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Home My WebLink AboutSeptember 5LAHECC_Minutes_170905-FINAL.docx 1 Emergency Communications Committee Minutes Tuesday, September 5, 2017, 7 – 9 p.m. LAH Town Hall Council Chambers: 26379 Fremont Road, Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 Members Call Sign Attendance Dru Anderson, Co-Chair KG6LAD P Bob Anderson KC6ZWG P Jim Heintzelman KD6Y P Ben H. L. Hu, Secretary KK6HH P Edwin R Jones W7WPO P Andrew Kirk WB6CLS P Scott Overstreet, Co-Chair N6NXI P Sam Wood K6MSR E Council/Staff ------ Gary Waldeck, Council Liaison K6AIR A Associate Members ------ Ray Egan W6FQY P Peter Evans AI6MV P Bill Gibbons K6GH P Neil Katin, EC K2LL P Kjell Karlsson KD6BPP P Greg Olsen K6XM P Duncan MacMillan, ECC past Secretary KI6VMY P Bill Lattin KJ6JQT P 1.Roll Call: Co-chair Dru Anderson KG6LAD called the meeting to order @ 1900 hours and Ben KK6HH took the roll call. Attendance (15): 7 members, and 8 associates. 2.Minutes approved: Noting the presence of a quorum of 5+ members, Dru called for a motion to approve the August minutes. Jim Heintzelman KD6Y, moved to approve the minutes, seconded by Bob Anderson KC6ZWG. The August minutes, prepared by outgoing secretary Duncan MacMillan KI6VMY were approved unanimously. 3.Public comments from the floor: a.Neil K2LL reported the notice of a free weekly three-hour course lasting for 12 weeks offered by Santa Clara County Sheriff Office to familiarize the public about the work of the Sheriff’s department. Neil said he would provide details in an email later. LAHECC_Minutes_170905-FINAL.docx 2 b.Neil alerted all present that the FCC is currently soliciting inputs on FCC rules that would be considered out of date. The deadline is Oct 30, 2017. Neil will provide a URL for the FCC site. c.Dru repeated the August announcement that Neil K2LL has been appointed EC as of July. He was recommended by retiring EC Ed Jones W7WPO who will mentor and support Neil. Neil’s appointment was supported by the town manager and council, and confirmed by the ARES/RACES DEC. d.Dru reminded all present that the importance of the ECC’s members and associates task is to integrate the agency, team, and the individual efforts to ensure good participation and practice in emergency drill and training exercises. 4.ECC Activities and related: a.LAH Liaison report: deferred to Oct. 3; Gary Waldeck K6AIR absent. b.Neil, EC, Ed on Review of August 19 County drill: Neil commented that there were more people participating the drill than those who first signed up due the alert put out by SCCAlert. Ed W7WPO commented that the drill was very successful thanks to Neil. Scott said he believes the dependency on internet access for a communications drill is not the reality of a situation in which, with no warning, and possibly no power or internet access, communication has to be accomplished anyway. Structure a drill that assumes that possible reality. Neil stated he would send all the relevant and organized materials to all ECC community in the future drills, not just to those who signed up for the drill. That way, even those who do not sign up but still participate are provided with the appropriate preparation materials. Peter AI6MV said that he found it helpful to have two separate radios to track two separate nets. Neil added that a “dual watch” radio could be used if one did not have two radios. Neil also said that he would get an earphone splitter in the future drill so that both NCO and scribe could listen to the same radio traffic. Sep 14/15 OES Drill: 9am - 12 noon for both days. Neil advised that it would be a small scale drill. c.Oct 14: County drill to set up an alternate EOC at Ed Levin Park at Milpitas: d.Dru and Duncan suggested a dry-run prior to Oct 14. The group agreed on Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. at EOC. Scott asked Neil K2LL to prepare a layout in order to visualize the alternate EOC radio setup. Neil encouraged everyone to comment on the current plan he posted on the Google drive. He would send an email to ask for further input by commenting on his posting. e.Equipment performance Issue: Scott stated that during the last Monday Specs net, he was asked to report to the main SPECS net the number of LAH checkins. He LAHECC_Minutes_170905-FINAL.docx 3 could not be heard by the main SPECS repeater, even though he could hear the repeater well. He realized then that the antenna he had used successfully in the past had been moved to a different location. He concluded that his transmission at 144.670 MHz (the repeater input frequency) happened to make a null at the repeater antenna due to a multi-path propagation. By chance, he had no difficulty receiving the 145.270 MHz signal from the repeater because of a non-nulling multi-path condition from the repeater to his location. Scott stated that a possible solution would have been to move his antenna a few inches and try again for acceptable operation in both directions. 5. Old Business: a.EOC Radio Room: Inventory documentation and inventory storage maintenance: i.Duncan reported that a locked box had been installed inside the radio room. It contains the keys to the two closets of radio equipment and others. The combination is known to Deborah Padovan (town clerk) and Duncan AI6VMY. If they are not available, there is a back-up plan that was outlined to the meeting attendees. For security, this will be defined to individuals, if needed. b.Ideas for telephone tree to get people on radio frequency for resource assessment - defer to the next meeting. c.Fire season response readiness. Review checklists, Alert signup links - defer to the next meeting. 6. New Business - None discussed. 7. Tech Talk: a.Gathering earthquake damage assessment reports, led by Duncan (NCO) using the pre- distributed location situation. Everyone present had responded to the NCO request using the standard procedure with his/her own simulated location situation. The specific response was: b.Call sign (Phonetically), Zone #, Mike Mike #, Call sign (Phonetically). c.After two rounds among the 14 participants, we all got used to the protocol, thanks to Duncan. 8. Upcoming Reminders: Dru reminded all hands about signing up for various alerts noted below and that she will insure that the QRG is re-linked on the LAH website: a.LAH town events: http://www.losaltoshills.ca.gov/calendar.aspx a.ARES/RACES courses & events: http://www.scc-ares-races.org/aresraces.htm b.CERT & PEP training; CERT Supervisors and members activities: http://www.lahcfd.org/community-programs/public-classes c.Links: Town Alerts: http://www.losaltoshills.ca.gov/381/EMERGENCY-ALERTS Alert SCC: https://www.sccgov.org/sites/alertscc/Pages/home.aspx d.ECC QRG (Quick Reference Guide) available online at: https://goo.gl/h93sye 9. Adjourn: Upon a motion by Bob KC6ZWG, seconded by Scott N6NXI, adjournment was approved without opposition at 20:53 hours. Respectfully submitted: Ben Hu, KK6HH, Secretary