Emergency Communications:

The extensive Area 2 Emergency Communications Network covers all of Conejo Valley, including Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Oak Park, and Westlake.

To ensure continuous operations, even during the worst disasters, we have implemented a distributed network architecture with permanent radio stations located at:

• The City of Thousand Oaks Emergency Operations Center,
• East County Sheriff Station,
• Los Robles Hospital,
• Los Robles Hospital East Campus,
• California Lutheran University,
• Amgen Corp,
• Oak Park School District Office,
• Media Creek School, and
• Oak Park Fire Station.

This architecture includes a number of portable radio stations for use in temporary Emergency Operation Centers set up in school gymnasiums, office facilities, and tent cities as necessary.

The services that we provide include radio communications between all of the Area 2 Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs), field sites, and mobile units. In addition, continuous communications is maintained with the Ventura County Emergency Operations Center, with the other ACS Areas, and with all of the hospitals in Ventura County. We also have communication links to our neighboring communities in Los Angeles County including Westlake Village and Agoura Hills, to the National Weather Service, and to the California Emergency Management Agency in Sacramento.

Providing our EOCs with critical information on the size and magnitude of the evolving crisis is one of our most important services. This service include operating an Info-Net. Amateur radio operators throughout the area check into Info-Net to obtain information they need to protect their families, including evacuation routes, while providing us with much needed information on conditions within their neighborhoods. All of this information is consolidated by our Area 2 analysts into top of the hour summary reports which are distributed to the County and to all of our Area 2 EOCs and field sites. Our analysts also provide detailed subject reports and raw data to our EOCs on request. In addition, we are often tasked by our EOCs to collect information on specific issues of concern to them.

To provide these services, Area 2 has an extensive staff of licensed amateur radio operators and non-radio personnel. The radio operators handle communications on the ACS voice and digital communication networks. The non-radio personnel handle all of the organizational, message handling, analysis, and customer interface activities necessary to run an effective emergency communications operation.

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Public Service:

Our communication services help to ensure the safety and success of these special events and are thus very important to the event organizers. In addition these activities provide us an opportunity to practice our emergency communication skills and experiment with new techniques and processes. For example, the skills developed during the annual CROP Walk have been extensively used to support the Thousand Oaks Police Department during the Amgen Tour of California Bike Races and the President Reagan funeral. The public service events are not only important in preparing for large scale emergencies, they are also interesting and fun to participate in.

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Weekly Operations:

We generally have 30 to 50 Area 2 members, plus amateur radio operators from throughout Ventura County, checking into our weekly nets. From 7:30 to 8:00 PM we participate in the Ventura County weekly ACS net on 146.880 MHz, minus offset and pl of 127.3 Hz. The weekly nets are run from our ACS radio room at the East County Sheriff’s Station. The radio room is designed to concurrently supporting communications on all three Area 2 voice nets, the Area 2 packet (digital communications) network, communications with the County, and HF communications with the California Emergency Management Agency in Sacramento. You are welcomed to join us in the radio room each Tuesday evening from 6:45 to 8:00 PM for these weekly nets. Contact Jerry Goldman at kc6jso@gmail.com for details.

In addition to our weekly nets, we run an extensive Operational Readiness Test the first Tuesday of every month. During these monthly tests we establish and evaluate voice communications between all 9 of our Emergency Operation Centers and field sites. In addition, we conduct an extensive packet exercise practicing the skills that will be required during emergency activations.

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Research & Development

We have been conducting an extensive HF regional communications study for the past 5 years in connection with our participation in the California Emergency Management Agency weekly nets. Approximately 70 stations participate in the Wednesday morning 40 meter net and the Monday evening 75 meter net, including California government agencies, FEMA, National Weather Service, Caltrans, utility agencies, and Emergency Operation Centers (EOCs) state wide. We record the signal strength and readability of each station checking into the net and correlate that with solar and ionospheric conditions including solar x-ray flux, critical frequency, Boulder A and K index, plus current sun spot activity. These conditions directly effect the ability to use Near Vertical Incident Skywave (NVIS) propagation as well as lower angle propagation. As a result of these studies we have become quite proficient at predicting which relay stations net control will need to use in contacting all stations on the roster.

HF Winlink communications is required for contacting the California Emergency Management Agency during non-net hours as well as providing communications between some of the organizations we serve and their district and national headquarters. We are in the process of developing this capability. We have been requested several times to provide communications from deep canyon locations back to our EOCs. This has lead to continuing study and development of portable field HF capability coupled with NVIS propagation.

In the area of VHF/UHF, an extensive study of simplex communications between our various Area 2 EOCs has been conducted. Simplex communications is complicated by the Area 2 mountainous terrain, but is necessary should we lose our repeaters during an emergency. Simplex communications is also required to support Area 2 packet communications. As a result of these studies, packet gateway nodes have been installed in Area 2 to provide us with a highly reliable distributed packet network. Much work remains to be done.

Developing a successful emergency communications system encompasses much more than the technical aspects of radio communications. A lot of work is being done to study the types of services being requested by the Area 2 organizations we serve. These studies require considerable interaction with our Area 2 customers to understand the problems that they will face during disasters and the organizational structures that we must adopt to deliver the services they need. This includes a considerable amount of work with the National Incident Management System and the Incident Command System.

This continuing research and development work requires the full technical skills of our radio operators and engineers, plus the organizational and customer relation skills of our non-radio personnel.

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Training:

Our training program includes an introductory course in ACS-ARES describing how both organizations are structured from the national down to the local level, who our customers are, the services that we provide to them, and our specific assignments during fire storms, earthquakes, wide spread electrical outages, mass evacuations, special events, etc. Our training program also includes frequent classes in basic radio operating skills, net control procedures, packet communications, message handling, and EOC operations. We also conduct courses on the nationally mandated Incident Command System as it is utilized in the various EOCs that we support as well as its use in our ACS operations. New training programs are added as the result of our research and develop programs and changes in the operating procedures of our customers. In addition, each year we provide our customers with training courses teaching them how to effectively utilize the emergency communication services that we provide, as well as the communication protocols and procedures for using their own radios in emergency communication situations.

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Join ACS:

ACS is one of the most interesting and rewarding ways to serve your local community. The emergency communication services that we provide requires a large staff of licensed amateur radio operators, administrators, analysts, customer relation specialists, craftsmen, educators, engineers, and scientists. Because of the many divers skills needed for effective emergency communications, ACS Area 2 is an ideal organization for husband and wife teams. As a member of the Area 2 family you will have access to critical information that you need to survive a serious natural disaster or civil emergency. Plus you will play an important role in helping our community work through these problems. Being actively involved in the solution is far better than desperately waiting for help that may never come. If you are interested in joining ACS Area 2, please contact Jerry Goldman at kc6jso@gmail.com for details.

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