Oakland County Amateur Radio Public Service Corp (ARPSC) Weekly Net: Thursdays at 8 pm on 145.250 MHZ/100pl Web Site: http://www.qsl.net/w8oak Meeting Minutes for 3 September 2003 On 3 September 2003 at 7 pm, Joel Goldberg, W8HIU, Emergency Coordinator (EC) for the Oakland County ARPSC called the meeting to order in the County E.O.C. The order of business included: (1). Comments from Joel Goldberg, W8HIU, EC: TOP-EX is coming up on 25 September 2003. Mike Loper, Emergency Response and Preparedness Staff, will follow with information. There is no new information concerning RACES cards background checks. Forms are available to members and everyone will need this card for volunteer activities. Volunteers for various ARPSC positions are needed and please let Joel know. WINBE is the Oakland County system to alert their people concerning weather alerts, etc. Those that have this program will be on their list and will be notified to forth-coming weather, alerts, and emergencies. Those ARPSC ham radio members that have alpha numeric pagers, should notify the E.O.C. with their numbers so that the county can send out alerts during the year. The following hospitals now have two-meter equipment installed: Henry Ford Hospital, West Bloomfield; Huron Valley Hospital; and Troy-Beaumont Hospital. St. Joseph Hospital in Pontiac is reported to have this equipment, but this information needs to be confirmed. The Directors of the Oakland County ARPSC want to thank everyone that participated in the electrical blackout. In a matter of twenty minutes, the ARPSC had the Clarkston Repeater on the airwaves. Our own generator for the W8OAK repeater failed. This generator belongs to the County Road Commission and needs repair or replacement. The W8OAK emergency net handled more than 500 messages. There were 160 involved hams with 21 at the EOC. We have already received a letter of appreciation for the ham-radio assistance. L. Brooks Patterson also commented on the ham help. (2). Comments by Mike Loper, Oakland County Emergency Response and Preparedness Staff (ER&P): The Oakland County Road Commission had generators everywhere for the electrical outage, and will soon have the generator situation corrected for our repeater. The members of ER&P express their appreciation for the ham radio assistance. TOP-EX is coming Thursday, 25 September 2003. Four hospitals with radios would be helpful to TOP-EX. TOP-EX has become bigger in scope, now with four different HazMat teams, FBI, coroners, etc. The E.O.C. will be so busy that there will be no room for extras. The excise will begin at 2 pm and end 9 to 10 PM that night. Oakland County ARPSC will be asked to provide communications at the E.O.C. and relay messages. There is the worry that standard communications may breakdown and that is the reason for the ARPSC backup. There are two TOP-EX field sites to be utilized. "Site B" is the Crest-OCC- Auburn Hills Campus site where much action will take place. ARPSC communications will be from the classroom building and will need rotating shifts for this. Also there is need for runner communications. "Site C" will be the CN Railroad Yards in Orion Township near Silverbell Road at Joslyn Road. There will be a freight train derailment with hazardous material. This site is on private property and will be very busy. Parking here could be a problem and anyone using this site must carefully plan how to get in and also consider car placement ease in getting out. Tracy McGee, from the ER&P office, and who manages the sirens, will be working with the ham operators in the field operations. Should standard communication resources become difficult or stopped, people will be coming to us to get messages out. Should any message call go out as "Mayday, Mayday," this means that a real true emergency is happening. Joel Goldberg added that ham radio volunteers will be present at a minimum of 3 to 4 hospital sites. The Police, etc. may ask us to be present at other sites, including taking a grab and go radio to some site. TOP-EX exercise will start 2 pm and run to 10 pm. The majority of the activity will be 3-8 pm. Joel plans two shifts from 2-6 pm and 6-10 pm at three sites: (1) E.O.C., (2) Site B, and (3) Site C. All messages will be framed as "test messages," in order to keep someone from thinking this is a real disaster rather than a training exercise. Hospital volunteer activity is thought to be a shorter-term activity, unless something unexpected happens. This TOP-EX exercise will be used as our SET exercise for this year. Randy Love - WF5X, and Larry Hornsby - KB8POD, will help at the E.O.C. and act as supervisors. Barry Kaufman - WD8JWM and Jim Thompson - N8USP will supervise at the field sites. Larry Hornsby - KB8POD added that all amateur radio operators must have the new RACES Card to participate in this exercise. (3). Comments from ARPSC Directors and Attendees: Gary Bouwkamp, N8HMP, W8OAK Webmaster, stated the W9OAK website now has information on our electrical power-out emergency activities. Gary Sklar, K8IKW, Public Service and others reported the following activities of interest: Activities and Classes Coming Up (a). 6-7 September 2003: Great Lakes Division Convention and Findlay (Ohio) Radio Club Swap. Convention at the Findlay Inn on 6 September 2003 and swap on 7th September. Information at http://www.findlayradioclub.org (b). 11 September 2003: Class - "Introduction to Amateur Radio," by the Hazel Park Amateur Radio Club, at the Butcher Community Center in Warren, beginning 7 pm for ten weeks. The center is on Cosgrove Road. Contact Jeff Albrecht at n8wr@arrl.net (b). 13 September 2003: Grand Rapids ARA, Lowell ARC and Michigan ARA Swap. Information at http://www.w8dc.org/swap.htm (c). 13 September 2003: Gilda's Walk, Gilda's Club, Metro Detroit. Information at 248-577-0800 or http://www.gildasclubdetroit.org/ Hams needed for the walk at Oakland Community College, Orchard Ridge Campus, 27055 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills. (d). 14 September 2003: Adrian ARC Swap. Information at http://www.w8tqe.com/ (e). 25 September 2003: TOP-EX exercise. (f). 12 October 2003: Bloomfield Township is putting on an open house from noon to 5 pm and would like a ham radio demonstration. Anyone interested can contact Gary Sklar at k8ikw@aol.com or Ken Barnes, N8COQ, at ken.barnes@sea.siemens.com (g). 22 October 2003: The class, "Anticipating Hazardous Weather," IS-271, will be held from 9 am to 1 pm. Ralph Greenberg, K8CAR and Ken Barnes, N8COQ will be teaching the class and can be contacted for further information. Call the EOC to sign up at 248-858-5300. Randy Love, WF5X, repeaters, stated the HF radio was recently tested and was found to be working well with distant stations. In the near future, individual two meter receive sites for our repeater will be tested for problems. (4). Comments from Joel Goldberg, W8HIU, EC, on problems encountered in the Electrical Outage of 2003: (i). The generator at the Bald Mountain tower site was down. Possibly placing an alternate antenna on the county tower at the Social Services Building in Pontiac might help. (ii). There was difficulty with amateur communication between Beaumont Hospital and the E.O.C. There was no phone number to call to the amateur radio volunteer at the hospital, and the previously given phone number was not good. Jeff Albrecht, N8WR commented that the radio antenna on the Troy Beaumont was placed on the wrong site. The cost to the hospital for an amateur radio, power converter, and antenna is estimated to be about $700. Efforts have been made to standardized radios at the hospitals, with ICOM IC-2720, although Beaumont had already purchased their equipment. (iii). The E.O.C. became very warm during emergency operations, which added discomfort. (iv). There were no backup paper copies for messages. (v). Operator rotation was somewhat a problem and in the future, will initiate a system of who is where and for how long. (vi). Logging hand script at times was illegible. (vii). Logging the correct call letters was a problem. There is a need for computerized logging system to check call letters, and in the future may need to use call letter phonetics in order to reduce errors. (viii). Beaumont Hospital did assign several of our people to cover nursing homes without us knowing and that is a liability issue with us. (ix). We needed better communication with volunteers on their way to relieve others. (x). Radio equipment at one hospital had been moved to an unknown location and this was a problem. Murray Scott, KE8UM, commented that years ago, these radios were periodically used to check into a net, and thereby reduced the possibility of the radio "being put away." (xi). In emergency situations like this, we need to find out who lives near certain sites, which improves efficiency and saves cross-town driving. (xii). What constituted acceptable messages on the emergency net was debated by the members. Randy Love, WF5X, stated the net control operator must take control of Net and state clearly what is needed. More amateurs checked in to volunteer than the ARPSC could use. Respectfully submitted, Jim Murphy, N8SML Secretary, Oakland County ARPSC, 4 September 2003