Oakland A.R.E.S. Newsletter September 6, 1997

Minutes of the August 2, 1997 Meeting

Attendance Sheet

The next meeting will be Saturday, September 6, 1997 at 9:00 AM
at the Oakland Red Cross, 2111 International Blvd. (E. 14 St. & 22 Ave.) room 4

<Announcements / Calendar>

<Fire Station Radio Ceremony

The August meeting at Fire Station 26 was followed by a ceremony where Henry Renteria of the Oakland Office of Emergency Services, Fire Chief John Baker of the Oakland Fire Services Agency, and Officer Mike Sims of the Oakland Police Department expressed their appreciation for the work Oakland RACES volunteers have performed. David Otey, WB6NER outlined the history of Oakland ARES/RACES, describing 1989-91 as the Big Bang, 1992-96 as Expansion and 1997 as Steady State. Deborah Reisman, KE6MQV then presented a framed proclamation from Mayor Elihu Harris declaring August 2-8 Amateur Radio Week. The proclamation will be hung in the new OES radio room when completed. A number of hams from ACES - Alameda County Emergency Service were also in attendance. The only regret was that the media was not present to witness the ceremony.

<RACES Report>

The September meeting will be held at the Red Cross building many of us have grown accustom to. By December we should have a permanent site at a Parks & Rec. location. An acronym was finally selected for our group: E mergency C ommunications H am O perations or ECHO. Jim, N6OIK gave Battalion Chiefs a RACES orientation session, describing the resource and tactical nets and proposing an alert and warning task force. The Coliseum drill is still up in the air. In such a scenario we would use 147.585 and coordinate with security personnel. CORE has adopted the RACES policies for communications (CB for neighborhood coordination, relaying to hams at fire stations). In order to avoid city event conflicts CORE has declared April 18, 1998 for the next city-wide drill. However, this conflicts with Baker to Vegas. The new EOC construction is being negotiated with one bidder. The bid is $1.5M over budget. Our group expressed a need to begin working with the Police EOC. A committee was formed to improve membership outreach and centralize the membership database. The database is currently maintained by David, WB6NER. Yellow jackets cost $53. See Mark, N6RCG.

<Special Events>

National Night Out: Thanks to Chris, KE6MQW ; Chris, KQ6JZ ; Mike, KD6PLN ; Adele, KE6HKY; Jim, KE6SSX ; Dave, KF6EPQ and Net Control Herb, WA6CUY for participating.

American Heart Association Walkathon: We already have several volunteers working bicycle mobile for the Thursday, Sept. 18 noontime event. Contact Chris, KQ6JZ to sign up.

There are many events scheduled in the next two months. Further details and Pacificon fliers for mail-in registration will be available at the September meeting.

<Web Report>

The Oakland ARES web site has been given a facelift, now matching the look and feel of the ARRL pages. It is now very easy to navigate from the main page to the rest of the site, to the emergency preparedness pages of most government agencies, including FEMA, to the new City of Oakland and Red Cross pages, to the ARRL, and to various other useful resources, such as callsign lookup. The fire patrol manual distributed at the June meeting is now online. Finally, there is now an easy-to-remember alias to the site: http://come.to/ares

Write to FCC Today

You have until August 31 to write in support of the ARRL proposal RM-9150 to the FCC. Citing "a substantial need to improve and increase the quantity and quality" and timeliness of enforcement in malicious interference complaints, the ARRL has called on the FCC to "create a streamlined, privatized enforcement process" to handle and adjudicate the most serious Amateur Service rules violations. The proposal moves the enforcement of FCC Rules from the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau to the Chief Administrative Law Judge function of the FCC. It also relieves the evidence-gathering burden in such cases from the FCC by giving it to the volunteer Amateur Auxiliary. The text of RM-9150 is available online at http://www.pdarrl.org/pdu/rm9150.html The ARRL October 1996 Board meeting motion which initiated this Petition can be found in pages 63 - 64, January 1997 QST.

The FCC gave no advance warning of the comment period. To respond, send an original and 4 copies to: Secretary, Federal Communications Commission; 1919 M St NW; Washington DC 20554. Here is a sample letter:

RE: RM-9150 I support the ARRL Petition to have the FCC change its rules to permit members of the volunteer Amateur Auxiliary to bring evidence of malicious interference violations directly before the FCC's Chief Administrative Law Judge. The Chief ALJ would be authorized to determine if the complainants have a valid case, to issue show-cause orders, and to designate complaints for hearing. Please issue a Notice of Proposed Rule Making on this matter.

<Tidbits>

Name Tags: Unclaimed yellow jacket name tags: WB6BYA, KF6GYP, KF6HEW, EL2BG. Contact Mike, KD6PLN.

Web sightings: WM7D links to thousands of ham radio web sites at www.wm7d.net/

<Attendance Sheet>

The Oakland ARES meeting came to order at Fire Station 26 at 9:00 AM. Present were:

Lisa Askew

KF6BYI

Willy Denninger

KE6EMX

Jim Ploss

KB6MYV

Adele Bertaud

KE6HKY

Doug Faunt

N6TQS

David Pompa

pending

Herbert Bowen

WA6CUY

Bob Firehock

KE6IUE

Mike Pompa

KD6PLN

Chris Burgardt

KQ6JZ

Dave Harnish

KF6EQA

Deborah Reisman

KE6MQV

Jim Burgardt

KE6SSX

Alan Horn

KF6GYW

Margery Service

KF6GTT

Kathy Burgardt

KE6SSY

Roger Jung

KE6STB

Theodore Stewart

W6NPB

Elaine Carter

K6SZT

Dave McGuinness

KF6EPQ

Jim Tiemstra

N6OIK

Elton Carter

KE6MRJ

Art McLaughlin

W6THD

Brian Treusch

W6LL

Jim Carter

K6LWA

Harry Myler

KE6VSU

Mark Violet

N6RCG

George Chong

W6BUR

David Otey

WB6NER

Carly Violet

KF6LOH

Louis Cobet

K6MDH

Chris Peeples

KE6MQW

Meetings are normally held on the first Saturday of each month.

The next meeting will be Saturday, September 6, 1997 at 9:00 AM
at the Oakland Red Cross, 2111 International Blvd. (E. 14 St. & 22 Ave.) room 4