Racine County ARES

From Megawiki

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is the field arm of the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL). The League deals with all aspects of Amateur Radio, including legislation, licensing, and contests; the ARES branch specifically deals with communications during emergencies. When you hear in the news that Amateur Radio operators were part of a search and rescue operation, assisted in getting aid to a ship in trouble at sea, or provided communications for a Red Cross shelter, you're hearing about an ARES function.

You become an ARES amateur radio operator by joining ARRL, but a "Ham" does not need to be a member of ARRL to participate in ARES. However, Emergency Coordinators (ECs) are required to be ARRL members.


Contents

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Organizational Structure

Jim Markstrom, KB9MMA is the Emergency Coordinator for Racine County.

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Assistant ECs for Racine County

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Racine County ARES functions

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Recurring Events

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Past Events

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Definitions

  • On one of the nets I check into from time to time, I heard a hospital activation plan referred to as an "MOU". I hear that from time to time and it's not correct. MOUs, operations plans, and activation plans are very different animals.


  • There are several kinds of policy and procedure documents and it's important to know the difference because each has a separate function:


  • Memorandum of Understanding, or "MOU" Is a formal agreement, analogous to a "mutual aid pact", between an ARES/RACES organization and a served agency. It's the closest thing to a contract we have. It sets, in general terms, the expectations each organization should have of the other. MOUs must be coordinated with district, and section leadership. The ARRL's MOU with the American Red Cross can be read at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/mou/redcro.html.


  • Operations Plans, aka "Ops Plans" or "Oplans": Are internal documents within the section, a district, or a county. An Operations Plan establishes the priorities, policies, and procedures for a specific operation or a group of operations. For instance, the Great Midwest Relay has an operations plan called the "Great Midwest Relay Race Handbook". You can see it at http://www.greatmidwestrelay.com/event/index.php?category_id=1944. Each county should have an operations plan for its membership and it should be coordinated with their district. Each district should have an operations plan that takes the county operations plans into account. The section operations plan is called the "Volunteer Emergency Communications Support Plan". You can read it at http://www.wi-aresraces.org/docs/vecsplan.pdf. Incidentally, we're in the process of rewriting the VECS Plan, more on that later.


  • Activation Plans: These are more like job aids. Activation plans are "at-a-glance" very specific who, what, when, where, why documents. They are brief, usually only one page, documents that list contact information, frequency lists, and other critical information needed to get a station or an operation up and running as quickly and efficiently as possibly. The hospital/public health agency amateur radio activation plans are examples. The WEM Ham shack Plan, which I've attached to this email for you to see, is another example. Activation plans can, and probably should, be attached as an appendix to an operations plan.


  • Letters and Memos: These are less formal documents. They are written by our leadership and can be either guidelines or directives. A letter from the SEC requiring all Wisconsin ARES/RACES members to take FEMA IS-100 and IS-700 courses is an example.



  • All these documents are important and have their place in our organization. But, it's not realistic to expect an activation plan to take the place of an operations plan, an MOU to be a good activation plan, or a marketing brochure to provide guidance to start up a station in an emergency.


  • This information supplied by SKIP W9REL


Skip Sharpe, W9REL

Assistant SEC, Training

Wisconsin ARES/RACES

Assistant EC,

Waukesha County ARES/RACES

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Training

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Required Training

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Recommended Training


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Postings at the Racine County Emergency Operations Center

Dave Maack, Racine County Emergency Management Director stated on April 20, 2006 that "Any potential responder to the EOC must have NIMS and ICS training."

This is also required by the Presidential Directive 5 and Presidential Directive 8, so whether you are a ham radio operator or any other volunteer, you will need the training to be able to assist at the EOC.

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Emergency Preparedness Emphasis this Month



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Upcoming Months

The emphases for the remaining months are:

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See Also


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External Links





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