NE-FL D-STAR System

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Archive for category Flagler EOC

Flagler EOC Analog Repeater Equipment

Mar 18

Posted by mikelee in Flagler EOC | No Comments

An assessment at the Flagler County EOC last Sunday revealed a number of Motorola VHF repeaters and duplexers that were in good condition and could be re-deployed for Amateur use. Among the large quantify of equipment, we found the following which will have new homes in the near future:

  • Yaesu VXR-9000 Commercial VHF repeater (redeployed from the Sheriff’s Office tower due to interferance), in like-new condition with a VHF ferrite isolator
  • Motorola Micor Repeaters (3) on VHF, formerly for fire dispatch and associated uses, all of which appear to be in servicible condition,
  • Kendecom VHF Repeater, in excellent condition
  • Tx/Rx Systems 6-cavity VHF duplexer, in virtually new condition

All of this equipment will be put on a service bench in the near future to determine ability for redeployment, as well as what replacement parts or service might be required.

Those in the community who would like to participate in the refurbishment and deployment of this and other equipment should contact Mike (wb6rth@arrl.net) or Phil (philmcelrath@natca.net) at your earliest convenience.

Flagler EOC Antenna Assessment on SUNDAY Afternoon

Mar 12

Posted by mikelee in ARES Events, Flagler EOC | No Comments

On Sunday 13-March at 14:00, we will be doing an assessment of the EOC’s antenna farm, which was recently affected by a lightning strike. The entire antenna system for all the radios which serve the EOC’s radio room will be reviewed, with a recommendation made for all necessary changes and upgrades. Troy Harper, Chief of Emergency Services, has allocated a reasonable amount of funding for the replacements and upgrades – our job is to maximize the value for each dollar spent and to insure that it all WORKS..!!

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We will be starting at 14:00 and expect to continue to about 18:00. We need two teams – (1) to review the antenna farm and (2) to assess all of the surplus inventory to determine what is usable versus needs to be disposed.

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All amateurs are invited to join – if you are not currently an FEMV member, we can sign you up on site – if you already have an FEMV badge, you’re always welcome to join these activities. Both Troy Harper and Frank Sanita have authorized this event and will be onsite for most, if not all of this time.

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Please RSVP to wb6rth@arrl.net if you can dedicate some time for the activity, so that we can start making task assignments.

Flagler ARES Meeting – Take Aways

Sep 17

Posted by mikelee in Flagler ARES Admin, Flagler EOC | No Comments

Wednesday evening’s Flagler ARES meeting was primarily the presentation given by Troy Harper, Flagler Emergency Services Chief – regarding the new Flagler Emergency Management Volunteer (FEMV) program that the County is starting and self-managing.

Troy presented the why’s and wherefore’s of the program – all common-sense approaches to solving problems like liability, insurance and outside groups with different agendas which may not be consistent with his County organization.

One of the things that the new organization will be doing, is “assessments” of potential candidates, as well as background checks for ALL applicants (including yours truly) – again, all good things.

All hams, regardless of “group affiliation” need to understand that acceptance into this new group IS NOT AN ENTITLEMENT – the County will be looking for specific types of individuals (skills, experience, personality, team-work, etc) that fulfill THEIR MISSION – and may choose to graciously decline some applications (including mine – if can’t offer something that is of value to them, or if my cost-benefit is too low for their mission).

These are all MY words, not Troy’s (I am not now, and have never been, authorized to speak on their behalf) – but I mention them to emphasize that THIS IS ALL ABOUT SERVING THE EOC’s AGENDA – not our own individual or group aggrandizement.

If you have a pure heart for community service, then we encourage you to apply – they are a great organization that wants to do great things for this community.

more tk

Flagler Emergency – Volunteer Briefings Scheduled

Sep 7

Posted by mikelee in Flagler ARES Admin, Flagler EOC | No Comments

Flagler Emergency Services will be holding two briefing sessions for all interested in volunteering their time and services to the agency on a go-forward basis.

As of last week, former relationships with volunteer coordinating agencies have been severed, as the County begins the process of self-managing their volunteer base.

The briefing sessions are open to ALL who would like to attend – and will be hosted by Flagler Emergency Services employees (not clubs or volunteer groups) – this is an official function sanctioned by Troy Harper himself and managed by his hand-picked designates. All meetings will be held in the training room of the Emergency Operations Center.

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  • Wednesday, 15-Sept at 15:00 and
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  • Wednesday 22-Sept at 18:00

Both meetings will be identical, so there is no need to attend both – either will be fine. Troy and his staff have arranged different times in order to accommodate as many people as possible, realizing that some work day-shift while others may work at night.

I encourage all who are in the Flagler County area to attend one of the sessions, since this is a MAJOR revamp in the manner which the County seeks to recruite, retain, train and deploy their volunteers going forward..!!

Below is the official email that came from Troy earlier today:

Above: Flagler Emergency Services – Volunteer Meetings (click to enlarge)

Flagler EOC Revamps Volunteer Program

Sep 4

Posted by mikelee in ARES Meetings - by County, ARES Training, Flagler ARES Admin, Flagler EOC | No Comments

Well, today is the day..!! This has been a long time coming, but the official announcement of the restructuring of the Flagler Emergency Services Volunteer program has begun.

Previously, the County depended on volunteer groups to obtain their resources – groups like FESV, FECA, CERT, REACT – while it has worked, there have been some persistent problems. As you can imagine, individual clubs have their own agenda (most times in a good way) – but sometimes their agenda is in conflict with the needs of the agencies that they serve (like when clubs solicit the community for “donations” using the name of Flagler Emergency, without the knowledge or consent of the Agency).

This is specifically why A.R.E.S. is NOT a Club – but a nationally recognized Service Organization, with formal MOUs (Memorandum of Understanding) with local, State and National  governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations and agencies.

As of this announcement (link and image capture below), Flagler County has decided to recruit and retain volunteers under their own management. All recruits must pass criminal background checks, be credentialed, trained and certified to operate various positions and types of equipment. Frank Sanita (AA4FS) is the designated Volunteer Coordinator for Flagler Emergency and is a credentialed employee of the county, serving in an official capacity. We have had the privilege of working closely with Frank over the last 8 months – knowing that the restructuring was going to happen (we’ve known for many months). Frank is a retired LEO from New York, having put his life on the line numerous times in the past – and now serves in a planning, mitigation and response role for Flagler County.

As fair warning (as we have said all along), all Flagler ARES members will need to submit to Flagler County credentialing requirements in order to serve in EOC related operations – however, this will not be required if you only want to serve in non-EOC related functions (like MS-150, etc). Also, completion of the ICS classes (ICS-100, 200, 700 and 800) will be required by the County, as these are minimum standards for all County employees. The classes are free, online and are not difficult to complete.

More information will be forthcoming from Robby Creal, your Flagler EC at the next ARES Meeting.
Below is the announcement and the link to the full content.

Above: Flagler Emergency Volunteer Restructuring (click to enlarge)

Full text at: http://www.flagleremergency.com/pages.php?pid=75

Flagler ARES Meeting – TONIGHT at 19:00

Aug 18

Posted by mikelee in ARES Events, Flagler ARES Admin, Flagler EOC | No Comments

at the Flagler County EOC – Robbie will be discussing the planning and training for the Bike MS-150 event for October 2-3. We will also have EMCOMM-1 at the EOC for those who are interested in seeing one version of an emcomm vehicle. See you there..!!

Flagler ARES meeting – Wednesday at 19:00

Aug 16

Posted by mikelee in ARES Events, Flagler ARES Admin, Flagler EOC | No Comments

Reminder : the next Flagler ARES meeting will be on Wednesday evening at 19:00 at the Flagler County EOC. We will be discussing EMCOMM vehicles. I will be giving a short presentation about the building of EMCOMM-1 and it’s constant evolution over the  years. All are welcome.

Flagler ARES Meeting – TONIGHT

Jul 21

Posted by mikelee in Flagler ARES Admin, Flagler EOC | No Comments

19:00 at the Flagler EOC in Bunnell.

This is Robbie’s first meeting at the EC – we’ll be sharing additional information about the upcoming MS-150 event, including organization structure, exercises, and event planning details.

See you there..!!

MS-150 for 2010 to use ARES Resources

Jul 7

Posted by mikelee in ARES Training, Flagler EOC, NET Operations, Volusia ARES Admin | 1 Comment

IT’S OFFICIAL – the MS-150 event in St. Johns, Flagler and Volusia Counties this year will be using ARES resources from Crown and East Coast Districts. Doug (N4FPS) and Phil (K5BBC) were part of the coordinating committee meeting which occurred last night (Tuesday – 06-July) as part of our offer to bring significant ARES resources to bear on this year’s event. Doug and I started discussing this event back in January and Doug has been the primary interface point  staring with our original outreach to the MS-150 committee back in February.

We have been up-front with the committee about our disappointment in the past year’s Amateur Radio preparation for the event and have committed to making a MAJOR CHANGE in the way we serve this event and their organizers – starting with being involved from the beginning of the planning stages months prior to the event. You can expect a very structured, NIMS-style coordination and Chain-of-Command both before, during and after the event. We will be hosting preparation events, including full dry-run, full-course and table-top exercises prior to the event. The route is now known to us (95% probability) and we will be checking repeater coverage (both mobile and hand-held) in the next few weeks. Both analog and D-Star will be used, but since not everybody has D-Star, it will only be used for situations which require it’s unique capabilites. Temporary repeaters, including mobile and temporary-building mounted will be installed and tested WEEKS in advance of the event. If you are accustomed to just showing-up the day of the event and working – you will be very disappointed, since we will likely not accept same-day resource assignments. This event will be a model for how we serve special events in the future – planning, coordination and chain-of-command. In short, a professional level response. As one of our guys put it “… this cannot be a goat-rope, like in years past”.

Our goal is to commit in excess of 40-50 operators for each of the two days of the event, recruited from Duval, Putnam, Clay, St. Johns, Flagler and Volusia Counties. This will require a massive coordination effort. We will start taking sign-ups in the next few weeks, so stay-tuned here and on the ARES websites throughout Crown and East Coast Districts.

Note – you do NOT need to be an ARES member in order to participate. For those in Volusia – this will likely NOT be a RACES activation – therefore, we wholeheartedly welcome the DBARA members to join in supporting this event – in fact, it’s quite possible that a DBARA member could be the coordination point for Volusia County, if necessary. This event is supported by both the Crown District DEC (Doug – N4FPS) and the East Coast DEC (myself) – and we would welcome the participation from any and all licensed amateurs.

More details, as well as a tentative schedule for orientation, training and dry-runs will be posted in the next few weeks, with updates as necessary.

Flagler ARES-EC – Robbie Creal (KG4HUF)

Jun 28

Posted by mikelee in Flagler ARES Admin, Flagler EOC | 1 Comment

I am pleased to announce that Robbie Creal (KG4HUF) has been appointed the new ARRL/ARS Emergency Coordinator (EC) for Flagler County, filling a vacancy which has been in existence for almost 12 months after the sudden departure of the former EC and DEC for Flagler County.

Robbie comes to the position with a career lifetime in emergency services, having recently retired as the Chief of the Flagler Beach Fire Department, and is well known to the Amateur community as well as local government officials. Robbie is also the primary coordinator for for the Flagler Skywarn program – administered by the National Weather Service, with participation from Amateur Radio, GMRS and citizen spotters. Flagler County is one of the most active Skywarn areas in the entire program, largely due to the work of Robbie and Bob Pickering (KB4RSY) from Flagler Emergency Services.

Reconstruction and revitalization of the Flagler ARES program will be Robbie’s #1 priority. Given his stature and the respect that he has earned amongst the amateur community and Flagler County officials, I am confident that he will quickly have his team at full capacity for the upcoming Hurricane Season.

As District Emergency Coordinator for Flagler and Volusia Counties, I encourage each of you to “pitch-in” and give Robbie your full support. He has a big job ahead of him – and he will need all of our individual and collective support.

Congratulations and my thanks to Robbie – our new Flagler County EC..!!

ML – 28-June-2010