State of California OES ACS Newsletter

February 23, 2003

Published weekly (except for vacations and emergencies) by the Auxiliary Communications Service, State of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services.

Articles in this Issue
EMMCOM Bulletin # 382

FIELD UNITS Pt1
To: Emergency Communications Units - Information Bulletin
To: Emergency Management Agencies via Internet and Radio
By: Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services

EMC382 OES ACS FIELD UNITS Pt1 Release 2/24/03
State OES, California, has developed Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) Field Teams to assist in the deployment of OES assets. These include it¹s trailer-mounted transportable earth stations and Mobile Communications Units (Comm Vans).

The genesis for the field teams occurred in the early l990's when a volunteer obtained and donated a used TV crew truck to State OES. He and several other volunteers prepared it for microwave and telephone. One memorable use of that Comm Van was the Oakland Fire Storm which burned out the phone lines. The field team put the Comm Van on the hills, made a line-of-sight microwave link to the Oakland-Bay Bridge Toll Plaza. There the received microwave signal was connected to the telephone system. That provided access to telephone lines at the Command Post for the Incident Commander.

That team became known as RF Team #1, and its members included Richard Epting, Lance Rettick, Steve Cembura and Jeff Ruhl. The success of the RF Team, as indicated by the Oakland Fire Storm usage, along with numerous other situations, persuaded OES to acquire and equip three new units largely modeled after that first donated unit. In the mid to late 1990's these joined that original unit, along with another specialty unit created by that original field team.

These five units are collectively identified as three ICS Type I Communications Units and two Specialty Units, one for Microwave and the other as a Repeater Unit. More about them in the next bulletin.

The earth stations program was created in the mid '90's when the state funded the Operational Area Satellite Information System (OASIS) program. That placed a fixed earth station at each of the 58 counties and other key sites. In the process OES acquired four trailer-mounted earth stations as part of its field-deployable emergency communications resources.

These satellite trailers have been of great value to remote fire Incident Command Centers in the rugged foothills and mountains of the state, as well as myriad other applications and events. The telephones that result provide the most user-friendly form of communications to fire, law and similar agencies.

Today, State OES ACS personnel provide several field teams which support these OES assets, yet there is need for others willing to undertake the requisite training.

A recent example was the Williams Fire in Southern California where an OASIS unit was deployed, along with a Communications Van. Some of the photo's of that event can be viewed at the following Website. There also numbers phots that can be found from the Website.

Series continues in the next bulletin.

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Bulletins archives:
ACS Web page: ftp.ucsd.edu/emcomm or ftp.oes.ca.gov/
ACS/EMCOMM and a Landline BBS at 916-255-0798 (graphical & standard interface)

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Thanks to the ACS List master, Mark Hartman, AA6MH, for this fine service.

Links/Chats/Lists/Contacts California OES URL:
http://www.oes.ca.gov/ California OES ACS URL:
http://www.races.net/ ICQ RACES
Chat Room: ICQ#40163274 (Sundays 1000-1200 Pacific Time)
RACES Mailing List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RACES
"ACS Newsletters" since 11/6/00 and "EMCOMM Bulletins" since 1/3/00:
http://www.races.net/sca/archive.html "
ACS Newsletters" since 2/7/98 and old "RACES Bulletins" and "EMCOMM Bulletins":
http://acs.oes.ca.gov/

California OES ACS HQ facility contact information: Auxiliary Communications Service Program, Room A-139 Governor's Office of Emergency Services P.O. Box 419047, Rancho Cordova, CA 95741- 9047

Copyright 2003 by State of California OES ACS. All or any part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or quoted, provided that credit be given to this issue of the State of California "ACS Newsletter."

Opinions expressed in articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of State of California OES ACS. State of California Office of Emergency Services and its "ACS Newsletter" editor, Gary Crowe, Ph.D. KG6HIM, do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any person for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in the material contained herein, regardless of whether such errors result from negligence, accident, or any other cause whatsoever.

73, Gary Crowe, Ph.D. "ACS Newsletter" Editor State of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services Operations Support Branch Auxiliary Communications Service Tel: (916) 489- 8709 Fax: (916) 488-0148.