Our Role as LDS Hams in the Church

[KI6DKC]

As our stake gets more organized for emergency communications we are indeed fortunate to have as the high councilman over the effort a ham who is motivated to see that it is done correctly and understands the options that are out there.  As we have recieved training he has taken the time to emphasise over and over the proper role of hams as communicators and not decision makers.  In the flow we are the conduit but not the source of information.  That there is a proper line of authority in each ward and stake and that should be followed.  In our meeting the other night it was emphasised again along with the idea that we have to be careful not to turn our communications specialists into another ham radio club similar to MARA.

It is fustrating for some Hams who may feel that their ward or stake is not doing enough in the way of planning for emergency communications or who see the superior benefits of ham radio passed over for other easier solutions such as CB or GMRS with decision makers having little or no understanding of the drawbacks of the other technology.

As was pointed out to us, in the past there were some hams who wanted to be the decision makers or who thought they knew better than the priesthood authority.  That their license, knowlege, equipment, and expertise gave them a say.  It was indicated that this was possibly one of the reasons that MARA was officially no longer recognized by the church anymore even though MARA members often are working with stakes and wards to provide emergency communications options.

The emergency communications plans of wards and stakes thus becomes the responsibility of those entities.  Stakes are encouraged to have emergency communications plans but the specifics and methods are not specified.  Thus we end up with a hodge podge of different plans based on the needs, people, and resources of each stake or ward.  I can see that it can be fustrating at times for hams that are encouraging their wards or stakes to develop plans and for those called as communication specialists for their ward.

So what are your thoughts?  How are things being done in your ward or stake?  Is the direction coming from the Stake down to the wards or are things being pushed from the bottom up?

73

Jason

[cgray777]

……..  In our meeting the other night it was emphasised again along with the idea that we have to be careful not to turn our communications specialists into another ham radio club similar to MARA….>>>>>>

Help me understand this better.  Why was MARA abandoned?  What are they trying to change?  Did they talk about this.  I would like to understand the migration from MARA to ERRS to ERC.  Can anyone help out here?

<<<<….As was pointed out to us, in the past there were some hams who wanted to be the decision makers or who thought they knew better than the priesthood authority.  That their license, knowlege, equipment, and expertise gave them a say.  It was indicated that this was possibly one of the reasons that MARA was officially no longer recognized by the church anymore ….>>>>

OK this helps.  Is this all?


<<<<….So what are your thoughts?  How are things being done in your ward or stake?  Is the direction coming from the Stake down to the wards or are things being pushed from the bottom up?>>>>

I’m not seeing much activity in my ward or stake.  To make things more difficult in this area, we have a new bishop, new ERC specialist in the ward and stake presidency.

I would like to step in and offer my help but I don’t know how.  Especially with your concerns about authority stated above. (I have over 20 years DR/BCP and telecommunications/Radio exp)  I see the need for this and want to help but don’t want to step on toes.  I will offer my help to the new ERC specialist once there name has been announced and go from there.  I would like to see more coordination and direction from the Area leadership on this.  I do plan on joining the area net next month. (If they have it.  They meet the first Sunday of each month.  Not sure if they will due to Gen conf.  We shall see.)

 I would like to hear from others as to what they are doing.

[PReagan]

Thanks for the information.

I am the Ward Emergency Comm director for our Ward. Also the High Priest Group leader. We also have a bottom up movement although our stake has requested members get a license at least 4 per ward. It is moving very slowly,  1 year later we have 2 in may ward. That is it for our stake, which is spread out for 25 miles.


I am working with another stake to the west of us at will be able to learn alot from them.

Paul

I would like to have regional meeting just to get information on . Repeaters and Frequencies, and policies regarding Antennas, and practice dates.

We are running a demo a the Father and Son campout on May 16th and 17th.  I would be great if all LDS units used this as a Field Event to practice. Many wards go camping so if they had Hams to go with they could use the , HF rigs or Winsystem on 2m.

any thoughts on this.

[KI6DKC]

……..  In our meeting the other night it was emphasised again along with the idea that we have to be careful not to turn our communications specialists into another ham radio club similar to MARA….>>>>>>

Help me understand this better.  Why was MARA abandoned?  What are they trying to change?  Did they talk about this.  I would like to understand the migration from MARA to ERRS to ERC.  Can anyone help out here?

I have heard several reasons why but the most dominate seems to be that the entity became a defacto church entity as a ham club but really didn't fit into priesthood authority.  All organizations of the church must fall under some presiding priesthood authority and answer and recieve direction from that authority.  Does that make sense?

Another thing to be careful of is if you are a paid employee of the church, you should not be operating ham radio communications for your ward or stake while on the clock.  I guess this became an issue in the past when paid church employees on the clock got on the air.

The bottom up movement can be fustrating but I think Paul is onto something with his idea to have a field day during their Aaronic Priesthood Commemoration/Father and Son.  It's a good way to build some interest.  Sometimes the squeeky wheel approach works.  I think one way to get things going on the ward level if you are a member of the ward counsel is by asking in ward counsel meetings about the ward emergency communications plan.  A plan no one knows about or do not understand will be not much use.

Something that might work is playing some of the recordings of the hams in the Katrina area that were getting out during the dissaster.  I used the Gordon West book for studying for my General Class and it came with a CD that had recorded hams on the air.  The most interesting bits were from Katrina when hams were telling eachother about how the levees had broken in New Orleans, hours before the media or the government knew.  Listening to those hams really provided me with an eye opener of the value of communications in an emergency.  Couple that with the lessons learned from Katrina and Rita info I posted elsewhere and you might be able to more easilly make the case.

Our stake is pretty much on the ball but we are struggling on the ward level.  Two wards have no hams and are both isolated from the rest of the stake geographically.  They have no one there really pushing emergency communications along.  My ward is mostly made up of military personel so people are coming in and out all the time.  There is a misplaced sense of security that the military will take care of them in an emergency when the reality is that active duty folks will be busy doing their own duties while their off post families and everyone else will probably be on their own.  We are fortunate though that the stake president is pushing from the top to get this done.

Just some thoughts.

Jason

[cgray777]

…….  All organizations of the church must fall under some presiding priesthood authority and answer and recieve direction from that authority.  Does that make sense?

……..Just some thoughts. Jason>>>>>>

I understand the need of priesthood authority and have no problem with that.  I think that, that could have been solved very easily without disbanding or disassociating MARA from the Church.  Now Employees using the Ham on the clock is another issue but one that could easily be resolved. 

My main concern is that MARA looked to be top down.  Even ERRS looked to be top down.  ERS specialist or director or what ever name it is under at this time, doesn’t look to be top down.  Maybe stake level down (Which may make the most sense) but even that is hit and miss depending on the stake.  Now in areas where you have several stakes like Utah or even Denver, an area approach makes the most sense to me. IF we do have priesthood authority in charge who is it?

[KI6DKC]

IF we do have priesthood authority in charge who is it?

What I have been told is that the wards report to the bishops of those wards, the bishops report their needs, building conditions, etc via emergency communications to the stake president, and the stake president communicates with the bishop's storehouse.  Then the storehouses communicate with their guys in Salt Lake and with eachother.  Some of the storehouses are like main hubs over the smaller storehouses so those smaller ones then communicate with the larger one that is over them.

Now, I've never read this anywhere, I'm just telling you folks how they told us in the meetings we've had for emergency communications.  I don't know who is over the bishop's storehouses but I assume it is the presiding bishopric.  I was told that one of the stake presidents in the area covered by the storehouse is assigned as the stake president over the bishop's storehouse but once again, I've never read this anywhere.

As for the MARA thing, I have no clue why they just didn't change it to fit.  That's above my pay grade  .  There may have been other issues there that I haven't been told.  Maybe someone who knows more about the history MARA could shed some light on it.  I did find this link with a short history of MARA that may be of interest.  http://www.mara-mw.net/history.html

[W3EZY]

I’m not seeing much activity in my ward or stake.  To make things more difficult in this area, we have a new bishop, new ERC specialist in the ward and stake presidency.
I would like to step in and offer my help but I don’t know how. 

Hey Clint,
  I am in your ward (I am the younger Babbitt    we are both new Hams). We are trying to get somethings moving as well but given the things you stated it is a little slow. Our Provident Living specilist is trying hard to get us involved (but with her recently haivng a baby that has slowed down as well). We do have a weekly LDS HAM net that meets for Castle Rock, HR, Littleton and Parker. We meet every Sunday at 7pm on 146.640 pl 100.0. Please join us. The group contains a lot of the ARES D24 members (including me and W0OZY my brother). We spend time on that Net talking about what wards and stakes are doing and making sure people know about class to get licensed and/or upgrade.

[cgray777]

I am frustrated just trying to find out what the plan is.  I have yet to find anyone at the stake or ward level that knows what is going on.  I do admit however that we have had bishopric and stake president changes in the last few months so I am trying to be patient. (as I hear in my minds eye my wife saying patience is a virtue.) I am patiently searching on and trying to become as prepared as I can, until any call comes my way.

Any direction from those in the know in the Highlands Ranch ward, Highlands Ranch Stake, Denver area would be appreciated. 

Frustrated KD0DFN
Clint Gray
 

[KI6DKC]

I hear your fustration Clint.  All you can do is keep beating the drum and hope someone will listen.

My brother's father in law is a former Bishop and couldn't understand why he was getting emergency preparedness stuff together including 72 hour get away kits.  He told my brother he wouldn't want to leave his house in a dissaster.  No amount of examples could convince the guy why this was important.  And this guy and his family actually lived through the Teton dam dissaster and had their home flooded!  If he doesn't get it then you can see why others who have not lived through a dissaster might be unconcerned.

What did it for me was 9-11 and Katrina.  Complete communications breakdown, chaos, and devestation.  Then hearing some recordings of Hams during Katrina helped spur me along.

This is an insteresting interview from NPR about what some hams did during Katrina.  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4824598

Here's a link of hams communicating after the Loma Prieta Earthquake.
http://earthquakeadvisor.com/articles/00032.html

Gordon West has a CD that comes with the General Class book that has audio recordings from Hams from Katrina and Rita as the event is happening.

[wb7sgl]

Hi Clint! Hang in there buddy, I know you can!

It may be that they don't have a plan yet, and have been waiting for you to help! They may have a plan but need to refine it before publishing it. Who knows. Do what you can to get involved. Work with the Stake EmComm specialist, the Welfare High Councilman, the Stake Emergency Preparedness specialist, etc.

I too am waiting patiently. We had Ward conference in Feb. The Stake informed us that we too need an emergency plan for the Ward. OK, but we meet in the Stake Center.... So, our plan HAS to dovetail in with the Stake plan, that's a given. They promised to send a copy of their plan my way. .... hmm. maybe I need to get ahold of someone since I haven't seen it yet 

So here's the basic idea for us, and same basically goes for the Lakewood Stake where I moved from last summer...

The Stake is responsible for communicating to the Storehouse.
This is done by the Stake EmComm specialist who should have at minimum a General Class license.
My Stake has an FT897 so HF, VHF and UHF are covered (though the antenna doesn't cover HF).

The Wards should have an EmComm specialist with a Technician or better class license.
The Ward uses VHF to communicate with the Stake, the Stake uses VHF to communicate with the Storehouse.

Now, we could use HF with NVIS to communicate with the Storehouse, but I don't know whether they've built a setup that would support NVIS and we're close enough that VHF should cover the distance just fine even in the worst of conditions.

Working from other areas, like the mountains, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, etc would benefit from HF as they are not line-of-sight to the Storehouse.

For the Ward coverage, it's left for the Bishop and his specialists to assemble a plan and test it to ensure it works. We went with the idea of providing FRS/GMRS radios but the free use frequencies are not usable due to power limits, the GMRS frequencies are not usable due to the exorbitant license cost. The only viable option besides telephone and smoke signals is Amateur Radio. So we definitely need to start encouraging Amateur Radio. We need to organize Classes, encourage Students, Elmer those who make the leap, share our knowledge, and assist those who have the desire but not the means to obtain working gear.

This is one of those times when we need to encourage people to discover and develop an inner talent they don't yet know they have! If kids can study and earn their license, surely Adults can do it too! Especially for the Technician Class license. It's based primarily on common sense. Once you learn why the rule is what it is, and the light flashes on and you go 'oh yeah, that makes sense', it's easy to remember it. The theory and memorization will be a challenge for many with the General and Extra class licenses, but the Technician is just not that difficult.