EMC233 Who writes the bulletins? For release 4/17/00

Query: Who writes the EMCOMM bulletins?

Response:  In their current format, the bulletins are written by Cary
Mangum, based on the legacy of Stan Harter, Marion Henson and Ken
Hughes.

Historically, a form of bulletins were issued in the l960's by Ken
Hughes, W6CIS, State RACES Officer until Marion Henson, W6NKR, became
the State RACES Officer in l966 or '67.  Marion continued to issue
periodic bulletins until l985.  In April 1985, when Stan Harter was
hired by the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (State
OES) as paid staff, a bulletin series was begun on a regular weekly
basis.  They were titled "RACES Bulletins" and signed by Harter as
KH6GBX, his Hawaii FCC Amateur call.

Stan had extensive FULL TIME experience _since l962_ as a paid
professional in Hawaii, as State Assistant Director of Civil Defense for
Communications and Warning.  California hired him to build a program
using FCC Licensed Amateurs to aid local governments.  In Hawaii, the
RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Services) and the CAP (Civil Air
Patrol) were the key volunteer groups, hence the bulletins focused on
those areas, particularly the RACES.

For many years the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had been
quiet on RACES education, so in California Harter set about to present
the basics of the RACES to as many as were open to that material, both
in government emergency management agencies and in the Amateur Radio
world.  He realized that until the government staff understood the use
of the FCC Amateur Radio Licensee, their acceptance would flounder.

In l988 he was asked to put the bulletins into the national packet
network for full distribution across the United States, where they
became the educational resource on the RACES program.  In effect, the
bulletins issued from l985-1993 became the basic education tool on the
RACES, even if some are now out-of-date.  In l993 the Bulletins become a
shared responsibility between Stan and Cary Mangum, W6WWW, who became
the State RACES Officer in the spring of l991, a volunteer position.
After joining OES that year, Cary had begun to ghost write them at
Stan's request.  During the years from l993 to 1996 either of them would
write a bulletin and the other would do the editing.  Often the author
was not specified.

In 1996, the FCC mandated change from the Emergency Broadcast System
(EBS) to the Emergency Alert System (EAS) caused Stan's work load to
became so great that he turned the entire bulletin process over to Cary.

Since then, unless a bulletin is from a stated source, written by a
particular author, or is signed, or quoted from an article, then Cary is
probably the responsible party, although he has seldom signed them,
preferring to remain in the background.  Perhaps we can persuade him to
sign them in the future.

Stan Harter passed away in l998, and on an interim emergency appointment
Cary handled both programs that had been the responsibility of Stan,
until the appointment of Ben Green (WD8CZP).  Ben holds the same
position as Stan, that is, Assistant Chief, Telecommunications Unit,
with coordination responsibilities for the Auxiliary Communications
Service (ACS) -the program that evolved from the RACES as a result of
the work of Stan and Cary, but that is another story.  Occasionally Ben
also contributes to the bulletin process but, like Cary, may not sign
them.

The last "RACES" bulletin was issued on 3/30/96.  A month earlier, the
current "EMCOMM" bulletin series was born.  The EMCOMM series was
designed to be meet the evolving needs for emergency communications due
to sweeping technology changes.  THIS bulletin was co-authored by Cary &
Ben.  Till next time, enjoy!

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Bulletins are on the ACS Web page: http://acs.oes.ca.gov -and a
Landline BBS: 916-262-0856 (graphical & standard interface).