RadioBanter - View Single Post

October 26th 11, 05:17 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.moderated

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:39:32 EDT, (Dave Platt)
wrote:

I have the good fortune to live in a city (and county) which has some
very effective arrangements of that sort. We *have* been called out
by the county on at least one occasion in the past few years, to serve
as backup communicators for the police/fire infrastructure (somebody
sabotaged several fiber-optic cables and knocked out all of the
telephones and cellphones in south Santa Clara County back in 2009).
I still have a very nice thank-you letter from the city manager of
Morgan Hill.

My ARES/RACES group also has a good relationship with our county.
I live in Nye County, NV, third largest county area-wise in the
contiguous USA (18,159 square miles, larger than a couple of US
states), but with very low population (43,946). Our ARES/RACES group
is well integrated with the county Emergency Management Department.
And we have proven our worth: A few winters ago in January, our
largest town Pahrump (pop: 36,441) experienced a town-wide electric
outage that lasted for over 12 hours after some hunters shot down the
main transmission line into town. The communications systems of the
sheriff, fire department, and even the electric company ran on AC
power with no backup. ARES was asked to step in. We shadowed
officials and manned emergency shelters using our battery- and
solar-powered radios and repeater to reestablish communications.

In other joint exercises, we have shown that we could get a message
through when they couldn't.

The county even buys us radio equipment. Three VHF/UHF and one HF
transceivers along with antennas at the main Emergency Operations
Center (EOC) in Pahrump, as well as in 2 other smaller towns. Our two
mountain-top repeaters are located in the county's equipment shelters
and use their towers.

They let us use the training room in the EOC for our meetings and
training. And we do train regularly. We also hold our Amateur radio
exam sessions in that room. The ARES Emergency Coordinator and his
assistant have keys to the building.

And, getting back to our original topic of HOAs and CC&Rs, most of our
the developments are free of any restrictions on ham antennas. Mostly,
they just deal with set-backs and minimum size of structures. Another
good reason to live in a rural community!

Dick Grady, AC7EL