Oakland County Amateur Radio Public Service Corp (ARPSC) Weekly Net Thursday at 8 pm on 146.900 MHz/100pl Hospital Radio Net on the last Thursday of each month Web Site: http://www.arpsc.com Meeting Minutes for 3 January 2007: On 3 January 2007 at 7 pm, Joel Goldberg, W8HIU, Emergency Coordinator (EC) for the Oakland County ARPSC, called the meeting to order in the County Emergency Operation Center (EOC). The order of business included: (I). Comments from the Emergency Coordinator – Joel Goldberg, W8HIU: Our new website, http://www.arpsc.com is up and running. The old website will continue for awhile. Instead of a regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, 7 March 2007, there will be a light supper plus announcements at the EOC, followed by a Skywarn class in the Infotech Auditorium. This class room can accommodate a maximum of 76 persons. If interested, please register your name on a monthly meeting sign-up sheet or call Loretta in the ER&P office at 248-858-5300. An announcement will later follow on the times. It is known that OCARS will have another training class on 3 April 2007, time and place not yet known. We use the national incident command structure for emergencies, which is our most effective management system to control various situations. Bill Wallace, KC8JAY is now a net assistant. Jim Poehlman, K8ABZ is our new Membership Chairman. Sean Fleming, K8KHZ is our new National Traffic System liaison. Randy Love, WF5X will become a volunteer exam coordinator. Volunteers are needed to backup our staff, so that more personnel can be available in case of long emergencies. Needed are net control operators, hospital radio activities, etc. A meeting was held to discuss 2007 training. Anyone with suggestions for our needs, please contact Joel Stanley, KC8DQH. There is still a stack of new white Oakland County ARPSC ID cards which members have not received. Instead of handing in your old card to us, please throw it away. Paul Reinhardt, KC8BDK, Macomb County ARPSC EC, called to invite us to their Damage Assessment Class at Freedom Hill on Thursday, 18 January 2007 at 7 pm. Government funding for our county ARPSC has now changed from county to county to district funding. Future funding for us now depends on the six counties in our district – Monroe, Wayne, Washtenaw, Oakland Macomb, and St. Clair Counties. One idea proposed is to link a district wide repeater system. This would be a definite improvement. Better communication seems to be a major item with the Federal government. (II). Comments from Steve Iannucci, Oakland County Emergency Response and Preparedness (ER&P): Our ARPSC meetings are getting bigger and may eventually fill our meeting room. For those members who need their picture taken, see us after the meetings. Joel Goldberg, W8HIU mentioned that members could even send in their digital photo via e-mail so that the photo could be put on their ID card. Some members have not received their completed ID cards because they have missed recent meetings. Eventually, these cards will be sent out if they are not picked up. Certificates of appreciation are being passed out to participants of the 2006 Vigilant Guardian Exercise. (III). Comments from John Fleming, K8UP, District Two Michigan Section ARPSC Emergency Coordinator: This is a reminder that on Saturday, 19 May 2007, District 2 South Flu Exercise will take place the same time as the 2007 Dayton Hamvention. Counties in District 2 South are Monroe, Wayne and Washtenaw. Our volunteer assistance can be expected. Work continues on a digital network repeater system for our six counties in District Two. Anyone interested in putting up a digital station, let us know. Details and more information can be found on the website http://www.mi-drg.org. Also the Michigan Section ARPSC at http://www.arrl-mi.org can link to this. The first website has a map showing current hamgate locations in Michigan, which are sparse in our area and better as one goes up through the center of the State. (IV). Comments from Larry Hornsby, KB8POD, Assistant Emergency Coordinator (AEC) and Net Manager: Our Oakland County ARPSC net is 8 pm every Thursday night at 146.900 MHz and includes training. Instead of formal traffic being handled here, we use comments, information, and whatever people will share. Do tune in and enjoy the net. Mike Vander Meer – KD8ATK, Bill Wallace – KC8JAY, and Dell Brown – KC8IJF are helping with the net. John Fleming, K8UP added the Oakland County ARPSC has clocked many volunteer hours in training, meetings, attendance at meetings, and other activities. Totals in volunteer hours are turned over to the Michigan Section ARRL, who then turns the information over to ARRL. (V). Comments from Joel Stanley, KC8DQH, AEC, Training: A meeting took place to make plans for 2007 training. Fall and winter appear to be the best time for training. FEMA IS classes have not yet been scheduled, but will be in the works. At the 7 February 2007 regular monthly meeting, tactical traffic handling will be discussed. This becomes important when we are out helping with emergencies, stimulated test exercises, and assisting elsewhere. During the 7 March 2007 regular monthly meeting time, there will be Skywarn training. On 21 April 2007, there will be a HF training event and exercise held in conjunction with the Michigan QSL Party. Last year, our group came in 2nd in the State with multioperators. This is for those persons who want to come in and operate HF transceivers and to find out how HF differs from the higher frequencies. A sign up sheet was passed around. For anyone else interested, please contact Joel Stanley. Later, there will be opportunity to develop skills in Field Day, Woodward Dream Cruise, and Annual Oakland County Flu Clinics. Larry Hornsby, KB8POD added such training does not use abbreviations, but uses plain English. Plain English is the Federal requirement. (VI). Comments from Jim Walden, N8DHZ, AEC and Sirens: Most sirens are now two-way reporting. Tracey is responsible for the county sirens and siren repairs. She continues to want our help checking ALL the sirens. The county will be sending out certificates of appreciation to volunteers. Saturday, 3 March 2007 will be our first siren test of the year. Later in March will be Severe Weather Day for the school children of the county. This will include siren testing. Because of these two March siren tests, no April test will be held. Query: Who is called if a siren suddenly goes off, is errant, or fails to turn off? Answer: Call Building Safety at 248-858-1000 or 248-858-0931. (VII). Comments from Barry Kaufman, WD8JWM, AEC Administator: Barry has completed going through and is purging old material from our files. An inventory of our equipment is underway. Some parts and equipment no longer useful will be sent to the county for auction. However, no items will be junked that could be used as backup equipment. Steve Iannucci, ER&P notes money raised from these auction items does not come back to the ARPSC, but goes into the county general fund. Next, Barry will verify membership. Information is needed on who is active and what courses have been taken and still need to be taken. Information from this will assist in determining future training needs. (VIII). Comments from Randy Love, WF5X, AEC and Repeater Operations: The 440 repeater still has problems. An "interesting" noise is sometimes heard in certain areas and the linking frequency sometimes is a problem. Query: How many receive sites do we have? Answer: Six on the 2 meter (VHF) and two on the UHF repeater. The primary antenna is on a building in Pontiac and secondary on the Bald Mountain site. Joel Goldberg, W8HIU also added that they are still waiting for funds for the Milford site. (IX). Comments from Bill Bond, W8WRB, Hospital Radios: The December Hospital Radio Net had 12 check-ins out of 15 hospitals. Missing were (1) Botsford, (2) St Joseph – Pontiac, and (3) Providence – Southfield. However, Bill notes that the first two hospitals may not have received an updated notice about a change from an optional December net to a definite call-in for the hospitals. Providence – Southfield had a different problem. The ICOM IC – 2720 in the Emergency Room (ER) is damaged and no longer works. The cause is unknown. The ICOM IC-2800 in the security office near the 9 Mile Road door is useable, but its antenna is broken off. Next month, plans are to temporarily bring the IC-2800 to the Emergency Room site until the IC-2720 can be repaired. Providence plans to make a locked cabinet to secure the ER radio. The Birmingham Fire Station amateur radio is being repaired. Bill also needs volunteers to work with him. Query: Who pays for a hospital radio repair? Bill replied that he needs to check with Gail on whether the hospital or county is responsible for the radio repair. Query: Do the hospitals know about our new ID cards? Gail will be sending out information to the hospitals about the new white card. However, no problem is expected since either the new ID card or RACES card should be enough. (X). Comments about Digital Communications: Randy Love, WF5X stated that new software has been installed, including tracking software and an excellent high resolution county map. This map will assist the Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS) with resolution down to fifteen feet. The map is not aerial, but schematic. This map comes from http://www.census.gov and is downloaded from TIGER/line files. The 147.560 MHz packet station is better than originally thought. Randy confirms he can work the EOC station from his house, which is not very close. He cautions us that packet is such that one has to tinker with it. (XI). Comments from Gary Sklar, K8IKW, Public Service Information: Gary's e-mail list for his newsletter is having increasing delivery failures. He has over 90 people on this list. Please update him or let him know you want a copy. He believes some e-mail operations identify ARRL e-mails as spam. Another address may be more reliable. Upcoming Events: Sunday, 21 January 2007 – Hazel Park Amateur Radio Club Hamfest. Information is at the website: http://www.hparc.org. John Fleming, K8UP, states that at 10 am at the Hamfest, Dale R. Williams, WA8EFK – Section Manager of ARRL Office and Marty Mendelson III, N8MG – Section Emergency Coordinator ARRL Michigan Section will be available to answer questions. (XII). Miscellaneous Items: Query on Michigan License Plates: Michigan is replacing the old white letters on blue background with different colors. How might that affect ham radio license plates? From Joel Goldberg, W8HIU: This answer is not yet known, and we will have to wait and see when the license plate is renewed. Respectfully submitted, James R. Murphy, N8SML Secretary Oakland County ARPSC 4 January 2007