Emergency Communications in Oregon Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) is reporting the state is cutting ties with the head of Oregon’s amateur radio service, Vince Van Der Hyde K7VV OPB say: When Oregon suffers a major earthquake, cell phones, telephone lines and other communication systems may fail — or be overwhelmed. So the state has an agreement with amateur radio enthusiasts to provide a backup system. That system was scheduled to be tested during a drill last week. But Van Der Hyde, the head of the Oregon Amateur Radio Emergency Service, asked his members not to participate. He declined to comment for this story, but in a letter he said state equipment was in disarray, volunteers were not given enough time to prepare and the state doesn’t have operational control of the service. Read the full story with link to a copy of the termination letter at http://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-ousts-leader-of-amateur-radio-service/ Oregon Office of Emergency Management Amateur Radio Unit http://www.oregon.gov/omd/oem/pages/tech_resp/amateur_radio.aspx
" . . . . . equipment was in disarray, volunteers were not given enough time to prepare . . . . " Sounds like a realistic emergency drill! One wonders though, if there's more to the story. It'd be useful to hear what K7VV has to say.
Van Der Hyde is an ARRL man? It will be interesting to see, if the ARRL has anything to say about it.
I believe a great opportunity was missed by not participating in this drill. It is better to find out what works and what doesn't and any missing equipment, before a real disaster occurs. Tnx N9DWE
Further info...... http://www.arrl.org/news/view/orego...ith-office-of-emergency-management-after-rift N7WE
I'm with N9DWE on this one. Participate in the drill to the best of your abilities, keep careful documentation of what works and what does not (systems, processes, organization, chain of command, as well as equipment), and make sound, constructive recommenations on how to improve. All will have recognized the exercise deficiencies and appreciate the constructive comments to improve. Now, without ARES participation, many may decide that the exercise was weakened because it was ARES fault. Those images amongst first responder agencies and local government leaders are very hard to shake after the fact. At this stage, move forward and do the best to improve Oregon ARES's tarnished image. There is no other real choice. Just a thought, and one based on my ignornace, where was the SM during all of this hoo-hah? Dave, N8LBF
Their orange vests were wrinkled? I mean I know they put radios in "major" places in case of Emergency, but I thought we had our own in case that stuff gets swept away. Sounds very political to me....and wouldn't the local ARES group keep an eye on that stuff? We have monthly tests here even though I don't belong to the group, I hear them doing Hospital radio tests as well as some fire stations on a monthly basis here. Wonder if there was a breakdown on both sides and suddenly someone decided to blow the dust off after a few years and "disarray" resulted....
I am not a member of ARES but I am on staff of our city OEM and in our county there is a good relationship with a ham group that train for and participate in drills and incidents. Two years ago I was sent to the Texas EM conference in San Antonio and while there attended a seminar on how to integrate amateur radio into public safety operations. Though the discussion was generally positive there was dissension from a few attendees representing municipal OEM's. Their comments were along the lines of: These guys show up with a vest, a radio, and an attitude that we don't have time for during an incident. They are sometimes disruptive. The hams need to participate in OEM exercises and pass the appropriate ICS courses to be of use to incident commanders. On the positive side it was noted that most hams just want to help and are willing to do whatever, operate their radios or carry water, whatever is needed. Most EM people in the seminar appreciate and encourage ham participation. That said, we hams are in charge of NOTHING during an incident other than our own safety. We should not put ourselves or allow ourselves to be put in an unsafe situation. We cannot give direction. We need to stay out of the way and wait for ICS staff direction. We should NEVER argue with incident staff about our role. We can offer help, the incident staff has zero obligation to accept, especially if we have a bad attitude and a lack of training. Local agencies are sometimes a bureaucratic mess but we hams have to accept that governmental entities may not see the problems in the same way. If we want to help then we have to accept certain inefficiencies, those are things we cannot change, and work to assist with change where possible. Government entities move slowly, that's just the way it is. I am sitting here this morning readying my call to TX Senator Cruz's office in DC asking for support of S-1625 and one talking point is the support provided by the amateur radio community in times of disaster. From what little I have read on the Oregon deal, I hope that no one in the Senator's office is aware. I really hope there is more to the Oregon story. This is very disappointing. Walking away seldom gets the desired outcome. Everyone loses a bit of respect, especially the walker who loses the most.
OK we all plan for the worst case scenario, but what if its not so bad, repeaters are up, electric power is there even though its sporadic, and people are able to tweet and update Facebook. What role would amateur radio have in such a scenario? Will State EOCs rely so much on amateur radio? Will crowd sourcing of information be better and more informative than us running with our HTs trying to do what we do the best we can? We should always remember that we have the term "served agency" and we should "serve" and not have egos come in between. Yes go ahead, participate the best you can, prove to the powers to be that we are committed, any day, any time, any condition, and not simply 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. This is how we assert our value and live up to "When all else fails..." Thanks and 73 Wassim WN6WJN
There has to be more to this story. There must be some sort of bad blood between the OOEM and K7VV. According to the OOEM, it just severing ties with K7VV and not the whole Ares/Races group (as I read it just the group at the OEM office, not the individual county-level Ares groups). Somebody in the know should keep us up to date with whats happening.
One person's role was permanently terminated, and they were thanked for their years of service. While additional details may be of general interest, it wouldn't surprise me if there are no further details released in the name of privacy, which I can understand. There is not a lot to be gained there. As others have said - now it's time to rebuild.
I live in Oregon and a member of the Ham Club in Cottage Grove. I also attended several hamfests in Rickreall, OR (and people here make fun of town names in Texas) and the local Emergency Response teams have good relations with fire, police and the ham community. I think we need to hear the complete story. The Emergency response folks all have ham rigs in their rigs. We're sitting on a potential devastating geologic fault and the entire state is very much aware of the danger and it is getting ready.
