...in Ellensburg at the high school from 0900 to 1530 PDT. The meeting was hosted by Bill Bowden, KI7AO, and the Kittitas County ARES/Repeater group who graciously provided doughnuts and coffee to those in attendance. Also in attendance were representatives from Chelan/Douglas, Grant, Lincoln, Spokane, Yakima, and Whitman counties and of course, our fearless leader Gordon Grove, WA7LNC, Section Emergency Coordinator.
We began......with welcomes and introductions--each EC or their representative giving a quick overview of what was happening in their prospective county. Gordon called upon the new EC of Lincoln County, Rob, WA7RF, to share about the whirlwind beginnings of Lincoln County's group in which the sheriff sought out all of the hams in the county to form an ARES/RACES group, his appointment, and new responsibilities. |
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 Ruth W1MOM EC Whitman Co. Harold N1ZL Chelan |
...about the state mobilization plan in which we as ARES/RACES play an integral part--specifically the homeland security regions which corresponded with the health regions--regions 7, 8, and 9 (eastern Washington), with the easternmost portion of eastern Washington from Canada to Oregon falling into region 9.
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Bill, KI7AO, from Kittitas County, discussed their group's use of APRS (Auto Positioning Reporting System) for their Search and Rescue and public service events such as the 100 mile "ironman run" into the Cascades. They've used it almost exclusively on simplex but have also used it on 144.390 Mhz, national APRS frequency. They use it for tracking and message sending (with only two lines being available for messages). GPS, TNC, and mobile radio are needed to make the setup mobile but for a fixed station a radio, TNC, and computer could be used for a fixed station. Several other options were discussed. For more information on APRS checkout www.nwaprs.org. |
June 14, the first of a series of field exercises within the state health regions, was discussed. ARES/RACES are expected to be playing a major role in the backup communications for that exercise. The event will be a simulation of a bioterrorist attack. Hospitals may have to move people out of a region or import drugs into a region. We were strongly encouraged to make contact with the emergency managers of the hospitals in our area if we hadn't already and establish a working relationship with them so that we could be ready for this exercise. Specifically we should plan on having at least 2 of our ARES people at each hospital for VHF communications with another outside person or persons being liason to WSEN. We might consider having someone at the EOC as well. The exercise will be from noon to 4pm on June 14.
We broke for lunch... |
 Ron NQ7M A/SEC EWA |
 Glenn N7VBW EC Spokane |
 Phil K7RZS Ray KD7TDD |
 ...the eastern Washington packet cluster. Spokane has several nodes and use their packet setup for linking the EOC to a good HF site, and for certain public service events. Yakima has a packet node as well but not to the extent of Spokane. Whitman is in process and Douglas/Chelan is seriously planning a setup. |
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