Posted: 3/29/2014 6:51:53 AM EDT
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Total newb here, passed the tech and got the welcoming letter from my county coordinator...
Wondering what you guys would advise...I would like to volunteer and help, but the whole FEMA and Homeland Security associations give me pause. Am I just being too tinfoil hatty? |
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I don't have a tin foil hat.....it's just too big of a pain in the ass. Damned if I'm going to spend my retirement taking a bunch of FEMA classes.  I was very involved with ARES for a number of years. Most of the people that want to help just want to help. They didn't get involved to take a bunch of .gov courses. I know for a fact that we helped a number of organizations improve their special events and we supported the community during hurricanes, etc. It's going to be like a second job, though. You can certainly meet some great people and learn a lot if you have an active group that likes making antennas, go boxes, etc. Of course you'll also have people that won't even crack their manual open so when they try to use their radio for real they won't know what the hell they're doing. I'd also warn you that despite the fact that it's a volunteer public service organization doesn't mean there won't be politics. It's amazing how people can behave to be in charge of a volunteer group. Maybe there's some perception of power and authority. Who knows? |
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I joined the my local ARES/RACES group and it's been a good experience. Our members come up with some real good training. The county government has even invested in Ham equipment so members don't need to use their own gear entirely. So we have access to quite a nice assortment of gear and combined experience within the group could establish and maintain communications over the county. Realistically manning multiple communication sites for 24 hour operations = numerous competent operators. Even with all the gear it comes down to reliable volunteer man power.
Updated to add: I think it was last year that we all did the ICS-100, ICS-200, and ICS-700 courses over the web. They also run a criminal background on members as we meet monthly in the emergency operations center and regularly hear updates on issues with government communication systems. |
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Quoted: Whackers  Quoted: Quoted: The tin foil doesn't keep me away. The whackers keep me away. Basically cop wannabes. Tons of radios(most of them police scanners), flashing lights, etc etc. They just kind of show up and pretend to be helping by pretending to be in charge of something. |
I guess it depends on the group you have locally. Sounds like they are pretty aggressive on recruiting  My local group has a close relationship with the local city/county governments, and have defined roles and an official activation procedure coming from .gov officials. Nothing worse than unneeded "helpers" showing up and getting in the way. Basically we just do a lot of training exercises, because our primary reason for being called up to help would be a catastrophic disaster like a mega-quake. Other places have events that require a more regular activation(hurricanes on the gulf coast, tornadoes in the midwest, I was recently told about a city in California that has problems with the fiber going to the 911 center getting cut several times a year and they have people with radios standing on street corners with signs...).Basically the whole ARES thing comes down to having an easily portable station with a long-lasting backup power source, supplies to keep yourself going for a while, and being able to pass traffic on the air. We have a very active NTS(National Traffic System) net in this area(on a linked 2m repeater system), I guess some parts of the country don't have that resource. Even with all the gear, you won't be much help if you can't quickly and accurately send and receive messages - and those messages could literally be ANYTHING, from ambulance/fire/police requests because 911 is down to passing on equipment orders for hospitals to the neighbor trying to get a simple "I'm still alive" message to family across the country. The whole DHS/FEMA thing is pretty much just some short and easy online courses on the Incident Command System, which is what every government agency uses to coordinate emergency responses of all sizes. IS-100 and IS-200 are basic ICS, IS-700 and IS-800 are NIMS and NRF. I'll let you figure out what the acronyms are because it gets to be a headache typing all that stuff out. And there are tons of other FEMA classes available online that can be quite interesting, although quite a few are pretty damn boring, and most will not be relevant to anything you will ever do. I'm going to be taking the ICS-300 and ICS-400 classes this summer, those are 2-day in-classroom courses that actually go into how to use ICS for managing things - 100 and 200 just cover the basics of what it does. Unless you are doing things at a high level, or work in the emergency management field for some .gov agency, you really don't need anything besides the normal 100/200/700 that everyone requires(and only takes a day or two to finish) |
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Where I live there has been an element in the local emergency responder agencies that refuse to recognize or utilize the Amateur Radio community.
This was due to what I saw earlier in this thread as the, "whackers". They are the types of hams that show up to large emergency responder group meetings or trainings with Fire, Law Enforcement, EMS, SAR, and others and spout off that "when government systems fail, ours will work". Along with, "our gear is better then yours, etc, etc, etc." That pissed off the local govt types, and the hams were then excluded- that was 20 years ago. People and memories hold grudges forever, unfortunately. Now, finally, after all these years, the local govt groups are including the hams again. It has taken time, and certain folks have to be unfortunately excluded because they believe they are better then everyone else. If a person is a public safety professional, they either know when to shut up, or are told to shut up. Not so in the Ham radio community, each has his own opinion, and many are WAY to outspoken, and don't know diddly shit. BUT, we interview each individual that asks to participate, and they also are required to take the ICS classes, as well as a basic class on how the amateur radio repeaters work as compared to the public safety gear. This goes for all amateurs, from Technician to Extra class, no one is exempt. If they already have the ICS certifications, they still have to take the local class. I know many on here would say why the detail with volunteers? Well, as a long time, (30+) year public safety type, and a 30 year ham, I have seen many whackers, from the guys that carry "Ham" radio badges, the pocket protector types, the guys with a gazillion antennas who show up to fires and incidents asking to help to those that try to force their way into situations and you have to make them leave. I don't need more people to look after if I am a public safety supervisor on a critical response incident. I have enough with keeping an eye on the incident, the responders and the victims. I don't need Whackers. What I do want is folks who want to help, will take the required training in order to know what to do, know how to listen to direction, and know how to stay out of the way, and not interject, "how they think it ought to go", unless it is a safety concern. Our club had to actually ask some people to not show up anymore who had been long standing members as they could not keep their pie-holes shut. Sorry for the slight rant, but this is a basic explanation of "whackers". It is also a note to anyone that wants to help, please come out and do so, just be aware that for safety reasons, they may be asked by their ham radio or public safety organization to take classes. |
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Aaaah, ok, dang, I didn't realize it would be that much of a commitment...I thought it would be along the lines of "Hey, this hurricane caused problems, please be on call to relay messages as needed." With 2 very young kids and a job that I work 14 - 16 hour days during the busy season, my plate is already way overfilled...
Thanks to everyone who replied; I learned a lot... And that whackers thing: ha, I understand exactly what you mean now, and that would drive me nuts, too... |
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Quoted:
Aaaah, ok, dang, I didn't realize it would be that much of a commitment...I thought it would be along the lines of "Hey, this hurricane caused problems, please be on call to relay messages as needed." With 2 very young kids and a job that I work 14 - 16 hour days during the busy season, my plate is already way overfilled... You can still help outside the context of ARES. Get involved with a local club and if you have HF capabilities participate in NTS nets passing message traffic. Do you have Skywarn in your area? You can pass weather info along to the NWS. |
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Where I live there has been an element in the local emergency responder agencies that refuse to recognize or utilize the Amateur Radio community. (snip) Sorry for the slight rant, but this is a basic explanation of "whackers". It is also a note to anyone that wants to help, please come out and do so, just be aware that for safety reasons, they may be asked by their ham radio or public safety organization to take classes. Crash, you summed up my feelings very succinctly. I've been in public safety for a dozen years, about ten of them paid, and I'm gently pushing my current agency to start making those inroads with the local club (again). We have a couple of their radios in our rack, but I don't know the last time they got used. Ham radio can be a tremendous resource, but egos on both sides of the table can cause big problems. The COML class I took last week had eleven people in it ... and four of us were hams of one flavor or another. |
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My wife and I go to the NWS Skywarn classes every year, mainly because its entertaining and FREE. We live on the edge of our county, so this year we actually went to a class in the neighboring county where my wife works as a police/fire dispatcher. When we signed in, it asked for ham call signs and of course we both gave ours.
When the radio club guys saw that, they gave us membership applications for both the club and the newly reformed Ares group and were encouraged to join up. This week we had a typical Texas thunderstorm roll through, high winds, big hail and the nets were activated. Where was I? At work making sure our family business was secure, making sure my kids were safe until I could determine the best time to go pick them up. My kids are young, 9 & 4, I can't just leave them at home and go running off somewhere to sit at a crossroads to see if a tornado or baseball sized hail is going to pound the crap out of my truck. The other thing about the club application was not only did they ask about what kind of radios I had, but what kind of backup power I had, actually kind of specific. I'm not sure I want that info down on paper. Yes, I have preps, but I'm not sure I'd want my house to turn into some kind of rally point or have someone show up and say We NEED your generator! That's set up for me and my family. Paperwork is still on the dash of my truck. And while I love playing with my radios, I think I'm better off right now not playing with them in any sort of pseudo official capacity. |
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The days where there are opportunities to make significant public safety contributions by hams are numbered, in very low numbers. Around this neck of the woods they exist in a token way and haven't really been necessary for at least 20 years (yes, the public commo infrastructure in NH is just that good). If you think you have an opportunity to really make a difference, not just think you're cool because you took a bunch of classes and went to a bunch of exercises, then I'd say jump on it, because pretty soon that opportunity won't be there anymore.
As for whackers, oh yes, that's what we called them, too. I was on a volly EMS service for 8 years. As (bad) luck would have it, they were the declining 8 years of the service. When I started the service was it. No FD response, just a bunch of great people with cars, radios, pagers and two ambulances. In those 8 years it ultimately got 99% replaced by the separate, full time, paid, union, FD, with the volly service only maintained as a sop to local politicos. Hmmm, sort of like ARES and other radio groups now that I think about it. At any rate we had our whackers. You could tell because they were the worst EMTs with the best vehicles. I mean guys would go out and buy a new red pickup, special, so that it could be red, you know... The funny thing is you can be a stealth whacker and not know it. You can be fully up to speed on all of your training, maintain a professional, not over-the-top appearance, show up to every exercise, every real call, and do a top notch, professional job. But what's the point when you become a "go-fer" for the "real" pro's and given token jobs just to keep you mollified? That's why I quit that EMS volly service and that's why I don't join the local ARES/RACES/MARS. I suppose I'd have a better chance for "action" if I lived where there were massive floods/earthquakes/fires/storms but I sort of like the nice, quiet, New England environment. The infrastructure up here is hardened to handle the occasional ice storm which is about as bad as it gets, which means I'd be limited to exercises, "parade safety nets" (which are just as easy with a Twitter feed these days) and other token work. Not my cup of tea. |
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Quoted:
This week we had a typical Texas thunderstorm roll through, high winds, big hail and the nets were activated. Where was I? At work making sure our family business was secure, making sure my kids were safe until I could determine the best time to go pick them up. My kids are young, 9 & 4, I can't just leave them at home and go running off somewhere to sit at a crossroads to see if a tornado or baseball sized hail is going to pound the crap out of my truck. Exactly! When big weather comes to NH the Skywarn net is dead, dead, deadski. I've heard exercises but I never hear any real traffic even though the repeaters are well provisioned and stay up in bad storms. I don't even know why guys join. We are all too busy shovelling and fueling our generators, or just cocooning in our cozy New England homes with family. |
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Asking for information on your communication ability seems to be a standard part of the ARES/RACES deal. From the perspective of the coordinator, it would let me know who I may be able to call on for something other than local VHF/UHF or even who would have the ability to send information digitally. Knowing if a member has backup power available for the radios would also be good information to have. It doesn't do any good if Joe Snuffy has all the capabilities in the world, but has no way to power them because the lines are down all over town.
Asking for specifics on the equipment/backup/portable power does seem a bit over the top especially for the initial application. Seems like a simple yes/no for whatever capabilities they are looking for would be good enough. Such as: base station HF y/n, VHF y/n, UHF y/n; Mobile for the above? y/n HT? y/n Digital mode capable? y/n Backup power available? y/n. |
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Exactly! When big weather comes to NH the Skywarn net is dead, dead, deadski. I've heard exercises but I never hear any real traffic even though the repeaters are well provisioned and stay up in bad storms. I don't even know why guys join. We are all too busy shovelling and fueling our generators, or just cocooning in our cozy New England homes with family. The only big storm to come through my area other than snow and ice after I bought my first radio the Skywarn net did get activated. I can't remember if it was before or after I took the tests, but it was certainly interesting to hear where the television weather folks got their information from. Five minutes later I heard the same reports on TV as I did on the net. But, there was around 150 people at the Skywarn class for the area last weekend as well. It does take planning and organization (and someone willing/able to spend the time doing it) for a volunteer organization to be successful. |
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When I was living in NC there was a huge ARES presence. They had a pretty good program too, but myself and many others had to ask ourselves a question. When bad weather comes (in this case hurricanes) should we leave our families and drive across town to work in a shelter? Sure if I have the opportunity to assist I most certainly would, but not at the risk of putting my family in danger.
The biggest thing I do not like about the majority of ARES/RACES/Skywarn evangelist I meet is the fact that they can't accept the fact that I just like to play on the radio. They try to guilt new hams into joining as a sense of public service. |
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When I was living in NC there was a huge ARES presence. They had a pretty good program too, but myself and many others had to ask ourselves a question. When bad weather comes (in this case hurricanes) should we leave our families and drive across town to work in a shelter? Sure if I have the opportunity to assist I most certainly would, but not at the risk of putting my family in danger. The biggest thing I do not like about the majority of ARES/RACES/Skywarn evangelist I meet is the fact that they can't accept the fact that I just like to play on the radio. They try to guilt new hams into joining as a sense of public service. For me, there is no question or wondering what I am going to do. Taking care of my family is my first priority, whether it is for dealing with an active shooter at the mall or running a radio because the .gov overloads their systems. Once I know the family is taken care of, then I can evaluate what is going on and determine if a trip to wherever is feasible/realistic. If so wonderful. If not, they are on their own. Fortunately the group near me doesn't seem to push folks towards the ARES/RACES side. They do advertise the monthly meetings during the regular club meetings/nets, but that is about it. If I was told I HAD to do the public service thing just because I had a license they would not like my response. |
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For me, there is no question or wondering what I am going to do. Taking care of my family is my first priority, whether it is for dealing with an active shooter at the mall or running a radio because the .gov overloads their systems. Once I know the family is taken care of, then I can evaluate what is going on and determine if a trip to wherever is feasible/realistic. If so wonderful. If not, they are on their own. Fortunately the group near me doesn't seem to push folks towards the ARES/RACES side. They do advertise the monthly meetings during the regular club meetings/nets, but that is about it. If I was told I HAD to do the public service thing just because I had a license they would not like my response. Quoted:
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When I was living in NC there was a huge ARES presence. They had a pretty good program too, but myself and many others had to ask ourselves a question. When bad weather comes (in this case hurricanes) should we leave our families and drive across town to work in a shelter? Sure if I have the opportunity to assist I most certainly would, but not at the risk of putting my family in danger. The biggest thing I do not like about the majority of ARES/RACES/Skywarn evangelist I meet is the fact that they can't accept the fact that I just like to play on the radio. They try to guilt new hams into joining as a sense of public service. For me, there is no question or wondering what I am going to do. Taking care of my family is my first priority, whether it is for dealing with an active shooter at the mall or running a radio because the .gov overloads their systems. Once I know the family is taken care of, then I can evaluate what is going on and determine if a trip to wherever is feasible/realistic. If so wonderful. If not, they are on their own. Fortunately the group near me doesn't seem to push folks towards the ARES/RACES side. They do advertise the monthly meetings during the regular club meetings/nets, but that is about it. If I was told I HAD to do the public service thing just because I had a license they would not like my response. We always put family first. It was up to the individual to make the decision to respond to a call. If we couldn't staff all of the shelters that were opened then we didn't staff all the shelters. Everyone's a volunteer. I didn't see any point in getting bent out of shape if we couldn't staff everything. If you could only give a few hours then we'd take a few hours. |
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It has a lot to do with the specific group dynamics and the government structure. Those involved in my area are heavily grounded in reality. We do get activated as a volunteer organization and only those that can help at that time and want to will respond. Following that, other members check in and some sort of schedule gets thrown together for cover shifts if needed as time expands.
We have run communications for actual temporary evacuation shelters related to large fast moving wild fires. What we did discovered was that it was just as important to have members at home, away from the emergency zone, on their radios so they could relay information. We had operators at home checking with the 911 center regarding what roads were closed so those responding to the shelter sites could make it to the shelters via safe open routes. The message traffic that my ARES/RACES group practices are related to temporary evacuation shelters. Things like meal counts including special dietary requirements, medical need requests, and shelter population counts. The messages are sent in a simple format, always verified that message received is the same as sent. Some of the other training is two fold it allows members to evaluate their own gear and to test the gear that the county had purchased for our use. Things like HT drills on simplex call in to the EOC (elevated antenna) then we map out signal reports from operators stationed at other local locations like nursing homes, hospital, etc. Then another month we'd setup a simplex repeater then a cross band repeater and send members out to local locations and rerun the drills again. It's a good reminder on how important it is to be able to program your radios, keeping batteries charges, and owning some sort of backup radio. |
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Sounds a lot like our group/area.
Our two main roles were staffing shelters during hurricanes (and the occasional wildfire/chemical spill) and area hospitals in the event of a MCI. Simplex drills are great for helping folks understand both their capabilities without the repeater and their gear in general. It's surprising how little some people know about their equipment. Even educating them on switching between VFO and memory can be an eye opener. |
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Sounds a lot like our group/area. Our two main roles were staffing shelters during hurricanes (and the occasional wildfire/chemical spill) and area hospitals in the event of a MCI. Simplex drills are great for helping folks understand both their capabilities without the repeater and their gear in general. It's surprising how little some people know about their equipment. Even educating them on switching between VFO and memory can be an eye opener. I ran into that chatting with a friend recently. Been using memory groups for so long on my HT I couldn't remember how to flip over to VFO. Kind of embarrassing actually.
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The local Skywarn group is fairly active, somewhat loosely tied to the larger group based in Midland. Near the fringes of Midland radar's reach, they do go out and observe storm cells and what they are doing on the ground - kind of an adjunct to the telemetry systems in place. Useful because there are many assets spread throughout the area which operate without people on site, and it is good to know where there could be problems.
As for the populated areas, major highways and so forth, it is my opinion that the governments can buy their own radios and hire their own radio operators. The whackers will be there to fetch their Cokes and the rest of us can take care of our own people and assets as needed. |
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Where I am (just north of Austin, TX) the ARES group is rather large. Not at all at a shortage for manpower. Membership, while it has requirements of certain ICS classes being completed, is pretty casual. I joined to help where I can, when me and mine are already taken care of, and to get inside that circle of comms. Our skywarn group has someone who is connected to the area weather service for direct reporting of sightings. We have a set of stations (for phone and digital) in the local EOC as well.
While our county is pretty self sufficient, we're seen as an asset, not a group to "occupy the whackers". I hope I'm the farthest possible thing from a whacker. I saw an injury at the local ice rink last week and before I could skate over and apply direct pressure to the head lac, there were already two guys there doing what I would have, and various staff hovering around with radios, phones, first aid kits, and other assorted paraphernalia (and yes, 8x10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back of each one). So I stayed the hell out of the way. |
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Tag for later... Thederrick106 = RO & EC of his county RACES / ARES...
I will add more later but as always YMMV and if you can't take some things with "a grain of salt" then well loosen the tin foil. Whackers, politics? Yea every organization gets em. Of course my work number is 911 so I get no shortage of true emergency situations so its not like I am searching them out during my free time! 
...More later, maybe. 
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| Metro areas like Dallas are going to have plenty of folks. They seem to constantly have pissing matches over something, so it's not worth getting into. The county south of Dallas seems pretty decent, a lot fewer folks, but several small cities, it seems about right. The county SE of Dallas, I'm not even sure they have an ARES/RACES net. I think last year the NWS was on the air trying to figure out if they were calling on the right frequency or not. These are the areas where folks could help / be needed. We tend to forget outside the big cities there can be a whole lot of nothing once you get off the main highways. |
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Good points, Joe. The County north of Dallas has a well organized, active ARES presence, NE/NW I'm not so sure about. I live in a corner, so when there's weather, it's worth flipping through the freq's to try and figure out what's coming. We had a little tornado touch down about 1/2 mile from the house 3 years ago and after seeing the stuff from Joplin and Cleburne, I'm more about staying out of the path if possible. |