RACES Notes 05/24/2006

News and Announcements

1) Upcoming Events
June 24-25 - Field Day
July 4 - Bisbee Coaster Race
July 7-9 - Williams Hamfest

2) Annual Pager Dues - Just a reminder that if you have a RACES 
pager that the annual payments are due in June.  I have recently 
received payments from a couple members and want to thank you 
for reminding me it's that time of year again. I am billed monthly 
by AZ Paging. I offer the option to pay monthly at $1.50 a month 
or annually at $15.00.

3) ICS Training Requirements - Just a reminder that if you have 
completed any of the FEMA training courses such as the IS 100, 
200, 700 or 800 courses, let me know. All RACES members are 
being asked to complete the IS 100 (Basic Incident Command) 
and IS-700 (National Incident Management System).  We currently 
have approximately 75% compliance.

Training - Over the past few years there has been a common 
complaint during many emergencies that communications between 
agencies responding has been a problem.  There has been a lack 
of common frequencies, common PL tones, and a lack of common 
procedures of protocols such as different ten codes has caused 
responding agencies and vendors to look for ways to solve some 
of these problems.  Tonight I would like to discuss a couple 
potential solutions that are being implemented or discussed. 

To address procedures and protocols, all agencies are 
encouraged to adopt the National Incident Management System 
(NIMS) and the Incident Command System.  All of our radio 
operator volunteers are asked to complete certain ICS courses 
offered by FEMA and the Emergency Management Institute (EMI).  
Specifically, IS-100 (Basic Incident Command), and IS 700 
(National Incident Management System).  Due to the increasing 
numbers of students taking these courses they recently changed 
their server and web address for students who are already 
enrolled.  The new log on address is: 
 www.learningservices.us/FEMA/LMS.

We have also discussed on previous nets the new Audio Control 
Unit 1000 or ACU-1000 that we have in the MCU that allows us to 
make patches from one radio channel to another.  This is tool 
is very useful when we have responding agencies from outside 
the county that may arrive to assist and may not have our standard 
frequencies and PL tones programmed in their radios.  We will be 
ready to start training classes on this system within the next 
month.  It is actually quite easy to use and learn.

I just recently became aware of a new Arizona initiative called 
the Arizona Emergency Radio System (AERS) and a new state plan 
to designate certain radio channels or frequencies for state wide 
response.  These radio frequencies are to be used for multi- jurisdictional operations requiring the use of common state radio 
channels, specifically for use for coordinating activities during 
identified incidents.  Minimum standards are being established for 
these channels and for the radios being used on them.  Those 
standards include adopting the narrow band FM channels (12.5 KHz 
vs the current wide band 25 KHz).  These standards are actually 
being implemented nationwide.   We will be adding these new channels 
to the radios installed in the Mobile Communications Unit to include 
those in the ACU-1000 interoperability suite to facilitate 
interoperability with responding agencies from outside our county 
or state.  Specifically, there are 5 new nationwide VHF narrow band 
channels identified and 2 Arizona Law and Fire wideband 
interoperability channels in this plan.  Most of you are aware that 
Cochise County had earlier adopted a County Wide VHF Mutual Aid 
Channel so that all fire and law enforcement agencies could talk 
to each other.  There are also 4 new nationwide UHF Narrow Band 
channels and 1 AZ wideband interoperability channel. These are 
additions to the earlier designated 800 MHZ channels labeled 
Interoperability Tactical Channels or nicknamed as I-TAC channels.  
You will hear the new channels referred to as V-TAC for VHF and 
U-TAC for UHF channels.  

Field Users and radio operators are expected to follow these 
basic protocols:
1. Operate within ICS or NIMS protocol.
2. Identify by agency name and callsign
	a. Agencies without assigned callsigns should identify by 
organization and individual name such as RED CROSS, JONES.
	b. Nothing in this policy precludes pre-planned, site 
specific/incident assignment callsigns such as the tactical 
callsigns we use routinely.
3. Keep radio traffic to a minimum and use PLAIN LANGUAGE.
4. Be available on the assigned channel.
5. Have a contingency for system failure.

Incident Communication Center Responsibilities include:
1. Monitor and respond to AERS channels.
2. Maintain dispatch documentation.
3. Record audio and telephone traffic of event.  We use the IC 
Form 309 Communications Log to satisfy this requirement.
4. Coordinate other agency response as requested or necessary. 5. Resume general AERS operations and notify involved agencies 
at termination of incident.

Just for reference, Cochise, Graham and Greenlee Counties have 
been pre-assigned to use VTAC Channel 2 as primary for agencies 
responding to our area. If we respond to Pima or Santa Cruz 
County, we should automatically switch to VTAC Channel 3.

That's all for this evening, let's go down the roster for comments.  

Bob
Robert L Hollister