New Push

In our stake there is a push along the whole preparedness front including emergency communications.  We had some handouts about what the church learned from Huricanes Katrina and Rita as far as communcations go and it wasn't pretty.

The handout was about 20 pages of various stuff pulled from what I believe are church website resources.  The most interesting part was the one detailing what was learned from Katrina and Rita.  I guess the church was unable to communicate with the storehouses that serviced those areas.  They also had some serious troubles getting the Sat phones working either due to conditions, lack of training, etc.  I'll see if I can find the handout and get the URLs off the pages to post here.Our stake has passed down that wards and stakes are discouraged from purchasing radio equipment or attaching antennas to the buildings for amatuer radio.  Basically the ward and stake communication specialists are being encouraged to be ready with what is needed to provide the bishops, branch presidents, and stake president with communications capablilities via ham radio.  There is supposed to be a test of the stake's capabilities later in the year as far as communications go.  I'm only the ward executive secretary but as one of the few operators in the ward with some equipment I've been asked to attend the trainings and meetings.  This is partially in response to the very scattered nature of many of our wards and members in the stake.  Some wards cover a couple different towns over various distances making a block system nearly impossible so getting more people trained in the wards is being encouraged.  We have two units that are so geographically separated that in an emergency they would pretty much be cut off without radio and unfortunatly they have no licensed operators in their membership.  So there is a lot to work out.But as far as I can tell there has been nothing driving this higher than the individual stake level and in fact, calls to Salt Lake by the stake folks have been very short on specific protocols to use in an emergency for communications.Jason

Here's a link to a part of what was in the pamphlet that was handed out.  It is about what was learned from Rita and Katrina.  http://hamradio.miyadi.org/files/Katrina%20Lessons.pdf  This isn't the original link as I cannot access the original but this is the exact thing that was handed out.  The original was taken from http://www.idahoerc.org which is a site I do not have access to.  I think you will agree that the assessment of the commmunications failures is interesting.The next to pages from the handout are entitled Emergency Response Communications (ERC) Program.  This is just a document that lays out the priesthood responsibilities for the emergency communications program namely that wards and stakes make these decisions under the direction of the Stake President.  The second page is entitled Principles of the ERC Program that lists 9 principles detailed below:1.  Emergency communications specialists and station operators are called to serve Church leaders and act under their direction.  When responding to an emergency, emergency communications specialists and station operators are communicators, not decision-makers.2.  Church policy on emergencies, including communications, is stated in the Church Welfare Resources.3.  Emergency communications specialists and station operators provide  Church leader communications only.  Member health and welfare is the responsibility of others.4.  Church leaders use the telephone or cell phone if available.  Amateur radio, satellite phones, and other modes are a backup to the telephone.5.  Although amature radio is the most reliable and effective mode of emergency communications, church leaders are not limited to amature radio.  Emergency communications specialists should recommend whatever mode works best for their unit (Family Radio Service, Citizens Band, General Mobile Radio Service, Multiple Use Radio Services, runners, etc.).  Amature radio is required for communicating with the bishop's storehouse.6.  Cell phones may be very useful in limited emergencies.  However, cellular service should not be relied on for severe emergencies because of it's susceptibility to overload.7.  The authority for emergency communications specialists and station operators to activate the ERC communications network is limited to 1) ERC training exercises, and 2) to establish communications during an actual emergency while serving church leaders.  Utilization of the system for any other purpose requires approval of the appropriate Church leader.  Church leaders have counselled against conducting mock dissaster or any any emergency exercise that involves ward or stake members in general.8.  Although not recommended, an amateur radio operator may be shared between stakes until a qualified emergency communications specialist can be found.9.  Church employees should not operate an amateur radio station in behalf of the church when they are "on the clock".  To do so may constitute a violation of FCC rules and regulations pertaining to amature radio.(sorry for any typos).The next page of the hand out is from Provident Living.org  under Helps for Church Leaders.  Teach a Welfare Principle or Topic Instructional Recources for Welfare Trainers. http://www.providentliving.org/content/list/0,11664,5155-1,00.htmlThe next page in the handout is Lesson 14 Preparing For Emergencies from the Provident Living website.  The lesson is found at http://www.providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,5227-1-2754-1,00.htmlThe next page in the handout was a google map showing the approximate location of all ward buildings in the stake and a member owned 2meter repeater that covers the stake.The next page in the handout was a complete list of amatuer radio operators in the stake by call sign, name, when they checked into the net, their phone number, their cell phone number, their church unit, town, and email address.The next page is the 2 meter band plan for Northern California along with the PM simplex frequencies for the band plan.  The stake then chose one fo these simplex frequencies to be used as another frequency other than the one for the repeater for emergency communications.  Wards were encouraged to choose a simplex frequency for their own ward.  The band plan part of this handout is found at http://www.narcc.org/Rptr_Lists/2Mchart-20080107.pdf  You may need to see what the band plan is for your area.

Jason,Thank you very much for transcribing the information for everyone on the site!-Rob

FRS isn't a too bad an option for some communications.  My family and I use it when we go places to talk to eachother.  When I have to go on the roof to adjust the Satelite after a storm it works good for communicating with my wife.  She can tell me if it is working or not without yelling out a window or having to go up and down the ladder.  I know a guy that went back east with his family and they had multiple cars.  He said it worked great for communicating between the two vehicles, especially when they got into traffic or needed to tell one car that they needed to stop to use the facilities.GMRS has never really appealed to me.  The license seems expensive when comparred to just getting your tech license then you can change antennas and run some more power but it is still less than a cheapo 2m mobile.  The GMRS HTs are about as much as a ham 2m HT so for me it just doesn't make much sense.  If you didn't have to have the FCC license for them or it was some paltry cost to get the license for GMRS I could see a better case for using it.

Exactly, as I understand it GMRS isn't for business anymore unless it was grandfathered in under the old rules so I wonder if you could even get licenses for wards anyway to operate the GMRS radios.  And you are right about the costs.  Even with an entry level 5 watt 2 meter HT you can cover a lot of area with the right antenna.  And with the huge number of open 2 meter repeaters in the world you can hit one from almost anywhere and have emergency communications.  When I first started I used a 5 Watt HT and a Larsen 3/8 wave wip antenna for mounting on a car and was able to do just about anything I wanted on 2meter.  Even today with my mobile 50 radio I run 5 watts 99% of the time.The tech exams are the way to go.  It's just hard to make the case to get licensed and a radio when times are good.  I bet those folks in the Katrina region would have given almost anything to have been ham radio operators.