[MRIC] Meeting Minutes for 10-23-2010

[brett.hammond]

Maryland RACES Officers,

Please find below, in this email, the MRIC minutes for the meeting this past Saturday. Our meeting dates for 2011 were set for April 23 and October 22. Please put them on your calendar (if you have one). I will send the updated RO Contact List and RACES Frequencies List shortly.

As you know from my earlier emails, my schedule is very busy and I can no longer afford to dedicate the time required to be MRIC Chairman, so I chose not to run for the office again this past Saturday. I do plan to continue to attend MRIC meetings as the Talbot County RO, but will be much, much less involved. Congratulations to Chuck Hodel (QA RO) for being elected the next MRIC Chairman. I will be meeting with Chuck next week to pass off the administrative password to the email reflector, website contact info, and a CD containing my archive of MRIC documents. I have confidence in Chuck and am sure he will do a fine job. From this point forward, please make all requests for updates to documents, the email reflector, and web site to Chuck.

I would like to thank you all very much for helping to make MRIC such a success. I know it is asking a lot to give up a whole Saturday driving from across the state three times a year without pay, to get together in a room full of independent thinking hams and debate dry technical issues, but it has paid off in our accomplishments. In the past 4 years we standardized on a single message form for passing messages between jurisdictions; agreed to a plan to use HF should the worst happen and our repeater towers are knocked out; and standardized on a single digital mode (Winlink email) for communicating between jurisdictions when a dozen different modes were used throughout the state previously. In an effort to help get the Winlink standard more widely implemented, we employed lessons learned on existing Winlink installations to compile a list of equipment verified to work with Winlink and are working on step-by-step procedures for implementing Winlink. We also maintained a list of RACES Officers with all their contact information; and for the first time coordinated frequencies used by RACES jurisdictions in Maryland to prevent interference during an emergency, and specified which frequency to use to contact another jurisdiction during an emergency. All this in just 12 hours of meetings per year. Most importantly, I think sitting across the table from one another helped diffuse animosity that existed between RACES jurisdictions prior to MRIC. I hope the track record continues and improves with age.

While our debates were very informative and sometimes painful, I am most proud of the fact that all our interoperability recommendations that were approved and passed on to the Association for vote were approved by us unanimously. That has always been my goal, and hence my willingness to let debate continue until everyone has said everything they want to say. I learned from participation in other technical standards organizations that if the people using the standard do not agree with it, and don't buy into it, they won't use it. The best standard in the world is no good if people don't use it, and that is especially important with regard to voluntary interoperability standards. So my sincere thanks to all of you for your support, your time, and especially your technical contributions to make MRIC a success.

Sincerely,

Brett Hammond – K3TAL
Talbot County RACES Officer
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Maryland RACES Interoperability Committee (MRIC) Meeting Minutes for October 23, 2010:


Dave Prestel hosted the meeting in Howard County at a very nice training facility. Thank you Dave.

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ATTENDANCE:
The meeting was called to order at 10:33 AM. The following RACES Officers (or their representative) were in attendance:

Allegany - Bill Tucker
Anne Arundel - 
Baltimore County - 
Baltimore City -
Caroline - 
Carroll - 
Calvert - 
Cecil - George Remhof (for Will Owens)
Charles - Paul Tackish
Dorchester - 
Frederick - 
Garrett - 
Harford - 
Howard - Dave Prestel
Kent - Bill Clark (for Bob Lovell)
MEMA - Al FitzSimons
Montgomery - 
Ocean City - 
Prince George’s - Ken Greenhouse
Queen Anne’s - Chuck Hodell
Somerset - 
St. Mary’s - 
Talbot - Brett Hammond
Washington - Bob Long
Wicomico - 

Guests - Hank Black (MEMA Communications Officer), Phil Hebert (Deputy RO)
 
The jurisdictions listed above with no name, did not send a representative.
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AGENDA:
A motion was made by Chuck Hodel to approve the following Agenda after some minor changes, seconded by Bob Long. Prior to the vote, there was a request to move the elections up earlier in the meeting, but that the new Chairman would not take over until after the meeting was over (as was customary). Motion passed unanimously by voice vote.

- Welcome
- Attendance
- Review Agenda
- Approval of Minutes
- Update MD RO Contact List
- Update MD RACES Freq list
- Chairman Elections
- Meeting schedule for 2011
- Lunch
- Minimum requirements for mutual aid RACES Operators
- Uniform credentialing
- Winlink Tech Support group report
- Dave - On the Air Drills
- Next Meeting Agenda
- Adjourn
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RO Contact Info:
The RACES Officer contact information list was updated and a motion made by Dave Prestel to accept updated contact info with changes, seconded by Bob Long. Motion passed by unanimous consent without objection.
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RACES Frequency List:
The Maryland RACES Frequency List was updated and a motion made by Bob Long to accept the updated freq list; seconded by George Remhof. The motion passed by unanimous consent without objections.
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Elections:
The floor was opened for self-nominations and only Chuck Hodel (RO for QA County) consented to run for Chairman. A sealed-ballot was taken by Brett with Hank Black as witness. The vote was 10-0, unanimously electing Chuck as the next Chairman.

Al FitzSimons presented an award to Brett for his 4 years service as Chairman.
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Motion made by Chuck Hodel, seconded by Bill Tucker to set next year's meeting dates for April 23 and October 22, 2011. Motion passed by unanimous voice vote.

April 23 - QA will host at UMBC in Catonsville
October 22 - Howard County will host
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There was some some discussion about possibly classifying RACES Operators so that when a jurisdiction requests additional RACES Operators from elsewhere in Maryland, they can specify the capabilities needed, similar to the way EMS personnnel are classified. It appears there are potentially three issues that may want to be addressed by MRIC and the Association:

- Classifying RACES Operators by capability
- Entering this information into WebEOC
- Providing credentials that would be recognized by other jurisdictions

Chuck Hodel will work with some other members to try to sort through this complex issue and make some recommendations at the next meeting.
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On behalf of the Winlink Technical Support group, Bill Clark talked about lessons learned implementing Winlink in Kent County this summer.
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There was a discussion about testing during monthly exercises to see which EOCs can hit which repeaters in Maryland so we know what can be used as backup if the primary MEMA VHF net repeaters are not working. Dave Prestel also suggested we conduct joint exercises at MEMA to cross train RACES Operators from other jurisdictions so they can assist during an emergency.
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Proposed Next Meeting Agenda:

- Welcome
- Attendance
- Review Agenda
- Approval of Minutes
- Update MD RO Contact List
- Update MD RACES Freq list
- DSTAR - Ken Greenhouse
- Lunch
- Minimum requirements for mutual aid RACES Operators
- Uniform credentialing
- Winlink Tech Support group report
- Monthly Net Status
- Next Meeting Agenda
- Adjourn
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A motion was made by Chuck Hodel, seconded by George Remhof to adjourn the meeting at 13:30. Motion passed by unanimous consent.
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