[PPRAANet] April Zero Beat

[Rob Roller N7LV]

The 0-Beat looks real nice this month, color photos, several good articles 
... thanks, Jackie!

I had a few notes to add, but Sunday night I had totally forgotten about the 
deadline, and by Monday morning, the 0-Beat was already done.  So I'm going 
to submit my items here on the reflector.  Sorry, no color photos from me.

I'm scheduling a hamfest meeting for Apr 15 at 2 pm.  Location is likely to 
be the Police station at 4110 Tutt Blvd (reservation hasn't been made yet) 
and if not there, then at the police station at 7950 Goddard St.

On the emergency communications side of things:

Exercise Announcement - South Central Region Communications Test - April 13, 
2007

The five-county South Central Region, one of nine of the Colorado 
All-Hazards regions, is conducting a WMD terrorism exercise in the coming 
months.  As a precursor to this exercise, the exercise director, Jim Mesite. 
The El Paso County Emergency Manager, wants to run a communications test 
using not only their own modes of communications, but also amateur radio. 
So the goal of the amateur radio portion of this communications test is to 
demonstrate amateur radio's ability to provide backup communications in case 
of the failure or overloading of their normal means of communications.  The 
five counties involved are El Paso, Teller, Park, Lake and Chaffee counties. 
Because of the geographic spread of this exercise, we will have hams from 
the EPC RACES group as well as hams from other ARES/RACES groups in the 
region supporting these locations.   The intent is to test communications 
between the five county EOCs using HF frequencies most likely as our primary 
frequency, and to test the coverage of various repeaters and repeater 
systems that might provide coverage to some or all of the sites.  Other 
modes and bands may be tested depending on availability of equipment.  Those 
of you that are interested in volunteering for this communications test, 
please replywith an e-mail to me at n7lv at arrl.net.  Volunteers need to be 
registered with either El Paso Co. RACES or a bona fide ARES or RACES group. 
Note that this exercise takes place on a Friday.


The National Disaster Medical Service (NDMS) is conducting a hospital 
patient tracking exercise and amateur radio will be providing backup 
emergency communications for the exercise.  Hams will be shadowing the 
primary communications for this exercise.  This will take place all day on 
May 5, with setup on May 4.  The Pikes Peak ARES has been involved in NDMS 
exercises since 2004 with the first Mountain Move exercise, which involved 
moving patients into the Evans Army Hospital.  In 2005 hams from all along 
the East Slope were involved in an exercise moving patients from DIA to 30+ 
Denver area hospitals.  This year the exercise will involve moving patients 
into COS, PUB and some DEN area hospitals.  Hams will likely provide similar 
communications as the 2005 event, which included HF and VHF/UHF, as well as 
digital mode.  The El Paso Co. OEM will be involved, so RACES as well as 
ARES support will be required.  If you're registered with either group, 
again, drop me an e-mail if you are interested in participating.

And I did want to note that thanks are in order for Doc Cornell W0MCT.  Doc 
recently stepped down as the El Paso County RACES Officer.  I think that Doc 
has held that position several times since I've known him over the years, 
and he's been active in emergency communications for a long time ... a long, 
LONG time, that is ... way longer than before I first started getting active 
in this area in '92.  Doc has put in a lot of time and effort into this 
group and into emergency communications in general for many years.  So Doc, 
thanks for all the work you've done!

Jim Mesite appointed Henry Russell KC0NAJ as the new El Paso County RACES 
Officer at the last meeting in March.  Congratulations and good luck, Henry!


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "D Nielsen" <n7lem at n7lem.net>
To: <PPRAANET at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 10:14 PM
Subject: [PPRAANet] April Zero Beat


The April issue of the Zero Beat has been posted to the PPRAA website.
www.ppraa.org

-- 
D Nielsen, N7LEM
PPRAA Vice President & Webmaster