RACES Notes 08/23/2006

News and Announcements

1) Upcoming Events
9/2-4/2006 Paradise
10/14 Cochise Perimeter Cycling Classic

2) Paradise 27th Anniversary Outing - Just a reminder that we are 
only a few days away from our annual Paradise outing and training 
event.  The permit is in hand, the Porta Potti reserved and we are 
supposed to have the hitch installed on the MCU on Monday of next 
week. We will depart from Green Acres in Sierra Vista at 7:30 on 
Saturday and convoy to Paradise to set up and operate over the weekend.  

3) Fire Chief's Meeting - I attended the monthly Emergency Medical 
Service and Fire Chief's Meeting today.  A couple things of interest 
came up out of this meeting.  First, if you have not finished IS-100 
(Incident Command System) and IS-700 (National Incident Management 
System) please get with it.   The Fire Chief's were reminded that 
the suspense for Phase 1 (ICS-100/700 complete) is 1 October.  That 
is 100 percent of the emergency responders as well as the requirement 
for each department to finish their NIMSCAST report (not applicable 
for us) or they become ineligible for any future Federal Grant money.  
For us, it just means we our RACE unit is not NIMS compliant until we 
get 100 percent of our membership.  The goal is for 100 percent of all 
First Responders, all skills to complete these two courses.  It is 
important!!  If you are serious about remaining in the RACES unit, 
and we do need more members, you need to complete this basic training 
item.  New members should complete the training within 90 days of 
being accepted and getting your card. Each class only takes about 
2-3 hours online.  At the end of the net I will identify those members 
that I have a record of their completion. If you need some help with 
this let me know.  

The second item that came up was the issue of the V-TAC/U-TAC channels 
for emergency response.  All the fire departments were reminded that 
the V-TAC/U-TAC channels are available for incidents requiring Mutual 
Aid assistance.  We will be programming them into the MCU radios in 
the very near future.  These channels, particularly V-TAC2, provide 
a second interoperability channel for incidents occurring in the 
county.  We already have the County Mutual Aid or CMA channel 
programmed into the public service radios in the MCU.  We discussed 
these a few nets ago.

Training - Lesson Learned - Label it!
I don't know how many of you subscribe to World Radio but I saw an 
interesting article from Jerry Wellman, W7SAR on page 28 of the 
September issue.  I believe it is worth extracting some key points.  
He discusses the procedures he followed trying to eliminate a 
perceived HF receiver problem at the Emergency Operations Center 
where he works.  To make a long story short, he identified the 
several steps and the time he took in the troubleshooting process 
to resolve the perceived problem.  During a change in office 
location he had a choice of a couple coaxial runs to hook to his 
radio and he selected the wrong one.  It turns out he was trying 
to use the VHF antenna on the HF transceiver.  Had he simply labeled 
each run of coax during the installation a couple years ago he could 
have saved a lot of time and frustration.  I have been there and 
done myself and it can be frustrating so the question is: 
Are the cable runs in your shack labeled?  
What about the miscellaneous cables you have in your "Go Kit"?
We are trying to label things as we go in the new Mobile 
Communications Unit.  Unfortunately, during the installation, 
one of my helpers has cut the label off during the reinstallation 
of a couple items.  I have had to re-verify what goes to what. 
How about your power cables?  Are they clearly marked for easy 
hook-up?  You absolutely know that when you put a cable into a 
space that you can easily verify end to end that Murphy will 
step-in and cause the most damage at the most inconvenient 
time when you go to reconnect it.

And finally, these are the members that I have received copies 
of there IS-100 and or IS-700 course completions.
AA7JB IS 100
AC7XA IS 100/700
K4AFN IS 100/700
K7HVV IS 100/700
KB7QLH IS 100/700
KC7LCE IS 100
KC7WKT IS 100/700
KC8TUG IS 100
KD7HAB IS 100/700
KD7OED IS 100/700
KD7SSN IS 100
KD7TDL IS 100
KD7YOY IS 100
KD7YOZ IS 100/700
KE7FPQ IS 100/700
KK7WA IS 100/700
N7BIL IS 100/700
N7DQS IS 100
N7INK IS 100/700
N7KCX IS 100/700
N7ZGO IS 100/700
NJ7C IS 100/700
W7RGP IS 100/700
WB7VNF IS 100/700

If you have completed the courses and I do not have a 
record, please send me a copy by e-mail or regular mail 
for your training record.

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

Bob
Robert L Hollister