As simulated tornados approached Brazos County, on June 4th , just about all emergency services in the County were activated to take part in the drill, including RACES which is the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service. The drill scenario had tornados touch down in Fawn Lake Subdivision, East of Bryan at 5pm and Wixon Valley and Kurten shortly afterwords. SkyWarn trained radio amateurs lead off the drill by going to Fawn Lake Subdivision to watch the skies for the simulated tornados. Once the touchdown was reported, other RACES operators were sent to Red Cross headquarters, Brazos County emergency operations center (EOC) and the College Station EOC to provide backup communications using either the 443.45 or 146.68 repeaters.

Since we had some prior knowledge of the Kurten Community Center being destroyed with  over a hundred people inside, it was an ideal time to demonstrate ATV or amateur television. The plan was to send live tv pictures from the emergency activities at the community center, back to the County EOC where agency leaders were assembled and able to see tv monitors in the room. With the help of equipment from Brad Cobo, N5WCO, and Cotton Freeman, N5AVK, a 50 watt tv station was assembled in the community center parking lot. A homemade, eight element, 434 MHz, beam was raised to 40 foot on a trailer mounted, crank up tower. Pictures show both the station and antenna system. The 10 mile path back to the EOC, located near the county court house, was a real challenge for ATV that needs at least a 200 uV signal for a good picture. As a comparison, FM voice  communication only needs a 2uV signal. The antenna on the GTE building is a dual band Comet at a little over one hundred feet high which helped a lot even though it was omnidirectional. The receive video was captured to a VCR tape for later review. A digitized frame of this tape is shown with the station ID at the bottom.

After three hours all the mocked up casualties were hauled off the hospitals and the drill came to an end and all RACES operators were released with very few messages being sent but this is typical of a backup but essential communication capability.

Thanks to:
KB5N Brian Brumfield 
KD5ISN Tom Golson 
N5GQB Sly Kapchinsik 
KK5QZ Garen Evans 
KK5QE Steven McClaran 
WA5GVE Dale Dyess 
N5WCO Brad Cobo