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Home My WebLink AboutFebruary 2LAHECC_20210202_FINAL-Minutes.docx 1 Emergency Communications Committee Minutes Tuesday, February 2, 2021. 7:00 to 8:30 pm The meeting was held via ZOOM Online Video Conference Members, Associates, Guests Call Sign Attendance Dru Anderson, Co-Chair KG6LAD P Bob Anderson KC6ZWG P Eduardo Arias, Co-Chair KM6LSX E Ben H. L. Hu, Secretary KK6HH E Edwin R Jones, Acting Secretary W7WPO P Terry Kearney KM6LTQ P Andrew Kirk WB6CLS A Scott Overstreet N6NXI P Jay Sutaria KN6JAY P Sam Wood K6MSR P Council/Staff Kavita Tankha, Mayor.Presenter P Stanley Mok, Liaison E ECC Associate Members Larry Carr KE6AGJ P Peter Evans AI6MV P Kjell Karlsson KD6BPP P Neil Katin K2LL P Guests: John Kristian, Los Altos ARES Guest Speaker, LA packet training W6JMK P Victoria Bebee KN6HOU P J Logan, GM LAHCFD P John Adachi, LAH CERT, ham KM6RUD P Jim Clark, Los Altos ARES N6JRC P 1.Meeting called to order at 7:01 p.m. by co-chair Dru Anderson KG6LAD. Followed by roll call of members with a quorum of 7 members present. a.Roll Call: Attendance:17 including 7 members, 4 associates, LAH Mayor, and 5 guests. b.Minutes of Dec. 2, 2020: Approved on a motion by Sam Wood K6MSR, seconded by Terry Kearney KM6LTQ, and approved unanimously by roll call vote of the members present. 2.Outgoing Council Liaison and new Mayor Kavita Tankha gave an overview of Items of interest to the town council. The town offices have remained open despite the virus and towns people have been able to transact business such as permits through special social distancing setups. She said there has been little or no impact on the town finances due to the COVID-19 virus. On another matter, she noted that the council has on-going concern regarding state legislation changes that would impact the town. The council also is LAHECC_20210202_FINAL-Minutes.docx 2 discussing security steps to deal with the increase in burglary incidents as well as a program to improve wildfire prevention. 3.EC Report Update and Activities: Los Altos Hills area Emergency Coordinator, Neil Katin, reported that new guidebooks from the DOT are available in the radio room. Neil now has 2021 stickers for those having county DSW cards. 4.Tech Talk: Guest presentation on Los Altos Packet Training “Zoom” program. a.John Kristian, W6JMK from Los Altos ARES presented the tech talk. He described that that the Los Altos hams have generated a Zoom training program for packet operation. The training subjects are the organization of Block Action Teams (BAT), using the Los Altos damage report form and finally training for packet operation in this environment. Trainees taking the course will have a packet station on the Los Altos model and have basic familiarity in its operation. b.Post-Script: Please see the addendum at end of minutes for additional photos and LAARES response to discussion questions. A question was asked during the meeting relative to 1) photographs of a LAARES packet station John and his LAARES team responded via later email with the requested information. 5.Public Comments from the floor: a.During Public Comments, J. Logan from the fire district introduced Victoria Beebe as the new CERT Program General Analysist. Victoria stated that the theme of this year’s CERT training would be resilience and that a new 2021 Resilience Calendar is being sent to DERT members. New OK window cards which also contain useful emergency information are included. She proposed that the CERT group and ECC establish a monthly net on the model of the weekly SPECS net to train local operators. b.Guest Presentation: 6.Old Business: a.Member Jay Sutaria KN6JAY reported on equipment inventory that he has been working on this past year. Two antennas in remote location are the Dimond X50 at the backup EOC atop the administration building at Foothill Collage, and the Dimond X50 at the top of the cell phone tree at the Westwind Barn. The status and serial numbers of the radio equipment at the Purissima Hills Water District office, placed there some years back for PHWD ham operator access, is underway and being provided by one of the PHWD technical staff, per added information from Co-chair Dru KG6LAD. 7.Public Comments from the floor: a.LAHCFD Emergency Service Management: Updates on LAFCFD event/activities: Victoria KN6HOU, showed the future CERT training/Zoom meetings in slides, the details of which were sent to us via email. 8.Old Business: a.Development of a Ham Bake cookbook, to accommodate the lack of the annual social for the ECC as a Pandemic alternative: Dru KG6LAD thanked those who have contributed recipes from dishes they brough to past Ham bake events. She continues to collect and welcomes further input via email. 9.Health and Welfare round robin report of members’ and participants’ well-being. All seemed to be doing well. 10.ECC Development Report. Co-chair Dru reported that work on these goals continues. a.Goal#1: Develop an outstretched letter to registered LAH area Hams: Dru reported that the work continues. LAHECC_20210202_FINAL-Minutes.docx 3 b.Goal#2: Coordinate the training and participation activities with the Town’s Emergency Management team and in continued collaboration with LAHCFD CERT management. 11.Group health and welfare go-around share - All were well. 12.Adjourned at 8:36 p.m., Adjournment moved by Bob Anderson KC6ZWG and seconded by Scott Overstreet N6NXI. Unanimous approval. Respectfully submitted: Edwin Jones, W7WPO, Acting Secretary Additional Tech Talk information provided by Los Altos ARES ham team Re: LAARES packet training. Slides that were in John’s presentation to the ECC. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1El4P25kIKAZb5NZJtLD_f5DO-oHWz7qXCl- AgPotYow/edit?usp=sharing Instructor Notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mzy24lH3tKg5Ml_tLbgXIqZAKs8UzkfGLiYZDQVdZ- c/edit?usp=sharing Handouts: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12LXzpBfYwitNCbFFtWuqyLnzkaCM336o?usp=sharing Supplemental information gathered by John Kristian, Nico Bremeau, Christian Bremeau, Art Whipple, and Jim Clark, all of LAARES. Jim Clark reinforced the point that John described in his presentation that the power for the packet stations is via a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery. The battery box is illustrated in the “deployed” picture (below). It is the smaller box to the left. There are a couple of reasons for separating the power from the radios. First is weight – this helps keep the weight of the packet system down where most of us older folks can carry it easily. The second is that we can swap out the batteries for fresh ones if that becomes an issue. We have more battery boxes than we do packet stations. Deployed. The above and below photos were provided as illustrations of the LAARES standard packet station. LAHECC_20210202_FINAL-Minutes.docx 4 Inside. Shack.