First off, my thanks to Venkat Raman who developed the procedure wrote the scripts and acted as net control for the exercise. I think all the participants will join me in saying, "well done, Venkat!"

Second, my thanks to the rest of the crew who participated: Joy Barnitz (KG6ACN), Bill Bush (KF6YYH), Liz Bush (KF6YYG), Tom Leen (KG6CHG), Praveena Raman (KF6UAT) and Doug Tinney. You not only made it possible to perform the map, but also made the whole experience educational and fun!

We set up net control at Ohlone College at 13:00. After a briefing, we performed a rehearsal in the parking lot. It was a good thing we did, because several equipment and procedural difficulties were uncovered. Teams then dispersed to 5 field locations: the northern-most point in the district (Canyon Height and Kimberwood), the southern-most point (Warren at I-680), and three other points we thought might be difficult to reach. The intermediate locations were (1) Fire Station #4 at Pine and Paseo Padre, (2) Arroyo Agua Caliente Park near Paseo Padre and Grimmer, (3) Linda Vista school near Washington and Osgood.

Once at our locations we checked in on the repeater, then tried two antennas on VHF simplex and 2 antennas on UHF simplex. Net Control would give instructions, then do a roll call, and each station would record the signal characteristics (S-meter signal strength and readability) of the other stations.

The results are being analyzed and we will report them when the analysis is complete. However, here are some highlights:

(1) Bill was sentenced to the purgatory of what turned out to be the deepest, darkest radio hole of all MSJ: Warren where it passes under 680 -- the southern-most point of MSJ. However, he must have a pure heart because at the last minute he was rescued by an angel ham that just happened to be passing by with a SECRET ANTENNA! With the "secret antenna", and the angel's HT, suddenly Bill could hear everyone and everyone could hear Bill, EXCEPT...

(2) Praveena and Tom who were at the NORTHERN-most point in MSJ. Maybe they needed a secret antenna, too! Of course, they had their own problems to over come: They discovered that they could transmit, but not receive, on UHF. No, problem, they informed us over the air, they would simply switch to VHF to listen to our (UHF!) transmissions, and then switch to UHF to transmit. This caused quite a bit of on- and off-air puzzlement by the rest of the team. I'll leave it as an exercise (and punishment) for those who didn’t participate to figure this one out. (Hint: no, the radio was not broken.) Meanwhile…

(3) Joy and Liz, at their separate locations, got to practice the art of relaying messages to and from Net Control and the station which was out of contact with the net (Bill). This is a very important skill for emergency communication, and one that we seldom have occasion to practice. All this time…

(4) Doug S. is standing in the middle of a school playground, HT in one hand, twenty foot high fishing pole with a twin-lead J-pole antenna on top in the other, juggling a clipboard in the hot sun, getting strange looks from parents taking their children to the swing set. Fortunately he was wearing his CERT badge and cap. (Fortunately for him, maybe not so fortunate for CERT.) And, as a good leader should…

(5) Doug T. was carefully copying down signal reports back at Net Control. Finally…

(6) We re-grouped and retreated for well-deserved pizza and beer!