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 1 October 2003 On 1 October 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: Concerning RACES card background checks, Joel has a list of persons accepted and still being processed. There are still some pictures and signatures needed to complete this and other identification cards. Larry Hornsby, KB8POD, Net Manager, will have to reduce activities, due to work demands. He will continue to take part as time permits. Rory, KC8SZR has volunteered to assist managing W8OAK Net activities. The following Oakland County Hospitals now have amateur radio back-up installations: Providence, St. Joseph, Botsford, Troy Beaumont, Henry Ford - West Bloomfield, and Huron Valley. Plans exist to contact Genesys Health System Hospital, which is south of Flint, because it is the closest medical service for some parts of northern Oakland County. Royal Oak-Beaumont Hospital will be setting up emergency amateur communications when its new building is completed, probably next summer. The embroidered shirts with pockets project is now working with Steve Iannucci. On 2 October 2003, Joel Goldberg, EC, will give a talk to the EMS Oakland County Medical Authority about emergency ham radio operations with the TOPEX exercise. Joel has been invited to a meeting on Thursday, 16 October 2003, in which Oakland County Executive, L. Brooks Patterson, will present citations for the electrical blackout, which includes amateur radio/ARPSC services. On 18 October 2003, there will be a District 2 Emergency Coordinator's meeting. Later this month, there will be TOPEX wrap up meeting. Murray Scott, KE8UM, and Joel are working on an ARPSC lists of needs. The generator at the Bald Mountain antenna site is the responsibility of Oakland County Road Commission and the person responsible for this has been on medical leave. The possibility of a second alternate site at the Social Services Building is being looked into, but money will be needed for the equipment when and if it is approved. A catalog of emergency management classes by the Michigan State Police was passed around to the members. Amateurs are encouraged to make use of these classes. (2). Comments from Steve Iannucci, Oakland County Emergency Response and Preparedness (ER&P): Steve noted a number of Michigan State Police Emergency Management Classes are coming up soon, so one should not wait. Signing up for any class can be done on-line at http://www.mspemd.org/ The ER&P staff thanks the amateur radio volunteers for their help in TOPEX. Assessment showed that messages sent out through the ARPSC were almost as accurate as they were originally written. It was very important to send responders out to the scene of disaster, then having some work with their equipment to resolve problems. The Oakland County web EOC also demonstrated the ability to utilize wireless computers in the field. This exercise also demonstrated coordination of hospital communication with amateur radio, which did not exist a short time ago. a. Joel Goldberg, EC, emphasized that the fullest number of amateur radio operators were utilized in this exercise that could be justified. Full time two shifts at hospitals were found not to be necessary. The supervisors needed to know if the hospital equipment worked, that volunteers could pass some traffic, and whether the hospital knew where to locate their own amateur radio communication service. b. Question by a member to staff: Sheriff deputies at one site were looking for TOPEX I.D. Passes, but the amateurs only had RACES and other cards. Answer: There weren't enough I.D. passes for everyone. c. Question by a member to staff: How does the ARPSC deploy when some event suddenly and unexpectedly occurs? Answer: There are a number of methods to activate ARPSC responders, for such events as Skywarn or the Electrical Outage: (1). A calling tree of responders exists. Currently this needs refining to determine which 3 or 4 hams are nearby to a certain location site. (2). County paging systems and county Nextel phones are utilized for those who have those pagers and phones. Also alpha-numerical pagers are used. (3) Often an emergency net is started at someone's home and is continued until people arrive at the E.O.C. Awareness of an event often occurs with net operation since people often go to radios for information. d. Comment by Larry Hornsby, KB8POD and Randy Love, WF5X , to the members: During TOPEX, net controllers had to decide on what messages to put out or receive on the net. Most important to these messages was that each message be written exactly as given. If a message was unclear, then a short delay should be taken to determine what is meant or find someone to interpret, such as a supervisor. e. Comments by others: The printer needs to be fixed. The Microsoft Office program didn't seem to be the same for each computer. This resulted in failure to import information between certain machines. For net messages logged into the computer file, bringing them back into edit for corrections was difficult or could not be done. (3). Comments from Jim Thompson, Deputy Emergency Coordinator (DEC): FEMA IS-271 class will take place Saturday, 11 October 2003, at the E.O.C. from 9 am to 1 pm. Ralph Greenberg, K8CAR is in charge, with Barry Kaufman, WD8JWM, and Jim Thompson, N8USP, will assist. To register, call during normal business hours to Loretta at 248-858-5300. (4). Comments from Barry Kaufman, WD8JWM, DEC: Siren testing takes place Saturday and 4 sirens need to be covered. There will be only one more siren test this year after this one. a. Siren comment from Randy Love, WF5X: If a ham doesn't have an assignment, please check into a subnet, rather than into the main net. b. Siren comment from George Schutte, K8GEO: The subnet for northeast Oakland County uses the USECA repeater on 147.18. Help covering the sirens is needed, but George needs to make assignments 24+ hours in advance. Call him at 248-393-4030. (5). Comments from Gary Sklar, K8IKW, Public Service. Activities and Classes Coming Up (a). 4 October 2003: Siren Testing, Saturday at 1 pm. See above. (b). 11 October 2003: IS-271 Class, Saturday from 9am to 1 pm. See above. (c). 12 October 2003: Amateur radio demonstration at the Bloomfield Hills Township Police Department from noon to 5 pm. Need ham volunteers to help operate radio(s) and pass out literature. To volunteer, e-mail to Ken Barnes, N8COQ at kenneth.barnes@siemens.com or Gary Sklar, K8IKW at k8ikw@aol.com The demo needs to start setting up 8-9 am. The Police Department is near Long Lake and Telegraph, being one block south of Long Lake. (d). 12 October 2003: Kalamazoo ARC + SW Michigan AR Team Swap. Further information at http://www.kalamazoohamradio.com (e). 26 October 2003: Utica Shelby Emergency Communications Association Swap (USECA). Further information at http://useca.net (f). 31 October - 1 November 2003: Michigan State Convention - Holland ARC Swap. Further information at http://www.hollandarc.org/ Holland Holiday Inn will be the site and those staying there can get a discount rate. There will be forums. Respectfully submitted, Jim Murphy, N8SML Secretary, Oakland County ARPSC, 2 October 2003