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Old Palo Alto Emergency Services Volunteers |
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Drills are once a quarter and usually take about 5 minutes. It is a great time to test your radio and location. I will start by reading the script below. It is a good refresher of general principles for using your FRS radio. If you are pressed for time, feel free to check in late. I will accept check ins for 20 minutes.
A note on the Damage Assessment part of the drill. Follow THIS link to a random house that you can evaluate and use that to fill out your damage assessment form. You can follow the link on that page to the answer sheet to compare your answers with what the city got. This part of the drill will make you familiar with the Damage Assessment Form and make me familiar with reporting the results, and make the people I report to familiar and so fourth". These reports have two purposes. First, if you need help, we can ask the city for help. We also have a CERT team that can provide help if the city cannot, which is highly likely. I was responsible for a division of Hewlett Packard during the 1989 earthquake and we had a situation. I was trained to call the fire department if such a situation ever occurred which I did. Their response was "you are on your own". I dealt with it because of my HAM radio and that is why I agreed to be your NPC. Anyway, the other reason the damage assessment reports are important is that the city uses that data in requesting help from the state for disaster assistance. Like it or not, in an emergency to some extent we are on our own.
This is the Old Palo Alto Emergency Service Volunteer Radio test. This is a Drill and not an actual emergency. This is just a Drill.
My name is Allen and I am your NPC. The purpose of this test is to give everyone a chance to test their radios, the settings, and the usage so that you will have a way to pass emergency communications to the city in the event of a disaster. If you are hearing this you are on Channel 3 and privacy code of 0 or 18. Be sure to set your privacy code to 18 so that I and others can hear you. I will take check-ins first and then ask for damage reports.
To check in please wait for the channel to be clear then press your PTT button, and speak your call sign. For example press PTT and say "BPC 3" then release PTT. I will then acknowledge you by saying "BPC 3 you are checked in". Please wait until I acknowledge each caller before trying to check in.
If two of you try to check in at the same time I may not be able to make out who it is. I may say "will the stations that just tried to check in please repeat". If I heard part of one of the call signs I will indicate that. "Will the station ending in 3 please repeat". Once both of those stations are checked in, I will ask for check-ins from other stations.
If you do not get a confirmation, just wait a bit and try again simply just giving your call sign.
If you wish to check out at the same time, state that you are also checking out.
After all check-ins are complete, I will ask for damage reports.
At the end of the drill, please check out. "BPC 3 checking out" I will respond "BPC 3 you are checked out."
I will close the net after 20 minutes at which time I will report the summary of our net to PA Net Control over HAM radio.
I will now take check ins. (WRMI-953).