Oakland A.R.E.S. Newsletter October 4, 1997

<Announcements / Calendar>

• Meeting schedule: November 1 December 6
• Monthly Fire Station exercise: Thursday, October 2
• ADA Walkathon: Saturday, October 18
• Boy Scout Jamboree on the Air (JOTA), October 19
• Pacificon: Concord Hilton October 17-19
• Head of Estuary Regatta: October 26
• Simulated Emergency Test (tentative): November 1
• Emergency Management Class: County EOC, Dublin, November 8

<RACES Report>

Fire season continues thru October. This year, the city is preparing for winter floods due to El Niño . We will be looking at what other ham radio groups have done to support flood emergencies, such as the Palo Alto RACES flood protocol. The October and November meetings will be held at the Red Cross. In December we move to our new permanent site, Leona Lodge just off highway 13 at the Carson/Redwood exit. Bob, KE6IUE is now accepting 1998 Dues.

<Special Events>

American Heart Association Walkathon: Thanks to Mark, N6RCG ; Chris, KQ6JZ ; Mike, KD6PLN ; Lloyd, KF6JRL; Jim, K6LWA ; Roger, KE6STB ; Doug, N6TQS and Net Control Ted, W6NPB for participating.

American Diabetes Association Walkathon: Mark, N6RCG will be signing up volunteers for for a walkathon on Saturday, October 18 which starts at Jack London Square and goes around Lake Merritt.

Jamboree on the Air: This Boy Scout event will be happening on-the-air on October 18-19. For details, see QST or the ARRL website at http://www.arrl.org/ead/jota.html

Pacificon '97: Held at the Concord Hilton, this inexpensive convention has educational conferences, forums, and a vendor exhibition hall. There is a banquet and guest speaker Saturday evening. Reservation forms will be available at the next meeting. The program is available at the MDARC website at http://www.mdarc.org/pac97_1.html

Head of the Estuary Regatta: This year we will be relaying boat start/stop times via packet radio. Mark, N6RCG just needs a couple of people with packet equipment, and a couple of replacement operators to type in a bunch of numbers into the packet terminal.

SET: The date for the Simulated Emergency Test has not yet been finalized. We are resolving a conflict with an important class described in the next article.

Emergency Management Class

The Coastal Region ACS Unit of the California Office of Emergency Services, in cooperation with the Alameda County Sheriff's Communications Team and the Alameda County Office of Emergency Services, will present a free course California Emergency Management Basics: An overview for the Amateur Radio Operator involved in Emergency Management for Ham Radio Operators and non-Amateur communicators involved with local Emergency Management agencies in the greater San Francisco Bay area.

The first session will be offered Saturday, November 8th, 1997, from 10:00 to 15:30, at the Alameda Co. Emergency Operations Center at 4217 Broder Blvd; Dublin. Sign-in will start at 09:30. The class will run approximately 4.5 hours, plus a 1 to 1.5 hour lunch break. Lunch will not be served.

Topics to be covered include Intro. to the Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS); Incident Command System basics for the Amateur Radio Operator; and Overview of the California Mutual Aid System.

Pre-registration before Tuesday, October 14th, 1997 is required. Send your name, call, address, phone, email, and affiliation info to coit@oes.ca.gov or fax it to (510) 286-0853, ATTN: Don Root or mail it to: Don Root, WB6UCK; Office of Emergency Services; Telecommunications Section; 1300 Clay St., Suite 400; Oakland, CA 94612-1425 For more information, leave a message on: (510) 286-6748.

RF Exposure Rules

Beginning January, the FCC is requiring hams to perform a routine station evaluation to ensure that maximum permissible power levels, as described in the new FCC rules, are not exceeded. Complete details may be found on pages 51-52 of the October, 1997 issue of QST Magazine. A summary of the rules may be found in the October Pacific Division Update website at http://www.pdarrl.org/pdu/. You are exempt from performing the station evaluation if your transmissions do not exceed the following wattages :

Band	Power		Band	Power
160 m	500		12 m	75
75 m	500		10 m	50
80 m	500		6-1.23 m	50
40 m	500		70 cm	10
30 m	425		33 cm	150
20 m	225		23 cm	200
17 m	125		13 cm and up	250
15 m	100

Regardless of the transmission power, you are still required to comply with the RF exposure levels prescribed by the regulations.

<Web Report>

Mike, KD6PLN is now webmaster for two additional ham radio sites, the Pacific Division Update, at http://www.pdarrl.org/pdu/ and the East Bay Section at http://www.pdarrl.org/ebsec/. Please check these out. For those of you with e-mail only access, you can subscribe to the East Bay Section mailing list by sending a message to join-eastbaysection@s1.net

<Tidbits>

WB6NDJ Repeater Autopatch: is now available on UHF. It uses the same telephone line as VHF, and the same code, but no call slot autodials.

Web sightings: NOAA ionospheric reports are at http://www.sel.noaa.gov/radio/radio.html

<Attendance Sheet>

The Oakland ARES meeting came to order at the Oakland Red Cross at 9:00 AM. Present were:

Lisa Askew	KF6BYI		Alan Horn	KF6GYW		Deborah Reisman	KE6MQV
A.J. Benham	KF6EUJ		Edward Kilmartin	KE6WPG		Bernard Schormann	KE6TYY
Adele Bertaud	KE6HKY		Dave McGuinness	KF6EPQ		Margery Service	KF6GTT
Herbert Bowen	WA6CUY		Art McLaughlin	W6THD		Theodore Stewart	W6NPB
Jim Carter	K6LWA		David Otey	WB6NER		Donald Street	K6EHQ
Susan Chan Rogers	pending		Chris Peeples	KE6MQW		Jim Tiemstra	N6OIK
Doug Faunt	N6TQS		Jim Ploss	KB6MYV		Brian Treusch	W6LL
Bob Firehock	KE6IUE		David Pompa	pending		Mark Violet	N6RCG
Curtis Floray	KA6MJO		Mike Pompa	KD6PLN
Richmond Harding	EL2BG		Chloe Reisman	pending

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

The next meeting will be Saturday, October 4, 1997 at 9:00 AM
at the Oakland Red Cross, 2111 International Blvd. (E. 14 St. & 22 Ave.) room 4.
The December meeting will be at Leona Lodge, 4444 Mountain Blvd.