Multnomah County ARES

On Thursday January 21, I along with three other leadership team members, Deb KK7DEB, Adam KF7LJH, and Steve AF7DD, made a presentation at the monthly Hoodview Amateur Radio Club (HARC) meeting. Our focus was on the MCARES mission as well as providing an update on our comms trailer project. HARC made a donation to the trailer fund raising drive. The following evening, January 22, I gave a comms trailer update to the Portland Amateur Radio Club (PARC). PARC is a major sponsor of the trailer project.

On Sunday, February 8, I attended a Western Oregon Radio Club (WORC) D-Star workshop where I made several contacts and did some networking with WORC and OTVARC members. On February 9, I gave a brief recruitment presentation to the Multnomah Neighborhood Association meeting.

On Sunday January 25, members of the leadership team met to discuss and develop a new member recruitment strategy. On Monday February 8, Deb, Eli W7ELI, Steve and I met to continue the discussion on recruitment and new member strategy. I have made contact with six VEs to discuss their assistance in disseminating MCARES recruitment materials to hams who just passed their technician test or upgraded their license. Also, during this same time frame I have made several MCARES recruitment QSTs on the Heart Net, NET Net and the ARES D1 Net. Follow-up letters were sent to eight prospective members following the January general membership meeting.

In case you haven’t heard, Gresham ECC was issued our station callsign, which is WG7EOC.

We will be having an HF operator certification session at the Gresham ECC on Saturday, March 12, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. This is open to all ARRO certified MCARES members. To attend this session, contact Robert WX5TEX at RGAnglin [at] gmail [dot] com.

We are looking to staff several locations in the east half of Multnomah County, including several Gresham Fire stations as well as Troutdale and Fairview. If you or someone you know is interested in working on a team on the east side, contact Robert.

The Rover Team looks forward to participating in all the MCARES SETs and events that are planned for 2016. Many of us are also planning to join in on some of the exercises and training organized by the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) and Basic Emergency Earthquake Communication Node (BEECN) programs.

At 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 27, there will be an exercise of the BEECN system, and Rovers – and non-Rovers – are serving as net controls, fire station amateur radio operators (AROs), BEECN cache radio operators, and Roamers. Roamers are trouble-shooters who typically ride with a Portland Fire & Rescue staff person among the stations and BEECN sites, assisting with radio issues.

Several Rovers are also helping the NET program as trainers to begin the new NET ARO standards and certification program. Based largely on the MCARES ARRO certification program, the new standards will require AROs to demonstrate proficiency in a number of areas of operations. In addition to most of the MCARES ARRO Task List items, NET ARO candidates must demonstrate proficiency with fire station VHF and UHF (BEECN) radio go-kits, explain the ICS205 form, pass the FEMA IS 800 and IS 802 courses, and – in lieu of formal message handling – demonstrate competence with an abbreviated form called tactical message handling.

The Rover Team currently has 11 members. The Team members do not have a MCARES served agency but are instead committed to some other activity or agency in the event of a disaster. All of the members currently are NET members and have their respective NETs as their obligation in an emergency.

As we near the end of another successful year, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of the members that make Multnomah County ARES possible. Currently there are in excess of 70 active members in Multnomah County ARES. It takes us all to be a well operating unit.

This past year we have seen our operating skills and abilities grow by leaps and bounds. Thanks to the efforts of our membership, the trailer project has gone from a dream to being deployed on multiple training and operating occasions. This new tool will allow us to perform control and relay functions free from the shortcomings of our brick and mortar operating locations. In October, during the Disaster Relief Trials, we operated both a voice net and three different digital modes (video/still imagery/Winlink) from the field simultaneously. This included over six field stations and two mobile operating trailers coordinating the efforts of our radio operators. I was so impressed by your abilities during that event that I am ecstatic for the future.

Regarding our path forward, I have met with the Multnomah County Emergency Management Director, Chris Voss, and the Operations Manager, Alice Busch, and our directions are clear. We are to grow our ranks so that we can operate as many field deployable digital teams as possible. This will require a renewed recruitment and training effort. The leadership team has created the training outline for next year, and I’ll share details at the January meeting.

On the recruitment side of the house, we need to spread the word about our organization and mission. If you know anyone that would be a good fit with us, please encourage their participation. We are one small part of the massive task that is preparing Multnomah County for disaster, but I am confident in both the vision of our Emergency Management team and in our abilities as operators, and I will seek to provide the trained operators that the County Emergency Management team has asked for. Here’s to a great new year of growth and development!

First, thanks to James Bryant KD7WZI for his years of service to Oregon ARES and especially District 1.

Within recent weeks there have been lot of changes in Oregon ARES/RACES leadership. Bruce Bjerke K7BHB in Florence has been appointed to the top state position as Oregon Section Emergency Coordinator. One of his top priorities is to resurrect the District Emergency Coordinator structure within the state as most of these positions have been vacant for some time. As SEC, he has appointed me to the DEC-1 position. For the past several years, I have been in an Assistant SEC position organizing SETs.

Steve Taylor N7BEF has replaced Lynn Burrell KE7WME as Washington County EC. Lynn is now EC for the OEM Amateur Radio Unit in Salem.

I have been in ARES for many years in various positions and have been licensed for 45 years. I enjoy HF radio contesting as well. Thanks to all for your service.

Our County EM, Chris Voss, has requested that we develop mobile response teams with digital capability to serve various county communication needs. We also need to strengthen our served agency teams. This will require a focus on recruiting this year. Steve W7SRH, our PIO, and I will work together in this new recruitment effort and we will need everyone’s help.

Our vision is to have geographical teams of three to four operators that can be rapidly deployed. Let me know if you are interested in being on one of these teams. The first pilot team is the West County Mobile Team with Steve W7SRH as team leader. We hope to expand to other areas as our membership grows.

We hope to have the trailer finished in early 2016 and plan to put it to work in our recruitment effort. If you know of an emergency preparedness event that could be a recruitment opportunity, please let Steve or me know.

Welcome to our new members, Kirk KG7WXN, Bill KG7SEU, Lily KG7WYG, Leslie KG7VGL, Pete KG7MRZ, Lou KG7SUF, and Herman KG7ZBI. Please reach out and greet them at the January meeting.

It’s hard to believe that a year has already passed since we began our campaign to build an emergency communications trailer. Last October, in partnership with the Portland Amateur Radio Club, Multnomah County ARES launched a fundraising campaign to raise $20,000 to buy a cargo trailer and convert it into a mobile radio station that would be used for disaster relief, drills, education, and public outreach. Through a combination of an Indiegogo campaign, raffles, generous individuals and organizations – and a lot of gumption – we were able to purchase a 7×14-foot trailer that is quickly becoming an incredible communications and education asset.

We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who has donated both financially and with their talents to help make this project become a reality. Thanks to the craftsmanship of our members we’ve completed the flooring, walls and insulation, electrical wiring, and the cabinetry and work surfaces. And as of this writing, the AC and DC infrastructure is at 80% and getting dialed in. Lighting, ceiling, and graphics are in the near future.

We were awarded a grant from the state which will fund much of the radio equipment, including three VHF/UHF radios for voice and digital communications, an HF radio, generators, and more. In addition to this generous grant, we have also received donations from several corporations whom we would like to thank, including Repeaterbook.com, Tigertronics, Kantronics, DX Engineering, RIGOL, Home Depot, Ubiquity, Cisco, and Cradlepoint. That list is still growing every day.

Throughout its construction, the trailer has been constantly field tested through drills and public events including Walk MS, the Spring SET, and most recently, the Disaster Relief Trials. For this event, we utilized the trailer for net control and digital operations to provide race participant updates for the DRT staff. We were able to refine the trailer’s design from what we learned. Its most interesting test was an outing to a campground in the Mount Hood Wilderness to practice HF operation as well as analyze how best to operate remotely and independently from luxuries such as electricity and running water.

We’re hoping to have phase one of the trailer project complete in the first part of 2016. We also have a few “Phase 2” goals, including solar capabilities, which will be useful in making the trailer more resilient and functional, but we’ll need the continued support of the community to achieve these goals.

Please stay tuned for further updates on this project, and feel free to contact us with any questions and comments you have.