EMC215 PACKET/AMTOR RIMS FORMS 1/3 
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  

EMC215 PACKET/AMTOR RIMS FORMS 1/3  For release 12/20/99

An ASCII format of the RIMS forms was developed under the
direction of Bill Pennington, State OES Inland Region ACS
Officer and State Notification Controller. It is for use
as an alternate back-up system in case the standard
land-line medium and the primary back-up OASIS microwave-
satellite system become unusable.
   
Amateur Radio digital systems (Packet, Amtor, etc.) can provide
the medium for that alternate back-up via local, OA and State
OES Regional  ACS/RACES organizations. Standard format for
these systems (80 column  max. and no graphics) must be adhered
to in order to insure the number of qualified responders are
not limited because of equipment/software  considerations. 

The following instructions and notes apply to all forms and
files which  have been separated into three directories: 

- 'CITY', which should be provided to all cities and counties
and 
  retained at the HQ and REGION;

- 'COUNTY', which should be provided to all counties and
retained at HQ 
  and REGION;

- 'RGNHQ', which should be retained at HQ and REGION.

Converting existing RIMS forms to ASCII is very easy.  

Situation Example:  An OA has to pass on hard copy information
to the  OES Regional Emergency Operations Center (REOC) in order
to receive the  mutual aid and resources required to mitigate a
major weather related  incident.  All land-line systems and
their OASIS system are unusable  due to the extreme weather
conditions.  Needed information cannot be  transferred between
the OA and the REOC.  The OA emergency management  official can
use RIMS and fill out any of the forms on 'local' (within  their
own computer) but cannot transfer them because there is no
access  to the REOC server which also serves the REOC
computers.  The EMA  official fills out the form as usual and
saves it.  Now comes the easy  steps for conversion to ASCII.  

- The EMA official will have the completed form displayed on the
screen. 
- Click on 'File'.

- Click on 'Export'.

- The Export Window will appear.

- Place a disk in the 'selected' drive.

- Select the 'selected' drive. 

- Enter a file name.  (a standard DOS 8 x 3 file name that can be
  used to find the file at a later time on the DOS based
  communications software)

- Click on 'Export'.

- The 'Text File Export Window' will appear.

- At 'Wrap Words at 75 Character's', change 75 to 80..

- Click on 'OK'.

- The form will be transferred to the 'selected' drive in ASCII.

- Click on 'File', then on 'Close,' and the ASCII conversion is 
  finished.

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