call-up Procedures:
The call-up format was delayed because we had over 300 people on our membership list and needed to separate active from inactive members. Our list has been reduced to 153 people, defined as active with their names grouped by township. For example, should there be an emergency event in Holly which we have only 2 members, those from the nearest townships can be called. This will help reduce or eliminate calling members from distant areas. We need more volunteers to make the call-up phone calls. Also, pagers can be activated if we know the member's cell phone provider.
Joel Goldberg W8HIU added that he would like to develop a damage assessment team, and believes he is getting closer to making this possible.
(VII). Slide
Presentation by Lloyd Suter N2NGQ:
Lloyd presented a slide presentation on his Red Cross volunteer activities during Hurricane Gustov in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He assisted in bulk food distribution and pointed out problems he encountered in the aftermath. His point was that these disasters are real. Are we here at home prepared to survive a big disaster for many days?
(VIII). Report
from Mike Smith N8GUZ, Training:
Classes planned for November are:(1) Saturday, 15 November 2008 Net Control Operators Training from 9 am to noon with Larry Hornsby KB8POD; (2) Saturday, 22 November 2008 IS -100 (Introduction to Incident Command System) with Lloyd Suter N2NGQ. Please call Lorretta at 248-858-5300 to reserve a spot.
Governor Jennifer Granholm has proclaimed Winter Hazard Awareness Week for 9-15 November 2008. Two handouts were passed to members: (1) "Time to Prepare for Winter Hazards," by Michigan Committee for Severe Weather Awareness and (2) "In Your Car Winter Survival."
Mike is considering different ideas for future training. Larry Hornsby-KB8POD added such training could involve such subjects as batteries and electrical dangers from hybrid cars. These topics might not be directly related to ham radio, but could prove to be useful information. Joel Goldberg W8HIU added that mini-training exercises could be held on Saturdays. This would help develop experience and interest.
Query: It is really important to get training class information out to
the 153 members. Can each one be
emailed? Answer: Yes and
Lorretta has the format and list for such emailing.
Query: Could CERT training for ARPSC members be helpful? Larry Hornsby had discussed this with Mike Lopar, ER&P, and thought a modified shortened CERT version might be possible for members. A discussion followed on its usefulness. Mike Smith N8GUZ and Larry Hornsby KB8POD will talk to Marsha Fleming N8FE about this.
(IX). Report
from Bill Bond W8WRB on Hospital Radios:
Last month's Hospital Radio Net, 14 of 16 checked in, with Novi Providence and Southfield Providence missing. North Oakland Hospital had its doors locked by bankruptcy, but has since reopened. Genesys Hospital operators were working Devil's Night in Genesee County.
Please note that the November and December Hospital Nets will be one week earlier - now being 20 November 2008 and 18 December 2008. This is because major holidays fall on the normal Thursday night.
Twenty-seven new ICOM IC 2820 radios have arrived. Bill and Mark Schurig KC8WPS are making up new instruction cards and a new data base for frequency insertion. The new data base will include hospitals in Macomb and St. Clair Counties which are expected to join a common hospital net sometime in the Future. Southfield will soon have hospital radios in two nearly adjacent locations (1) Providence Southfield and (2) Oakland Regional with its rehabilitation inpatients.
Query: Who has the old radios and might they be for sale? Answer: No. The hospital own the radios and they are likely to put them on the shelf as back up.
Query: Will these new radios have the digital capability? Answer Yes, they will have D-Star. Also, packet can be run through these radios.
Bill showed several slides regarding amateur radio hospital emergency communication process and procedures, including break tags, use of phonetic alphabet, and tactical call signs. All this can be found on our website, http://www.arpsc.com. One point he made was that hospital tactical call signs will add one more feature, i.e. Beaumont Hospital, Troy, Oakland (County). "Oakland" is added because there will eventually be a total of 27 hospitals on the net from three counties.
(X). Report
from Jim Poehlman, Membership:
Jim thanked Gary Bouwkamp N8HMP for getting the membership form on the website. Now the Oakland County ARPSC has 153 active members. Those who didn't respond will have their file kept aside and can be activated at anytime. Several people have submitted two or three forms. Please let him know what their change is in the form's comment area. A month ago, he sent out a mailing to everyone without an email address to cover all bases. Down the road, more information will be needed. For instance, we will need a best "contact" phone number, instead of having 2-3 different numbers to try.
Query: Why use townships instead of zip codes? Answer: There too many zip codes to use.
(XI). Report from Mike Nebel N3BEL, Sirens :
Last Saturday was our last siren test for the year, with 44 check-ins. Mike Smith noted several people came up with ideas for the siren testing at the last OCARS meeting and he will discuss them with Mike.
(XII). Other
Items of Interest:
George Schutte, K8GEO is again asking if there are members who want to purchase the orange emergency vest $40 cash only. If so, please contact him.
Respectfully submitted,
James R. Murphy, N8SML
Secretary, Oakland County, ARPSC
6 November 2008