Huntington Beach RACES

ShakeOut 2009

At 10:15 a.m. on October 15, 2009, millions of Californians will participate in the largest earthquake drill ever!

The purpose of the ShakeOut is to practice how to protect ourselves during earthquakes, and to get prepared at work, school, and home.

HB RACES will be participating by conducting our annual school communication drill that morning. During the hours of 0900 to 1100 we’ll establish a communications net and dispatch communicators to district offices and public and private schools in our city.  Our communicators check-in with school administrators as they would if standard communication methods were overloaded or failed. Reminding district and school administrators of this vital backup communication link is a perfect complement to the ShakeOut drill. Our communication plan would provide official status to and from the Huntington Beach Emergency Operations Center and the schools in our city.

Tune in to our primary repeater Thursday morning and if you are a HB RACES communicator check-in to the net with your location and you’ll be given a location to report to. Drive safely and show our community how HB RACES can provide professional communications support in a time of need.

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In recognition of national fire prevention week, Huntington Beach’s Class 1 Fire Department hosted an open house at Gothard Station on Saturday, October 11th. Due to the tight city budget, the event was organized at the last minute once the ‘go ahead’ was obtained and limited to a single fire station. Apologies to those that weren’t aware of the event in time to participate.  The community was invited to meet local firefighters, tour the Gothard fire station, learn fire safety tips, see fire engines & trucks and observe fire fighting demonstrations. HB RACES and CERT were available to discuss community programs and showcase the aerial ATV capability we provide to the city. Using the PD Aero unit to transmit live video and the FD Hazmat unit to receive and record the live images HB RACES took visitors on a video ride-a-long as the helicopter took off from the adjacent PD hanger and orbited the Gothard station. Kids had fun making radio calls on our ham radio gear (while supervised) and seeing Sparky the fire safety mascot.

Some of our ham visitors included Seal Beach RACES assistant radio officer Mike Maronta, KC6YNQ as well as Tim & Marilyn Sawyer (KH6FL & WD6AWP) and Steve Albert (KE6OCE). Thanks to Brevyn Mettler (KI6FRG) , Steven Graboff(W6GOS), Manny Vizinho (KG6IQL) and Peter Barbour (N6RAS) who spent the afternoon visiting with the community and our firefighters.

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Huntington Beach will be participating in the annual City/County RACES & MOU drill October 3, 2009 from 0900-1100. HB RACES will be providing a voice link from the EOC and setup to receive and transmit ATV in the EOC. This annual drill focuses on cooperation and communication between adjacent cities and agencies as well as communications to/from our parent organization: OC RACES.

The documents below highlight the drill plan for today and include some notes by our training officer on the correct use of the ICS-213 message form. If you didn’t get to the EOC to participate today, glance at the documents and review Jim’s notes. These drill days help us stay focused on basic communication skills. Take some time to work on your knowledge and skills today.

 2009_draft_city_county_plan  ics213 annual_citycounty_2009_-_atv settraining

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Huntington Beach RACES will hold its August 10th meeting at 7:00 PM at the Orange County EOC (Loma Ridge).

OCRACES members will provide a tour of the EOC, and OCSD Emergency Communications Manager Marten Miller, KF6ZLQ, will give a presentation on the OCSD 800-MHz communications system. Awareness and training of RACES communication duties during an activation event will be discussed. Don’t miss this meeting. It has been several years since our last visit and many changes have taken place up on the hill at Loma Ridge.

Carpools will be departing from the Huntington Beach City Hall parking lot at 6:00 PM. Please be sure you are signed up on the attendance list which will circulate via email and our weekly net calls. This is a secure county site and all attendess must have and display a current HB RACES photo badge.

http://ocraces.org/
http://www.ocsd.org/

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ARRL Field Day

ARRL Field Day is the most popular on-the-air operating event in amateur radio. On the fourth full weekend in June, tens of thousands of amateur radio operators gather for a public demonstration of our service. Field Day is part educational event, part operating event, part public relations event – and ALL about FUN!

HB RACES will operate a 2009 ARRL Field Day station on Saturday, June 27^th. Our Field Day Captain Jeff Turlis (KE6BNS) invites you to participate in a Field Day Station in only the way Surf City, USA could host — right on the sandy beaches of Huntington Beach, CA. We’ll be operating the special event callsign W6O, having a potluck lunch, experimenting with antennas, kites, portable stations and visiting with all who attend. Our Training Officer Jim Hansen (KG6ZDP) and Joseph Yribe (KE6UPB) will be co-chairing our Safety Team to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Field Day is truly the time in which we bring amateur radio to Main Street USA. By setting up in parking lots, malls, Emergency Operations Centers, parks and even at home, amateur operators learn skills that will allow them to better serve their communities.  Setting up in these public venues gives added public relations value – their friends and neighbors can see and experience the fun and public service capability that their “ham radio” neighbors bring to the community.

Join in the fun! For more information on amateur radio and the ARRL – the national organization for Amateur Radio – visit www.arrl.org

Huntington Beach RACES Field Day

A short meeting will be held on Monday June 22 at 7pm in the EOC to finalize plans for the day.

Callsign:

W6O 

Location:

Beach Bluff Park at Pacific Coast Highway and Goldenwest Blvd

Time:

9am early birds begin setup

10am late sleepers begin setup

11am contesting period begins for radio contacts

Parking:

Operating stations will be on the beach bluff lot as space is available.Overflow parking available on the metered street and in the nearby residential streets

Talk-in and Logistics Net:

Huntington Beach City repeater on 145.140 (P/L 127.3)

 Web Links:

ARRL Field Day Site

Field Day Locator

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HB RACES will have a general meeting on Monday, May 11th at 1900 in the EOC. We have a full agenda for the evening including reviews of both the Baker to Vegas support event and the recent Fire Dispatch Drill. We’ll also be discussing upcoming events and activities like ARRL Field Day, July 4th events and a few others. Please attend and continue to learn more about HB RACES, your fellow communicators and our plans for the next few months.

We’re also expecting some guests and visitor’s who would like to learn more about HB RACES.  Be sure to welcome them and strike up a conversation about what you enjoy about being a communications volunteer for the city of Huntington Beach.

Location: HB City Hall at 2000 Main Street, Lower Level Emergency Operations Center. Talk-In assistance on our primary repeater 145.140 Mhz. Please use caution due to the construction area surrounding city hall buildings and try to arrive a few minutes early to sign in and get settled. We’re planning to begin promptly at 7pm.

Peter Barbour, N6RAS

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The attached audio file augments the Fire Department dispatch files Peter uploaded earlier this week. This one is recorded from a tactical channel where you’ll hear on scene communications from the incident on Warner St yesterday. We hams would do well to emulate these brief and to the point communications. And please notice that contact is always in to/from format. This recording is about 18 minutes long. Please listen to the entire recording.

Warner IC

73,
Tim

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The HB RACES Fire Dispatch Drill puts in place a backup communication network that is designed to replace normal fire dispatch communications for Huntington Beach Fire Department should they fail. It is essential to practice this communications plan to both evaluate and refine its capability and reestablish working relationships with fire personnel. Drills are essential for an effective and smooth transition to backup communication methods as well as maintaining confidence in HB RACES capabilities and communication effectiveness. This drill was previously conducted both in 2004 and 2005 and revealed dispatch delays in normal fire dispatch communications. Those delays were eliminated by changes in dispatch procedures and were not observed during the 2009 drill.

The 2009 Fire Dispatch Drill conducted last Sunday showed HB RACES is only as strong as the weakest link in the communication chain. During this drill some of our basic communications training was forgotten by many stations both in the field and at the net control stations. The impact of this failure caused confusion on the primary net, slowed down the relay of dispatch messages to the field and tarnished the fine reputation HB RACES has for effective communications for the city in time of need.
As the Chief Radio Officer of HB RACES I was disappointed by both my personal performance during the drill and management of our group’s effectiveness on the 2 meter net. This net was monitored during the drill by city fire personnel and many of our neighboring RACES organizations. We have much work to do as a group to recover from this recent deficiency. I encourage every RACES communicator to attend our HB RACES May 11th Membership Meeting for a formal debrief on the drill and the beginning of critical supplemental training workshops to immediately address the weaknesses observed.

In preparation for the communication training workshops please listen to several of the audio files embedded in this post for examples of the professional dispatch communications that take place every day in Huntington Beach. The primary goal of our backup dispatch communications network is to duplicate these communications on our 2 meter net. Our future success starts with a good understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish. The dispatches and tactical channel radio traffic are perfect examples of how brief and concise messages can be and still convey the right amount of information between individuals. Our supplemental training begins right now with LISTENING.

v038b v038c v038 v037 v036 v035 v034 v032 v031 v028 v027 v026 v025 v023 v022 v021b v021a v020 v019 v018 v017 v016 v014 v013 v012 v010 v009 v008 v007 v006 v005 v004 v003

Pick a Dispatch mp3 file from above and listen.

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We’re having two training workshops to focus on the FDOC dispatch area and field stations for the upcomming dispatch drill. Please attend one of these workshops. We’ll be meeting at the FDOC located in the basement and gathering in the parking area. 18311 Gothard Street, Huntington Beach, CA  92648. Please use caution driving on the property. Use the KH6FL/Repeater (City Hall Machine) for assistance arriving and parking.

When using the suction cup mount on fiberglass or other non-metallic surfaces you may find that your antenna will work significantly better if you provide a ground plane or counterpoise for the antenna to work with. Without a ground plane, most mag mount antennas perform poorly and exhibit a high VSWR. Two solutions to this problem are shown in the attach photos. In the first photo, 3 brass rods are shown spread out perpendicular to the antennas whip forming the ground plane; in the second photo, 4 orange stranded wires are shown. When using stranded wires, a small amount of tape is used to hold the wires in position on the fiberglass roof forming the ground plane.  The length of the rods or wire radials should be approximately 10% longer than a ¼ wavelength at the operating frequency. For 2 meters a ¼ wavelength is 19 inches, so the radial should be about 21 inches. The radial length is not critical something in the ballpark of 21 inches will in most cases work fine for a temporary antenna setup. We’ll be discussing these technical issues as well as other fundamentals of FDOC operations and Field Station operation.

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HB RACES will be workshopping procedures for our Fire Dispatch Communications capability on Monday, March 30, 2009 at 7pm in the EOC. We’ll have the Police Dispatch Shift Supervisor helping us learn the normal flow of dispatch information. We’ll also be focused on how we pass traffic, setup a station on city fire apparatus, dispatch terminology and much more. This training and related field exercise focus on how to quickly replace lost communications links to all fire apparatus in the city. In the event that Huntington Beach’s primary fire communication is unavailable HB RACES is prepared to activate a communications network that provides a backup means of dispatching resources within the city. HB RACES has practiced this communications network in the past and is anxious to once again show the Huntington Beach Fire Department that they can rely on HB RACES for professional communications within the city in times of need. The strong RACES and CERT programs within Huntington Beach are just one more example of how our city is committed to all our residents and visitor’s safety and security.

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