President's Statement for July 2006

By Alan Sims KG4MMG

Hi Group - This year's Field Day location was a very good choice. It was a lot cooler shelter from rain and wind than last year, with good footing and lots of antenna room. Plus, there was less noise on the air and from surroundings. Thanks to all who chipped in.  GOOD JOB!

It's time to work on our Go Kits and lists of preparedness items again folks. We can never be "ready enough" to handle the emergencies and possible disaster situations that are always in today's newscasts. Some people think all they need do is wait for the emergency and just step forward as volunteers. You and I know that, although well intentioned, that naïve attitude is not going to cut it with our served agencies. Please use the Boy Scout motto in your thinking: "Be Prepared". Speaking of which, thanks to all of you who have volunteered in training the Scouts at our nearby Boy Scout camp. Nice job.  – Alan KG4MMG

Secretary's Notes –

·        Minutes of our Meetings are available via e-mail, since we have dispensed with reading them due to the time constraints in our meeting locations. If you would like a copy of the last month's minutes, just e-mail or call me, or call your Board Member at Large, Dick Wolf WI8X.

·        A METERS "Ham Class" started Saturday July 1st with METERS' Training Officer, Dick Wolf WI8X, and a team of instructors, devoting Saturday mornings to teach the basics for nine new Technician prospects. Classes are being taught at Grace LutheranChurch, 9076 Middlebrook Pike in West Knoxville. Cost was only for the New ARRL Technician Class Manual, at  $20. Volunteer examiners will be available at conclusion of the program to administer the Technician test.

·        Nominations for our September election for the Board of Directors, will be called for by the Nominating Committee at the July 25^thMembership meeting. This year's Nominating Committee consists of Merle Growden KD6FBT, Jerry Moore AF1P, and Tyra Buczkowski AI4KG. Please review Article IV and Article V of the Bylaws for election procedures, and if you or someone you'd like to see serve on the Board is ready to go to work, please talk to one of the members of the Nominating Committee, or better yet, give them a note stating your recommendations.

·        Field Day was June 24 & 25 and Chairperson K9GWB had 35 member/participants working and manning the stations. Along with your exceptional assistance, Connie had two other factors that made this the best performance ever: 1) the hilltop undercover location at Lake Shore Park, and 2) the use of the air-conditioned TFFC portable potty. Thanks to you Connie and all METERS members and friends who participated. -- Larry W8JYQ

Treasurer Talk! 

By Dave Ogle KE4YBZ

For several meetings to come, we will have our New METERS logo patches available (for paid members only). These are Iron-On Patches, suitable for your favorite jacket, vest or even a shirt... to show your affiliation to METERS, and your commitment to emergency communications.  These patches are $3 each, or TWO for $5.  Some folks have already bought their supply, and once they're gone, it may be a while before we can get more. Add these to your garment and show your METERS pride!  SUPPLIES ARE LIMITED, so get yours Today! 

Thanks   - Dave KE4YBZ

Field Day 2006

From Connie Harrison K9GWB

Congratulations METERS members: We had a great Field Day turnout, and racked up our best score in several years, thanks to your participation, and the cooperation of Ms Vance of the Tennessee Department of Health, who supervises our Lake Shore Park location, and of course the Tennessee Federation of Fire Chaplains, who provided the well-equipped (and air- conditioned) rest-room trailer. Our score, as we go to print on this newsletter, was 2,322 points, with 509 contacts. Thanks to those of you who worked so diligently on setting up the antennas, the tables, the equipment, and the support equipment: generators, batteries, solar panels, computers, etc. And, thanks to all who donated their funds and time to this event. All of us, your friends in METERS, are grateful for your effort and support.

What Makes a Healthy Radio Club?

From an article by Dee Logan, W1HEO, via Gary AG4XO and Larry W8JYQ

This is paraphrased  from a paper by Dee Logan W1HEO, aimed at the standard "social 'ham' club", but a lot of Dee's advice is applicable to our METERS organization. Our challenge, as a true service oriented group, as opposed to the social groups that we may also belong to, is to adopt some of Dee's suggestions to make our activities enjoyable as well as functional.

Be Friendly - One of Dee's key pieces of advice is to be friendly, greet each other, make visitors and newcomers feel welcome. During introductions try to write down the names of people you don't know and afterward introduce yourself and get to know a bit more about them. Because we have a mission, it is most important for all of us to be supportive of one another, and accepting of the other guy's limitations and foibles. Helping each other is at least as important as our service goal of helping our communities. We all need to be reaching out to the best of our abilities.

Give Them What They Want – In our case, your comments on our meeting content, as to how it is useful to you and the group, will help all of us get some real benefit in the long run. If there are things going on that you don't like, we have a non-confrontational method for you to let your Board know about it. That method is to let the Board Member at Large (BML) know your views, along with your suggestions for improvements. We need all the input we can muster.

Program Ideas – If you would like a specific technical topic described in depth, please write it down, and call (or e-mail) the BML or any Board member, or if you know of a good speaker on some tech topic, please let the BML know so we can get that person on the program at a future meeting. If you have done some experimenting, or have built something new, or have a new rig that you would like to tell the members about, again please let the BML or any officer know about it so that topic can go on the meeting agenda.

Equipment Reviews – Along the line of the preceding item, if you have some new things and have learned enough to talk about your experience please call the BML or a Board member so we can get you on the agenda for a short discussion of your experience. We all need to know what the other person is doing and experiencing with his/her equipment, and that includes antennas, generators, solar devices, HT's, etc. We'd like to know both the pros and the cons. 

Stay Active – while Dee's advice seems to pertain to social events, our idea of staying active also includes volunteering for METERS committees and hospital teams that are a vital part of our mission. We are also in need of folks to set up and man our tables at hamfests for a few hours.

Recruit New Members– "Clubs must recruit new members to insure their survival. Members leave for various reasons, and without a plan to replace them clubs will stagnate. Promotion is important." – An example: our Membership Committee is always in need of friendly people to promote our programs and activities. -- We have more potential assignments for our members than we have members to fill them. Some of our hospital teams consist of only one member who may be available to serve at that location when called. These hospital assignments need multiple back-up operators to assure that the station is manned over the duration of any emergency. 

Serve Cake and Donuts – OK he didn't say that, but you know that we try to do that once or twice a year, like at the Christmas party, and if you have some thoughts along those lines, please let the board know. If you're a good cook we need to know that too!  

The ARES E-Letter from ARRL

June 21, 2006  (Edited by Rick Palm K1CE)

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(Reduced to fit our METERS Newsletter –Ed.)

+ FOREST FIRES IN FLORIDA– (This may be of interest to those of us asked to assist with fire fighting activities in our nearby state and national forests. Note how nice it would be to have a portable communication trailer. –Ed.) On May 9, four Seminole county ARES/RACES members went with fire personnel to VolusiaCounty to support forest fire fighting at New Smyrna Beach. A FL Division of Forestry trailer was used and is equipped with a 100-foot crank-up tower, VHF repeater and 64 hand held radios. -- Dick Fess, K4FUY, EC Seminole County FLARES/RACES

+ RED CROSS DISASTER ASSESSMENT TRAINING IN MASSACHUSETTS

Red Cross' Central Massachusetts Chapter recently provided training in PDA, "Preliminary Disaster Assessment", to Worcester Emergency Communications Team (WECT) amateurs, managed by Mark Rubin, WB1ARZ. Hams were trained to assist the Red Cross in the earliest stages of disaster response, including how to recognize and report observations of the scope of a disaster and factors affecting disaster relief delivery. Examples of the observations requested include the geographic boundaries of the affected area, numbers of dwellings

impacted, demographics of the populations affected, status of utilities and roads, and other factors affecting service delivery. By providing spot reports of these data to the Red Cross Chapter, the hams can play a role in expediting disaster relief. The training was presented by Monty Plough, KB1HXZ, and Tom Carrigan, NE1R, both of whom are active with Red Cross Disaster Services, and was well attended by hams from the Central Massachusettsarea and Emergency

Management officials. -- Tom Carrigan, NE1R

+ HOSPITAL DISASTER SUPPORT COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM SERVES, DRILLS

Orange County, California - On May 10, eight HDCSC members worked at the St. Joseph Hospital in Orange to provide back up communication during major phone work. To have good communications with the hams inside the hospital and maintain communications with the base station, one member put his car on the roof of the parking structure, erected a "big stick" antenna, dropped coax over the side to the security office and hooked up to his radio. With phones going down throughout the work and at times all phones being down, the operators were kept busy. There were "stat pages" called down to the PBX and numerous contacts between ICU, ED and the lab and pharmacy. Before the night was over, HDSCS communicators also assisted in calling a "Code Blue" from the CCU and facilitating a report from a Children's Hospital unit to the OR when a sick baby needed emergency surgery. 

The next morning the operators were up participating in a 12-hospital earthquake drill. HDSCS simulated a "Core Team" response, which is an automatic response to check on hospitals and go to the county EOC. Some hospitals simulated evacuations of their command post locations necessitating, once again, the need for HDSCS operators' portability and flexibility. The drill lasted for three hours. Twenty-three HDSCS members participated in this daytime drill. More activity on the horizon: HDSCS will be operating Field Day at the Huntington Beach Hospital. -- April Moell, WA6OPS, EC, Hospital Disaster Support Communications System <emcom4hosp@aol.com> and <www.hdscs.org>

+ VIRGINA ARES GROUP'S "PROJECT WHERE?"

Under the leadership of "cool EC" Alan Bosch, KO4ALA, the Arlington, Virginia ARES collected the latitude and longitude of local shelter locations during shelter communications checks. Coordinates were badly needed by hams responding to Hurricane Katrina. James Olson, W4JO, wrote: "Most useful equipment that I wish I had brought was a GPS receiver with detailed mapping display. With road signs missing, the GPS could find your way. This would also be especially helpful if the Red Cross were to give us the GPS coordinates of the shelters

that we were heading out to serve." Bosch has now started "Project Where?" to collect the coordinates of other locations including hospitals, and nursing homes, and then exchanging this information with other local ARES groups.

To get the coordinates for the local Red Cross chapter, school, shelter, Salvation Army unit, and others, search the name in the Geographical Names Information System (GNIS) database: <http://geonames.usgs.gov>. To find the coordinates of the Red Cross chapter, for example, go to the geonames homepage, select "Domestic Names," then select "search GNIS" and enter "Red Cross"

into the GNIS database as the "feature name." Next enter the name of the state and county. The database will return the appropriate coordinates along with the elevation of that feature and the name of the USGS 1:24,000 topographic map for that location. -- Jim Hastings, K9AUC <k9auc@arrl.net>

+ RESOURCE: COMMUNICATIONS ACADEMY SERVES NORTHWEST EMCOMMS

Communications Academy is a non-profit coalition of volunteer communications teams providing training to the Pacific Northwest. By providing a once-a-year large-scale venue for training, volunteer communicators learn emergency management, communications techniques and protocols, real-life emergency responses, and other related subjects.

The Communications Academy is open to anyone with an interest in emergency communications, volunteer or professional. The presentations are designed to promote the development of knowledgeable, skilled emergency communicators who will support their local communities during a disaster or emergency response. Readers can get handouts and information at its Web site:

<http://www.commacademy.org/2006/handouts.php> -- Communications Academy

+ NEW ONLINE TRAINING COURSE ON RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

FEMA's NIMS Integration Center and Emergency Management Institute have made available new online, interactive Web-based training that will help incident managers establish NIMS-related systems that will help them get the resources they need to respond to an emergency or disaster. Resource management is an ongoing process that establishes systems to describe, inventory, request and track resources. The systems are used during deployment or recall of resources in connection with an incident.

Resource management is a key component of the National Incident Management System (NIMS), which standardizes the procedures and functions involved in the resource management process. The course is called IS-703 NIMS Resource Management and demonstrates how resources, such as personnel, teams, facilities, equipment and supplies, are managed through advance planning, resource

identification and ordering, categorizing resources, use of agreements, acquisition management, management information systems, and protocols for ordering, mobilizing and dispatching. To take the course on-line go to <http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/is/is703.asp>

+ LETTERS: HTs, BUT NO HELMETS

Brevard County, Florida -- During a recent county disaster drill, responders were expected to arrive on the scene ready for deployment. Fire responders showed up in full fire gear, Police in full police gear, CERT members with appropriate gear including helmet, orange safety vest, long pants, shirt, heavy shoes, gloves, face mask, flashlight, as well as HT, and necessary tools. Our ARES members showed up only with their HT, with some in shorts, sandals, no headgear nor uniform/identification of any kind.

ARES responders need to meet the same equipment standards as Fire, Police and CERT personnel. Had ARES members attending our mock drill arrived and reported for an actual event, they wouldn't have been deemed prepared and likely would be sent to NIMS-IC "camp" for training. ARES/ARRL needs to develop gear standards. ARES personnel need to arrive on the emergency site ready to be deployed. Prepared for deployment means ARES members having more than the clothing on their backs and an HT (with only one set of batteries) in their hand! -- Lyle Schultz, KI4MYT, Titusville, Florida

+ RESPONSE: ARECC COURSES

The observations of the Crepeaus' [May issue] on Katrina and Wilma are worthy of much consideration, as they are borne out of direct experience in those disasters. With regard to their opinion that the ARRL ARECC courses should be required, the courses should first be updated to be NIMS compliant. Part of this effort includes making message forms and standards using plain language, replacing the codes and jargon. All the ARRL courses should be updated before we consider mandating them for ARES membership.

If they (these courses) are going to be required, they should also be online as are the required FEMA courses, and cost the same as the FEMA courses in that format. Of course, if one wishes to buy the services of the current Web site ARRL utilizes, in order to take the course and be mentored, one should expect to pay for it. Similarly, if one wishes to purchase a hard copy of the course materials from ARRL, one should expect to pay for it, since it costs to print. But having a PDF file of the course materials and questions, such as FEMA does, available free on-line would be a low-cost, low-maintenance proposition. Taking the test, once materials are learned from the downloaded PDFs, from an appropriate VE at the current cost would then be a low-cost alternative and make it easier for all hams to complete any ARECC course.

-- Bill Farnham, KI4FZT, EC Roane County, Tennessee

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Murphy's Technology Laws

From the Old Professor

Murphy's Technology Law #1 -- You can never tell which way the train went by looking at the track. (Try to keep your head off the track while listening for the train!)

Murphy's Technology Law #2 -- Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

Murphy's Technology Law #3 -- Technology is dominated by those who manage what they do not understand. (But who Sound like they do! Sometimes they even Think they do!)

Murphy's Technology Law #4 -- If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

Murphy's Technology Law #5 -- All great discoveries are made by mistake.

Murphy's Technology Law #6 -- Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.

Murphy's Technology Law #7 -- All's well that ends... period.

Murphy's Technology Law #8 -- A meeting is an event at which minutes are kept and hours are lost. (Let's limit our meeting minutes to one page!)

Murphy's Technology Law #9 -- The first myth of management is that it exists.

Murphy's Technology Law #10 -- A failure will not appear until a product has passed final inspection.

Murphy's Technology Law #11 -- New systems generate new problems.

Murphy's Technology Law #12 -- Any given program, when running, is obsolete. (This must be the Microsoft motto!)

Murphy's Technology Law #13 -- A computer makes as many mistakes in two seconds as 20 men working 20 years make.