[TNham] It looks like the EMCOMM "requirement" is trying to make a return...

[Greg Williams]

As most of you may know, about 3 years ago, the Tennessee Section 
Emergency Coordinator (SEC) attempted to pass a ruling that all 
ARES-acknowledged amateur radio stations in Tennessee be EMCOMM 
certified. After a great deal of protest was drummed up, the SEC and the 
Tennessee Section Manager for the ARRL recanted their story, and claimed 
it was a proposal, and that they were not requiring any certification.

At the time I was the EC for Knox County, and I resigned the following 
day, and made all EC’s in Tennessee (as well as many groups concerned) 
aware of the mandate. My belief then (as it remains today) is that we 
are *volunteers *and as such, should be as prepared as possible in the 
event of an emergency, but what right does anyone have to establish a 
mandate for community service and make us, the volunteers, pay out of 
our pockets the expenses for such testing?

When Mossy Grove was hit by a tornado, did the EMA ask for Emcomm-only 
people in the affected area? What about this past April 7, when Tornados 
tore through West and Middle Tennessee, and all of Tennessee’s ARES 
stations were put on alert? I don’t specifically recall there being an 
“emcomm-members only” requisite for that event, either. Nor do I recall 
a pop-quiz being given to any Katrina volunteer in order to provide 
their valuable service to the hardest-hit areas.

Last week, the following email was circulated to the EC’s in Tennessee:

***********************************************************
From: Jimmy Floyd [mailto:nq4u at bellsouth.net]
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 8:16 PM
To: WTN ASEC; MTN ASEC; ETN ASEC
Subject: ARES Letter


As we all witnessed during the during the last hurricane season, Amateur 
Radio and the ARES system responded when normal communication systems 
failed in many areas. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and Amateur Radio 
and ARES was there.. The Shuttle disaster and the list goes on.

Many agencies from the Federal level down to city level have become more 
familiar with the valuable communication resource available to them.

The Tn. ARES system is making great progress in many areas. Due to the 
requirements set forth by the Dept. Of Homeland Security, it has become 
necessary for the ARES members to undertake some training that will 
allow us to better assist the agencies that we work with, especially 
TEMA and our local EMA(s). The training is required of all "First 
Responders" and will be necessary for us as ARES members to gain access 
to disaster scenes and even our local EOC's when our services are requested.

The NIMS training material is available via the internet and is free ----
please visit http://training.fema.gov to take the NIMS courses outlined 
below.

The ARRL EMCOMM courses and materials are available from the ARRL --- 
please visit www.arrl.org

The following are the requirements :
SEC, ASEC's, DEC'S and EC'S need to have NIMS IS-100, IS-700 and IS-800 
plus EMCOMM levels 1,2 and 3.
ARES members are to have a minimum of NIMS IS-100 and IS-700 plus EMCOMM 
level 1.

Many of our local EMA's have target dates of June 1, 2006 for the NIMS 
training. Keep in mind that this is a Federal requirement for them. 
Along with this will come some additional paperwork for all of us to 
maintain. It will be necessary for each ARES member to keep your EC 
informed when each level of training is completed. Each EC will need to 
contact your local EMA(s) to formulate a plan to keep track of those 
that have completed the training.

It will be the responsibility of each EC to keep your DEC informed of 
completed training. In all instances, the ORIGINAL completion 
certificates or documentation should remain with the holder unless 
requested.

All ASEC's will need to forward copies of completion to the SEC and each 
DEC will need to forward copies of completion to your ASEC.

This training will give all of us an opportunity to learn some new and 
exciting material and we should look at this as an opportunity to expand 
our horizons and help Amateur Radio to grow. The training as outlined 
above is being incorporated into many ARES systems across the Nation.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me by e-mail
tnsec at myway.com or by phone at 931-581-6155. Contact DEC TN8 (W1AEL) at 
w1ael at arrl.net or by phone at 865-774-1725
***********************************************************

Guess what? We’re right back to square one!

I am quite curious to know exactly who exactly the “we” refers to when 
it is mentioned that “it has become necessary for the ARES members to 
undertake some training that will allow us to better assist the agencies 
that we work with”. Who are “the agencies” specifically? And how do they 
know of EMCOMM? Were “they” told by the ARRL (or it’s duly-assigned 
representatives) in the last 3 years, and if so, were “they” told the 
full story, that it’s an out-of pocket expense?

W1AEL posted this as a followup:

***********************************************************
---- "Allan Henry Kaplan [W1AEL]" <w1ael at arrl.net> wrote:

I sent this message much earlier, but have been experiencing
transmission problems with my email. Fixed now! Sorry for the delay.
Allan.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FW: ARES Letter FROM THE BOSS
Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:36:40 -0500
From: "Mark Wills" <ag4oa at bellsouth.net>
To: "Allan Kaplan" <w1ael at mindspring.com>, "Ed Bradley"
<w4vgi at juno.com>, "John England" <n4xyc at arrl.net>, "Velma Wills"
<ag4xp at arrl.net>


Okay folks, we have gotta get cracking if we want to be recognized by
federal, state, county, and local authorities in the event of a genuine
emergency. Some may object, but the rules of the game have officially
changed!! Folks who are not ready by the deadline will be able to
drill and do public service events, and any other "peacetime" activity,
but if something real happens before they have their credentials, they
will certainly be shut out. This comes not from the ARRL, nor ARES,
but from ALL levels of government. We can expect non-governmental
served agencies to fall into line with this policy. We can expect the
police ( and the FCC) to enforce it. The Web URLs for the training
are in SEC Jimmy Floyd's letter below.
73 all, and let us get going!!
Allan H. Kaplan, W1AEL
ARRL DEC TN8
***********************************************************

Boy, feel the sense of urgency? It’s nice that the NIMS training is 
free, and the EMAs (is it really every single county’s EMA?) all agree 
that ARES members need to have it by June 1, or is it that the EMA 
personnel themselves need this training, and it’s being pushed to ARES 
members that THEY needs this training (I personally have never heard of 
NIMS until this e-mail).

When an EC asked about the suddenness of the “requirement”, Allan 
responded with the following:

***********************************************************
No need to panic - yet! As I see it, there will be no problem UNLESS a 
disaster causes a COMMUNICATIONS EMERGENCY before some ARES members have 
documented qualifications. Should that become the case, "unqualified 
volunteers" will likely be rejected from participation -- especially if 
the state of Tennessee or FEMA gets involved! As a matter of announced 
policy they will surely push away folks without credentials. The best 
strategy is for everybody who is serious about being available to serve 
the government and the public, under the post 9/11 reality, to get 
credentialed and get their documentation registered with ARES & TEMA 
just AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. I expect to take care of the ARES 
registrations, and I will find out how to deal officially with RACES and 
TEMA. It took a good while to happen, but predictably the FEDS under 
Homeland Security will now see to it that law enforcement excludes 
undocumented volunteers from any meaningful participation in disaster 
response! The presentation of credentials, in advance of a disaster, 
should give us ARES/RACES types new credibility with several levels of 
government. Amateur radio volunteers, mostly serious and trained ones, 
did us all proud in the Gulf Coast disaster. The government recognizes 
that, BUT WE MUST ALL FOLLOW THROUGH OR QUIT ARES/RACES! To that end, I 
want to visit another one of your meetings soon, and give the troops a 
pep-talk. I need you to e-mail me [PRONTO] a roster of your ARES team, 
noting any appointments you have made or intend to make for Assistant 
ECs, Hospital team, Red Cross liaison, etc. For you and for your AECs or 
Official Emergency Station candidates, I must have every possible way of 
contacting Blount ARES leaders via home, work, cell phone, pager, email, 
whatever. The time has come for all of us to take this endeavor 
SERIOUSLY and to get really prepared --- or else we get ignored! I must 
do my job and you must do yours.

Rick, I thank you sincerely for your responsible concern. Please let us 
make this happen.

73 de Allan, W1AEL
***********************************************************\

What “new credibility” do we need to show that amateur radio WORKS? Look 
at the examples in the first email. We helped with 9/11, Hurricane 
Katrina, and the shuttle Columbia breakup. How many more hurricanes, 
terrorist attacks, shuttle explosions, forest fires, earthquakes, 
volcano eruptions, bike rally’s, marathons, and church picnic outings 
must amateur radio participate in before earning its “street creds”?

There are a lot of holes in this thought process and in this entire 
scenario that is not being told.
• What agencies in what counties have specifically stated that ARES 
members need this training?
• What other states are included? I don’t seem to recall that any other 
state is having this “crisis”. And most assuredly the ARRL would have 
plastered this on their web site ad nauseum for weeks and weeks prior to 
now.
• Why it is being brought to our attention (actually, their attention, 
since I just found out about this tonight, and I’m the “average Joe”, 
and the ECs were told just a week prior?) with less that two weeks 
before this “deadline”?
• What resource do the ARES members in Tennessee get this information? 
Surely it’s “been posted for quite some time” and we’re bound to get the 
“the info is out there” speech if we are to question this sudden change 
in policy that is so much out of their hands, and that’s their story, 
and they are sticking to it. The last resource I was told, was 
www.tnarrl.org, but when I go to that web site, it hasn’t been updated 
since August 2004.
• And why is there to be so much micromanaging of the skills and 
capabilities of ARES members? Who’s going to know/care when the 
excrement hits the rotating air conditioning device what exact skills 
each and every member has.

Now, I do concede that such information and qualifications are NICE to 
have, and are helpful to have in the event that a disaster should befall 
yon area where lives are affected. For an EC, perhaps it should be a 
requirement. But does anyone honestly believe that good Samaritans are 
to be turned away from a disaster because they didn’t meet the EMCOMM 
prerequisite? I can just see the family members of a lost loved one 
getting the speech now:

“We’re sorry your loved one died. We had a couple of amateur radio 
people with the necessary radios, the beam antennas to get their signal 
out of the gap where your loved one was found, the batteries to 
transmit, the “go-kits” to carry their equipment with, and the radios to 
transmit on all the bands and modes amateur radio uses, but dog-gone-it, 
they just didn’t have EMCOMM certification! We did get an EMCOMM 
certified person in to the area, but his only radio, an HT, was dead 
because he used up the battery ragchewing on his way to the site, and 
the time lost to get help to them might have saved your loved one’s 
life. But he WAS CERTIFIED, and we’re sure you understand. Your 
government meant only the best, you know.”

The EC’s can take the test, pay for it, and pass their new-found 
knowledge on to the masses when the emergency happens, as they’ll be 
delegating the responsibilities to the appropriate people, but there are 
a lot of good-hearted, level-headed, and knowledgeable people who have 
the necessary radio skills to communicate to and fro and when that 
aspect becomes a micromanaged commodity for some agency to put in a file 
cabinet somewhere never to be searched again, it’s time to re-think just 
what being a volunteer in the VOLUNTEER STATE entails. It’s time to ask 
if it is really worth the trouble and effort to have certification for a 
skill you chances of using are slim at best.

Who benefits the most from the EMCOMM certification? The EMAs? The 
Police? The Fire Deartment? The Rescue Squad? The Red Cross? Salvation 
Army?

WRONG! It’s the ARRL.

After all, EMCOMM is an ARRL-specific course. Only they can teach it. If 
you’re an ARRL member (I just re-joined for $39 for the year) the cost 
is $30 less for the level I course than if you are not a "member in good 
standing". Then there’s the cost of the study materials, the time you’ll 
need to spend to attend the classes, etc. Who gets the money? The ARRL 
does. That’s the ultimate benefit. And they pass it off as a “necessary 
evil” in order to ensure we as an amateur radio community remain 
“credible” with Emergency Management, in the name of "Homeland Security".

I don’t buy the “requirement”, nor the arguments they present, nor the 
means they plan to employ in order to accomplish this feat. When SERA 
dropped the “tone” bomb on us last year, we responded in full force. 
When this EMCOMM issue came up 3 years ago, we let it be known that we 
would not be pushed around. It appears that, once again, our voice must 
be heard and heard loud and clear.

Otherwise, when the next big disaster comes, there won’t be a radio 
amateur with the “right qualifications” to come up to the plate and help 
their fellow man.

I strongly urge you to make your feelings known to those who feel 
dignified in pressing this issue.

Greg Williams
K4HSM