Past Events

Operational Period: 10:00 to 12:00. The scenario was a prolonged severe wind/rain storm, where the county was requesting mutual aid from the cities. Some operators simulated responding to the mutual aid request. Others participated in a virtual Creek Survey, referring to pictures and reports from an actual survey in a previous drill.

After action report

City-wide CERT/ARES drill, October 26, 2024

Mountain View ARES operators served at CERT neighborhoods, providing communications with the city. The operational period was from 1200 to 1700. The scenario was a severe windstorm that occurred earlier in the day while citizens were celebrating at local parks. CERTs were deployed (simulated) to look for damage and injuries and report their findings to the city. ARES operators tried out a paper-based method of summarizing the Damage Assessment reports.

After action report

Damage assessment summary

Trailblazer run-walk at Shoreline, September 29, 2024

We had eight operators for the event. See the after action report for details.

After action report

Route map

City/county communications drill August 24, 2024

Operational period: 10:00 to 12:00. We practiced sending reports from two fire stations to the city and county. The scenario was a severe heat wave with poor air quality due to wildfire smoke and potential power shut-downs.

After action report

City/county communications drill February 24, 2024

Operational period: 10:00 to 12:00. We practiced sending shelter reports from simulated shelters to the city. The scenario was a prolonged major storm. Three operators worked from home, simulating that they were at a shelter, and sending shelter messages to the Radio Room. Operators in the Radio Room also communicated with the County, providing reports and responding to messages.

After action report

City-wide CERT/ARES drill, November 5, 2022

Operational period: 12:00 to 17:00. The scenario was a major storm that happened at 10:30 am while large crowds were gathered in local parks. CERTs and ARES were deployed in the afternoon to assess and report damage to the city.

After action report

Damage assessment summary

City/county communications drill, February 19, 2022

Mountain View ARES held a drill on Saturday, Feb. 19, 2022, from 10 am to noon. We operated from our homes due to pandemic conditions, simulating message passing during a major rain/wind storm. Radio Operators passed messages as if they were at a CERT neighborhood Command Post. There was a simulated radio room (MTV EOC) communicating to the county as well as to operators at the simulated CERTs. This was a credentialed drill, meaning that Operators used standard ICS forms (205, 211, 213, 214, 309) and submitted all their paperwork after the drill.

After action report

City/county communications drill, May 15, 2021

The objective of this drill was to test the recently updated Damage Assessment Summary PacFORM from CERT groups and the updated Software to display the results in the EOC at 1000 Villa.

After action report

City/county communications drill, February 20, 2021

For this drill, ARES members passed messages from CERTs to a simulated EOC and also to and from the county EOC. The scenario was a severe rain and wind storm under pandemic conditions where operators couldn't gather together. CERTs sent DA Summary forms to an ARES member assigned to them and the ARES member then entered it directly into packet or sent it to a relay Ham who entered it into the packet system. This was a credentialed drill using several ICS forms (211A, 205, 214, 309, 213, and 213 DA Summary).

After action report

Off the grid communication exercise, February 23, 2019

In response to the county ARES Communication Exercise, Mountain View did an "off the grid" exercise where everyone, including operators in the Radio Room at K6MTV operated their systems off batteries. Some participants traveled to CERT sites and recovered hidden messages to transmit. Other participants used their home packet system operating on battery power to send/receive messages. Operators at K6MTV also responded to messages from the County. There were 14 participants (radio room 4, mobile field 4, home packet 6).

Amateur operators sent/received 67 messages by voice. 96 messages were sent by packet of which 46 were delivered before time ran out. Operators successfully coped with the "loss" of our primary BBS. Forms were correctly completed by all participants and all but one participant were able to complete all of their assignments. Traffic was non-stop and we had to deal with outside groups interfering with our simplex frequencies but our operators handled it well. All the participants acted professionally and correctly completed their ICS forms (214, 213, 213 DA, 309, 211). Everyone was able to operate from their batteries for the entire drill. We learned what needs improvement for the future.

Mike-Mike drill, August 18, 2018

I want to thank Rick Van Mell, KI6PUR, for coordinating the Mike-Mike drill Saturday. There were a total of 18 people participating including the 5 of us in the "shack". Rick sent 84 emails inviting Mountain View hams to participate in the drill, so the response was somewhat disappointing. However, those who took the time to send us one or more Mike-Mike reports did a great job. The reports were generally well distributed around Mountain View.

Leslie (KK6EKN) plotted all the places from which we got reports and put a red dot on a map of Mountain View for each one. We got reports on simplex using HT's for almost all. Exceptions were Shoreline and Casey (very far north, received on 440 with an HT) and Piper and Elmira (mobile rig, actually in Sunnyvale). Operators did a good job of covering wide areas of the city.

Coverage map

Again, thanks to those of you who helped today!

Phil Henderson, KF6ZSQ, AEC

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