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HomeMy WebLinkAboutSeptember 1LAH_ECC-FINAL-Minutes_Sep-1-2015 1 Emergency Communications Committee: Final Meeting Minutes Tuesday, Sep. 1, 2015 Los Altos Hills City Council Chambers. 26379 Fremont Road, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 Roll call: (10 members; + 8 others): P = present, E = excused, no mark = absent Member Call Sign Attendance Jim Abraham, Co-Chair W6EB P Dru Anderson, Secretary KG6LAD P Bob Anderson KC6ZWG P Andy Fawcett KI6MAF P Jim Heintzelman KD6Y P Edwin R Jones, EC W7WPO P Andrew Kirk WB6CLS P Duncan MacMillan KI6VMY P Scott Overstreet, Co-Chair N6NXI P Sam Wood K6MSR P Others Present Call Sign Attendance Gary Waldeck, Council Liaison K6AIR E Neil Katin – associate AI6FI P Bill Lattin – associate KK6PCA P Greg Olsen - associate K6XM P Bert Raphael – associate KK6GNB P Bob Rowe – associate AF6LD P Maynard Stevenson – associate W7MVT P Ben H. L. Hu – CERT Recon AI6FY P Kjell Karlsson KD6BPP P 1. Roll Call: Co-chairs: Meeting called to order at 7:02 p.m. by Jim W6EB and Scott N6NXI. 2. ECC Minutes: Aug. 4. Neil AI6FI, Associate, took minutes notes on behalf of Dru KG6LAD, ECC Secretary, who was out of state. Dru prepared the minutes from Neil’s notes. Motion to approve the minutes was made by Andy Kirk WB6CLS, and was seconded by Jim Heintzelman KD6Y. Duncan brought forward several editorial changes & additions. The motion was revised to approval “with changes noted”, and on roll call vote, the motion passed unanimously. 3. Public comments from the floor: a. Tribute: Silent Key KF6DHX Bob Hall, a Charter ECC member & dedicated contributor. Maynard W7MVT shared a photo montage and written essay and led the group in reflecting on Bob Hall’s life achievements, contributions to community and friends, and as Maynard commented in his tribute “my life is richer for having known you,” a sentiment shared by the many members who worked with Bob. b. Duncan presented a video clip of the Town Council meeting in which Councilman Gary Waldeck, and ECC Liaison, proposed making the liaison to the ECC a voting member. Council deferred the discussion to its October meeting. Except for the finance committee, council liaisons to the various committees are non-voting. Committee views expressed were mixed on the idea. 4. Reports: a. SCC EC: Ed W7WPO, EC. Ed had nothing to report. LAH_ECC-FINAL-Minutes_Sep-1-2015 2 b. LAH Town Council Report: Gary K6AIR, councilman. Gary was not in attendance. c. Update on ECC Roster. Duncan KI6VMYsaid he will issue an updated roster in October, as there are only a couple of small changes at this time. d. Update on member/associate activity: Ray Egan. Ray was out of town. 5. Old Business: a. W7MVT ECC QRG (Quick Reference Guide): Update. Neil AI6FI. Neil reported that the subcommittee had another meeting and good progress is being made. The drafts of various document sections have been submitted to the online document management process, and the subcommittee members are in the process of reviewing each other’s input. He hopes after the next meeting, scheduled Sept. 28, that they will be ready to make it available for general ECC member/associate review. He noted that there have been some critical town emergency response infrastructure changes, with a lot of activities having transitioned to the CERT team, such as the critical sites check that used to be assigned to the ECC hams. Duncan indicated that there were about 65 sites that now are assigned to CERT field groups, except for the overpasses check, which tend to be assigned to the EOC radio room for assignment to available hams who have not been declared CERT hams. Scott reminded the group that we are at the beck and call of the town and are to go in directed expedition to find out status, per the Town Emergency Manager’s direction. CERT is more neighborhood based and under the coordination of the CERT IC on duty. Andy Fawcett brought up that the first QRG manual was in response to particular goals – the update needs to identify the current goals. The radio backbone to the radio room for the ARK to EOC. Ed Jones said the primary responsibility at the radio room is to establish communication with the county communications. Ed said that Ray, who’s one of the QRG subcommittee members, had asked for his view of the first 3 things to do as an ECC ham. Ed said: 1. Activate – establish the activation code: 2. Start the W6LAH local net, find out who’s out there; 3. Check in on county message net; and 4. Establish contact with the ARK. Duncan added that for ECC, the preference is for hams of all types who are available to check in right away, from wherever they are – home station, or on HT – and relay a Mike-Mike status to report to the county. Net control needs to find out where the hams checking in are, and their Mike-Mike code observation so we can relay a Mike-Mike assessment for LAH to the county as soon as possible. EOC radio room (or wherever net control of W6LAH is operating) acts as a check-in point for LAH hams (CERT hams, ECC hams and unaligned hams). Taking the Mike-Mike code observations is important to allow the county to triage its resources to various needs. b. LAH antenna ordinance update, Planning Commission subcommittee: Jim W6EB. Jim showed the group the proposed new ordinance on screen, and will email the draft to the ECC members. He commended Town Planning Director Susan Avila on her work, and said he thought the resulting proposal was at least equal to the Los Altos antenna code, which is pretty good. He said the existing ordinances would have additional wording specifically for Amateur Radio antennas or Emergency Communications antennas. Height limit would be 45 feet for non-retractable antennas and support structures and 75 feet for retractable antennas and support structures provided that they could be retracted to less than 45 feet when not in use. Antenna location would be less restrictive; this will provide for optimizing the location on a property. He said the request for an antenna would now be through administrative review, and not by site development review. He said the Planning Commission will be reviewing the proposal at its Oct. 1 meeting. Jim Heintzelman, KD6Y, made a motion, seconded by Bob Anderson KC6ZWG, that the committee endorses the proposed changes, as noted in the Aug. 24 proposed document to the town antenna ordinance, currently defined as Chapter 10 of the municipal code section. The roll call vote of the 10 members was unanimous approval of the motion. c. Status update on Antenna Tree upgrades: Jim W6EB & Scott N6NXI. Scott reported that the antenna plan he and Jim received from the cell company was not a correct rendering of the town antenna placement. They asked for an accurate drawing set and resubmittal to the Town. Scott reported that he had subsequently met with a survey team sent by the cell company to gather as- built data. The surveyors indicated that the drawings would be reworked as we requested and LAH_ECC-FINAL-Minutes_Sep-1-2015 3 resubmitted. Scott reported that he told the lead man that he would not approve a design that upset the radiation patterns of our antennas and that placing our antennas behind other antennas was totally unacceptable. d. Report on possible antenna locations for ICOM 7000 at EOC. Jim H. KD6Y. Jim said he did not see a HF dipole antenna location for the ICOM 7000 on the roof or elsewhere. Several suggestions for a HF solution were made, but nothing was finalized. Such a requirement was suggested for any new EOC/multi-purpose building design. e. Radio Room/EOC maintenance list. Andy KI6MAF/Dru KG6LAD. There was a brief discussion of general radio room maintenance. Andy has loaded the information provided by Marsha Hovey for EOC operation on the radio room computer desktop. f. Labeling/securing keys/access to equipment for emergency operation. There was discussion of methods for keeping the keys to cabinets or other equipment accessible, yet secure. No firm action was taken. g. Decision on language front/back on ID card for feedback to M. Hovey, emergency planner. Dru KG6LAD. It was agreed that Dru, Ed, Scott, and Jim A. will come up with what’s needed for the ECC group ID card, and bring it back to the committee for review, before sending to Marsha. h. Future drill planning & remaining objectives for 2015 activities. Ed W7WPO/Scott N6NXI. Ed noted that the fall schedule starts to coincide with the holiday season; he suggested that the group target the next drill for January, 2016. 6. New Business: a. Report from Scott N6NXI on generator test discussion w/town engineer. Scott said he had a brief discussion with the town engineer regarding testing of the generator. Currently, the test amounts to firing it up to ensure it starts and load testing is not part of the test. The group was in general agreement that a more thorough “load” test would be appropriate on a regular basis to ensure that the generator indeed smoothly transitions the power to the equipment needed to operate the EOC. There was a motion made by Dru KG6LAD, seconded by Scott N6NXI, to ensure that the generator is tested under load. Roll call vote was unanimous. 7. Tech Talk: "How frequently do you check your frequencies?!" a. Scott N6NXI, Dru KG6LAD, & the group. Scott and Dru cited that there seems to be very little regular monitoring of the repeaters – LAH and SPECS – by the group. Dru suggested that we return to a practice that worked well in the past: 1. If there’s smokin’ or shakin’, turn on the radio and let people know you’re there. And/or 2. Agree that daily, we check in at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., if we can, to have a sustained connection and that, in a situation, we at least check in each hour on the hour. Scott suggested people leave the mobile home stations on, turn them down so they’re not disruptive, but audible enough to hear a call. Dru also noted that the frequencies we should “frequent” ought to be what is included on the back of an ID card. The guideline for this should be covered in the QRG. 8. Upcoming: a. September/October: County training/activity schedule at: https://www.scc-ares-races.org/activities/events.php b. September/October: CERT activity schedule, emergency prep information: http://www.lahcfd.org/community-programs/public-classes c. Online: Self-paced, FEMA ICS/NIMS courses, http://training.fema.gov/ 9. Adjourn: Motion by Bob KC6ZWG, seconded by Sam K6MSR, to adjourn, 9 p.m. Unanimous approval. Respectfully submitted: Dru Anderson KG6LAD, ECC Secretary.