Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club
ARES Past News
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ARES Past News
Dec. 31, 1999 to Jan. 1, 2000 - ARES Y2K
South County ARES joined forces with North, Central and Lompoc ARES teams in support of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Service, (OES) and Emergency Medical Service (EMS), for a state wide Y2K preparedness exercise.
On Thursday December 31st we deployed the SBARC Van to the OES office location at County Fire Administration Center on Cathedral Oaks Road. Bob W6CZD set up the radios and the Van the following morning. Norm KA6UHP helped set up and operate later that night. We operated two county wide net controls from the Van , OES and EMS on 14700 and 145.18. The EMS net was moved at one point to the SBARC Portable repeater which was deployed to West Camino Ceilo by Bruce N6OLT (AEC) and Steve KD6VEX. We also checked into a wide area OES net on 3992 KHz and 7230 KHz with portable “roll-out dipole” antenna.
The first order of business was “Med-Net” training of ARES members for EMS operation. Med-Net coordinates all available medical services County wide during any declared disaster. There were two training sessions, the first one at 1400 and a second session at 2000 on December 31 run by Lou N6ZKJ (AEC). One of our main functions was manning the communications at the individual area hospitals for Med-Net back-up. Barbara KD6HKR and Noel KF6LDC covered Cottage, Hubert KC6NAH covered St. Francis, and Bill W1UUQ covered Goleta Valley. Bob KB6CEY was the County Wide Net control from the van for the EMS Operation. ARES now has a dozen trained operators to assist the limited staff of the County EMS operation.
The second operation was county wide net control for OES. Claude KE6JSA was the net control from the van, Wayne WA6CBG was on site at the Carpinteria OES with Jack WA6DQK nearby at his home QTH. All traffic and communications were through the county wide coverage of the WB6OBB repeater.
The SBARC 7.5KW diesel trailer generator was deployed also to the OES location and provided additional power for the van (so they could run the needed overhead heater), and as back-up to the media tent. Harry K6PDQ delivered and operated the generator during the whole evening and right into the next century!
Also on site the whole time was George K6HOZ (EC) and Wally K7AMI (AEC), who ran the HF med-net communications. Dave WA6BRW our DEC, came down with the flu Friday afternoon and spent the entire New Years Eve and day in bed. But, for a few of us this was a really long day, on site at 1400 12/31/99 and departed for home at 0130 in the year 2000!
My special thanks to Emmet WA6COT for the use of the 145.18 machine and Dennis WB6OBB for the use of the 147.00 repeater. Also, special thanks to all of those people that spent time doing community service in leu of being home with their families and spouses during the most eventful New Years celebration in a thousand years.
73, George
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Dec. 3, 1999 - ARES: Annual Downtown Christmas Parade
SBARC's ARES team provided event communications for the Annual Downtown Christmas Parade Friday night (December 3). Most event communications are done by SBARC's Operations group, but since Jug WA6MBZ the V.P. of Operations, was going to out of town that night and we required only ten operators, we decided to use all ARES personnel in uniform for this event.
Here are the ARES members and their assignments:
WA6MBZ, Mike Jogoleff, V.P. Operations & Van Decorations
K6HOZ, George Richardson, Operations & Driver
KE6JSA, Claude Gago, NCS FROM THE VAN!
WA6DQK, Jack Goodearl, NCS Back-up
KC6NAH, Hubert Stamps, Setup
N6OLT, Bruce Gordon, Setup
K6CZD, Bob Levinson, Jennifer Talt
KF6LDC, Noel Alander, State and Sola
K6PDQ, Harry Rouse, State and Victoria
N6HSY, Steve Crisenbury, State and Anapamu
N6ZKJ, 'Lou' Dartanner, State and Figuroa
KA6UHP, Norm Salzman, State and Carrillo
KB6CEY, Bob Ward, State and Canon Perdido
KD6NBZ, Mack Stanton, State and De La Guerra
K6NOO, Rhona Anderson, Co-pilot and Elf.
KD6HKR, Barbara Mickelson, Social Coordinator
The Santa Barbara Down Town Organization, the coordinators of the parade, invited us to enter the SBARC/ARES communications in the parade itself. So George K6HOZ, Jug WA6MBZ and Elsie Kelly KA6WBS decorated the van for Christmas. Ralph Kelly N6HMO, (recently a silent key), put up some of the best Christmas light show in Santa Barbara for many years. So the three of us went through his decorations and selected Santa in his Sleigh with two Reindeer all with internal lighting. We also installed star burst computer controlled lights and real leather sleigh bells and Christmas banners. It looked great!
On the evening of the parade the van was strategically next to the starting area. Claude KE6JSA was net control and operated the whole evening from the van. Rhona K6NOO was co-pilot and handed out goodie bags to all the ARES personnel along the parade route as we passed. Barbara KD6HKR also rode on board as social coordinator.
It was a real fun evening and the kids just loved the Santa and his Reindeer attempting to fly off the roof of the van. They would point up high and say "SANTA". There was suppose to be 10 to 20 thousand spectators and boy was there a lot of Christmas cheer and crowds.
After all the work was done, The Downtown Organization provided all the ARES personnel with a free dinner at "State & A" restaurant. Special thanks to Jennifer Talt and her great staff. This was the best way to help the community, get into the Holiday Season and have great fun in a big way.
Happy Holidays,
George K6HOZ, E.C.
P.S. We have already been asked not only to provide our communications skills again next year but to also bring "The Christmas Van".
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Nov. 6, 1999 - ARES: Search and Rescue Exercise at Rancho Alegre
Saturday night November 6, the pagers went off and The South County ARES group was activated for a Santa Barbara County wide search and rescue exercise at Rancho Alegre adjacent to Lake Cachuma. By request of Bob Tangle, WD6ESU we were asked to support Los Padres Search and Rescue (LPSAR) in this exercise.
We deployed the Van with Bob W6CZD and Norm KA6UHP, Harry K6PDQ with Calli KD6OVS, George K6HOZ with Shaw KF6UCF, Hubert KC6NAH as backup, and Wally K7AMI drove up by himself. The North County Search and Rescue pulled in their com-van and became the operation center and Bob WD6ESU was the operation leader. We were instructed to use MRA and our ham frequencies to relay communications back to the command post from the upper canyons of the search. There was not a lot of traffic but this was a good learning experience and will help to generate a stronger working relationship with LPSAR.
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Oct 12, 1999 - New Emergency Coordinator - George Richardson, K6HOZ
George Richardson, K6HOZ, will become the new Emergency Coordinator (EC) starting October 12, 1999. He will succeed Wally Lindstrum K7AMI, who is in the process of moving to Utah in the next year or so. Wally will remain an Assistant EC until his final departure. Please join us in welcoming a twenty year veteran of ARES in his new ARRL appointed position.
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