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Experience and training
Experience and training
Mountain View ARES/RACES provides opportunities for licensed ham radio operators to increase their skills and knowledge in communication networks and in emergency preparedness. The county website has an extensive training section.
Network and field experience
Network and field experience
There are several types of opportunities to gain experience in network communications, outlined below.
SPECS Net – Seven cities and agencies make up the Southern Peninsula Emergency Communications System (SPECS): Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Stanford, NASA/Ames. We check in every Monday night beginning at 1930 hours on the "UHF/220" net using the W6ASH repeaters. At 2000 we listen to the "Main Net" on the W6ASH 2-meter repeater for announcements, and then, when prompted, Mountain View participants go to the Mountain View simplex frequency, 146.535 MHz (or alternate frequency 147.495 MHz), to check-in with Mountain View ARES/RACES and hear local announcements.
Local Monday Night Net Control operators at 8:00 pm – In connection with the SPECS Net above, Mountain View participants can act as net control operator during the check in process, gaining valuable experience in net control. New participants will receive training with the script and check-in roster. Sign-up online. The script for Mountain View SPECS net and the current roster of participants can be found on the Monday Net page.
CERT practice drills – During the year field exercises and drills are carried out to sharpen our communications skills and identify areas for improvement. Under the navigation button for past events on this website, you will see the extent of these opportunities. Some of them are specifically for the ARES/RACES network of ham operators and others involve ARES/RACES and CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams). Drills are held on both the county and city level. In addition, there are opportunities during the year to participate in activities that employ ham radio communications in other cities. In the picture to the left, Rudy Bahr (W6OWI), Bob Fishman (K6FSH), and Hugo Penafiel (KI6VNJ) join other hams at a communication station in Cuesta Park on May 15, 2011 during a city-wide CERT drill.
Classroom training
Classroom training
Debriefing at 1000 Villa Street after CERT drill on April 21, 2012.
Training sessions are offered locally by our Emergency Coordinator and Assistant Emergency Coordinators. They focus on subjects specific to Mountain View, such as message passing in a CERT environment, and operations in the Radio Room. Slides of previous classes are listed on the Resources page.
In-depth classes on emergency communication are listed on the Santa Clara County ARES/RACES website. They cover topics including Field Operations, Net Control, Message Passing, Packet, Cross-band Repeating, Antennas, and Shadowing. Start with Introduction to Emergency Communications and next take Fundamentals of Emergency Communications. They will give you a good grounding and are prerequisites for all other county classes.
Finally, FEMA and the state of California provide online classes on different aspects of emergency preparedness. Recommended: first four emergency classes on the county website.
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