EMC091 Uses for Amateur Radio  4/7 Series
To:   Emergency Communications Units - Information Bulletin
To:   Emergency Management Agencies via Internet and Radio
By:   Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) of the
      California Governor's Office of Emergency Services  

EMC091  Uses for Amateur Radio 4/7   For release 8/4/97

Subtitle: Radio Management?

 - For mobile and portable communications the conventional radio
is the most used instrument and still holds first place. However,
trunking radio technology, which, as of now, does not have a data
capability, is slowly catching up and the cell phone is actually
being relied on more and more. 

 - HF (voice and data) radio is again, in a small way, becoming
more popular for regional and statewide use.

                           ___ ___ ___ 

      Now lets take a look at the four basic phases of emergency
management in which all activities can be grouped. The following
is a short definition of each.
 
PREPAREDNESS:  Preparing to handle an emergency.  This includes 
               plans or preparations to save lives and to help                
               response and rescue operations.  
 
RESPONSE:      Responding safely to an emergency.  This includes
               actions taken to save lives and prevent further 
               property damage during a disaster or emergency 
               situation.  
 
RECOVERY:      Recovering from an emergency includes actions 
               taken to return to a normal, or even a safer
               situation following an emergency.  
 
MITIGATION:    Preventing future emergencies or minimizing their
               effects.  This includes any activities that might
               prevent an emergency from happening again, or 
               reducing the severity of unavoidable emergencies.
 
    After an examination of the above four phases we can see that 
emergency management is a full circle of never ending activities.
 
Looking a little closer it can be seen that the cell phone system 
will work fine in most of the four phases. The preparedness and 
mitigation phases present no problems at all. The exception is
perhaps during exercises, and this is where problems are supposed 
to be discovered and where the cell system can fool you. ("I don't 
understand it. These here cell phones worked just fine when we 
did our exercise in this area just two months before this here 
quake!")  The recovery phase is almost never a problem, because the 
cell carriers have almost always had time to recover.  Obviously 
the response phase (in the area of the incident) is the time to be 
concerned.  This is when Murphy will insure that all the problems 
mentioned above will come into play.
 
    Now, outside the area of the incident, the cell phone is a 
great tool. I couldn't have met my public safety responsibilities 
during the '97 New Years Flood in California with out it. Those
responsibilities included arranging for conventional radio equipped 
operator mutual aid response for a multi-agency, multi-government 
incident, into flooded metropolitan and semi-rural areas along a 
major north/south highway corridor where cell service is normally 
abundant. This I accomplished from an area some 50-75 miles away 
where the cell service was working just fine.
                                  ---
Continues next week

ACS Web page: http://acs.oes.ca.gov       FTP archive:
ftp.ucsd.edu/hamradio/packet/tcpip/incoming for new
bulletins and ftp.ucsd.edu/hamradio/races for earlier ones
ACS Landline BBS 916-262-0856 (graphical or standard interface)
OES ACS staff manager Stan Harter:  Stanly_Harter@oes.ca.gov 
State Chief ACS Officer Cary Mangum:  Cary_Mangum@oes.ca.gov
EOM EMC091