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Home My WebLink AboutOctober 11 Minutes Town of Los Altos Hills EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE October 01, 2013 @ 7:00 PM, LAH Council Chambers Roll call (10 members + 7 others): P = present, E = excused, no mark = absent Member Call Sign Attendance Jim Abraham W6EB P Dru Anderson KG6LAD P Bob Anderson KC6ZWG P Ray Egan W6FQY E Andy Fawcett KI6MAF E Jim Heintzelman KD6Y P Edwin R Jones, EC W7WPO P Andrew Kirk WB6CLS P Duncan MacMillan, Chair KI6VMY P Scott Overstreet N6NXI P Bob Rowe, Vice Chair AF6LD P Miles Seiver, Secretary KI6LDU E Sam Wood K6MSR P Others Present Call Sign Attendance Mark Bailey N6DY P Ray Collins KK6DZP P Bruce Martin CERT P John Pfefferle KJ6CBX P Carol Starbuck KK6FJW P Dave Stewart KJ6JQT P Gary Waldeck, Council Liaison/Mayor K6AIR P 1. The meeting was called to order at 7:00 p.m. by chair Duncan MacMillan KI6VMY, who initiated round-robin introductions due to the number of guests and took roll call (see attached ICS 211A Check-in List). The order of agenda items was modified to accommodate guests, as shown in v2 of the agenda, attached. 2. Review and approve past meeting minutes – Duncan led review of the minutes of the 9/03/2013 ECC meeting. Upon a motion by Jim Abraham W6EB, duly seconded, the minutes were unanimously approved, as written. 3. Public comments from the floor – Jim Abraham W6EB welcomed the guests and encouraged hams to join in on the Monday night nets. 4. Update on the County and State – Nothing to report by Ed Jones W7WPO. 5. Comments by Council Liaison – Nothing to report by Gary Waldeck K6AIR. 6. Old business – a. 24-hour drill & CERT ham communications – Duncan reflected on the 24-hour drill, noting that he was sure those who participated learned about the added dimensions of a long drill, including the need for more management of message traffic and scheduling 2 relief personnel. The CERT Incident Report seems fine, if filled out more completely before handing of to the ARK ham crew. Missing information specifying message priority, action target, and action requested were the biggest issues with messages to the EOC. Dave Stewart KJ6JQT and Bruce Martin provided comments on CERT perspective and Dave sought ECC interest in forming a working group to improve content and throughput of communications. "Process" and "pipe" subgroups were suggested with the following volunteering from the ECC: Process: Duncan and Dru Anderson KG6LAD Pipe: Jim Heintzelman KD6Y. Ray Egan W6FQYand Andy Fawcett KI6MAF will be approached to see it they can participate. b. "Now what?!" class for CERT hams, 9/17 – Duncan reported that class held by Larry Carr KE6AGJ, section emergency coordinator, went very well, with 13 students and the ~1:2 help of ECC members during the hands-on portion of the class. The following 5 members participated: Andy Fawcett, Andy Kirk WB6CLS, Dave Stewart, Ed Jones, Greg Olsen K6XM, and Duncan. Duncan will forward copies of Larry's presentation materials to all hands. c. Foothill EOC suitcase radio programming/testing 9/27 – Duncan noted that he, Andy F, Jim H Greg Olsen and he visited the Foothill EOC (Building 1900) to test the radio. Thanks to Andy for programming the Kenwood radio for our frequency list. Creating a quick reference guide and illustration of connections/placement are next steps. The suit case is now in the ARK. d. ECC activity summary & LAH website – Reporting for Ray W6FQY, Duncan noted that Ray will be reporting on member and associate participation at the November meeting and any adjustments will be suggested then. e. LAH website – Dru commented that she has only provided edits and that a longer version resulted from Marsha Hovey's review. Duncan hoped that the focus would be on telling hams, especially those not intimately associated with the ECC, what they should do in an emergency, one-page max and with as little jargon as possible. Such things as the Mike- Mike codes should be covered but lots of URLs should be minimized and used as footnotes in support of specific, simple instructions. It is hoped that a final draft can be produced for ECC review at the November meeting. f. Back-up EOC – Jim Abraham reported that an AT&T subcontractor has submitted a superficial plan to add mast-mounted controllers to the tree antenna. Their drawings did not show ECC antennas and the Town has advised the vendor in mid-September to go back to the drawing boards to provide a detailed implementation drawing/mitigation. Duncan wondered, as in the case of the very high bid for a standby antenna (last meeting), whether we shouldn't revisit re-routing the antenna heliax to an junction box outside the Heritage House and providing a second, remote connection to the Council Chambers, when/if needed. Perhaps that effort could take advantage of AT&T desire to add equipment to the tree. Jim mentioned his consultant friend again and an unsolicited proposal to provide an analysis probably makes sense even more now. More at the next meeting. g. 3.5 GHz radio application – Sam K6MSR noted that the 3.5 GHz radios stored at the Town corporate yard have been removed and he will remove the matched sets from the Heritage House radio room after this meeting. h. Vests & helmet update – No news from Duncan, who reported that the vendor has not responded yet. In response to comments on reflective stripes, he noted that they would 3 be provided but not to ANSI standards, based on not being able to find such a vendor with our desired radio pockets. 7. New business a. Monday night net check-in format discussion – Duncan expressed concern that we put our best, welcoming foot forward to new hams, mostly CERTs from Larry Carr's class, during Monday night nets. The script on the cheat sheet suggests calling for check-in #1, #2, etc. and is the recommended method. In the recent past a roll-call method of handling check-ins has been used on two occasions. The issues of roll calls is that it makes non-members wait until all members have been called; consumes more time than necessary waiting for members to respond who are not checking in; and makes it more difficult for hams to tell who is in what position for the round-robin, after check-ins are complete. Sam and Bob like the roll call method and everyone else urged them to use the suggested script of calling for check-in #1, #2, etc; thereby giving equal privileges to members and guests and associate members. As to the reporting of check-ins to SPECS, the consensus was that the last regular check-in should be asked to report back to SPECS. An attempt to report any late check-ins can be made but is not critical. In any event, we do not want to hold up SPECS in getting them our feedback, which we almost did this past week (SPECS net control could be heard wondering "...where is Los Altos Hills?"). b. Replacement for Miles through 01/2014 – In an email, Miles Seiver KI6LDU advised that a required course at Stanford meets on Tuesday evenings this quarter, making it impossible for him to attend meetings for the remainder of the year or to act as secretary. Not finding any volunteers, Duncan will continue acting as secretary. The consensus was the Miles should be excused for the remainder of the year and should remain a member. 8. Upcoming events (https://www.scc-ares-races.org/activities/events.php) italics = new listing a. Volunteer Victims for West Valley exercise, 10/05, 0700 - 1200, Saratoga b. Net Control in Disaster Comm. - Type II, 10/05, 0900, SV Public Safety HQ c. Quarterly EC Council meeting, 10/10, 1900, SCC EOC d. One-day license "ham cram" class at Pacificon, 10/12, 0800 - 1600, SC Marriott, SC e. Introduction to Emergency Comm., 10/23, 1800, 1000 Villa, MV f. CANCELED County-wide Comm. Exercise - MAC credit, 10/26, 0800, Central Park, SC g. MAC Type I - Planning Tabletop, 11/02, 0900, SV Public Safety HQ h. Amateur Radio License Testing "ham cram", 11/09, 0800+, Morgan Hill i. Fundamentals of Emergency Comm., 9/04, 1800, 1000 Villa, MV j. Los Altos Festival of Lights parade, 12/01, 1630, downtown Los Altos 9. Adjournment – There being no further business, it was moved and duly seconded to adjourn at 8:28 p.m., which was unanimously approved. Prepared and respectfully submitted by Duncan MacMillan for Miles Seiver, KI6LDU, secretary.