Hello all:
What a great time in Xenia at the Greene County Fairgrounds! The vendor
area was full, and the flea market was jam-packed with everything you
can imagine. Bargains galore. There were several food trucks and
trailers, turning out several varieties of "fair food". I had one of
the best corn dogs I've ever eaten, and that is a large endorsement!
(Just FYI, they do not understand BBQ up there.) The forums were mostly standing room only! The Hamvention provides an opportunity to see
equipment you didn't even know existed, talk to experts about almost any
ham radio technology or topic, and touch that new radio. Make plans to
go if you are able, and bring your friends.
Speaking of the forums, I was able to attend the ARES forum to hear Josh Johnston, KE5MHV, speak. As you remember, Josh was the Emergency Manager
for Johnson County (Clarkesville) for, I think, 17 years. Now he is the Emergency Management Director for the ARRL. The crowd was interested to
hear what direction the ARRL would be taking and how they fit into the
overall scheme of EMCOMMM. Josh made several excellent points:
1. The ARRL has signed a new MOU with FEMA for the next 5 years.
2. The ARRL has been elected as an association member of SAFECOMM.
3. There is no conflict between ARES and AUXCOMM.
I'd like to expand on the last item, if you'll indulge me please. I
wrote the following four paragraphs a while back and Josh said really
close to the same thing.
I think some of you believe the ARRL is a Response Organization with a
duty to act. This is not correct. The ARRL is much better thought of
as a Resource. There are go-kits, there is some training, there is
advice, there are lists of potential volunteers at hand. There are no
Type 1, 2, or 3 ARESMATs available to Newington.
That in no way diminishes the League. They simply have a different
purpose than what most of you are thinking. Local EM's need control of volunteers to satisfy the Stafford Act, which effectively ends the
question about who works for who. Jeopardizing Relief Funds by not
being NIMS-compliant is not an option anymore.
AUXCOMM does not teach soldering, message handling, WinLink, radio
programming, or any other of the many skills thought to be included in
an Amateur Radio Operator. Rather it teaches the operators how to
integrate into an already existing management structure and not make
fools of themselves by trying to assume command.
As you can plainly see, there is no one stop shop when it comes to
EMCOMM, and it is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.
Instead of having a contest on who can holler loudest about the virtues
of one system over another, why don't we do training that satisfies
whatever entity where you want to volunteer? Then you can be the best
you can be.
Fellow hams, won't you join me in working toward our common goal of
helping our served agencies?
Let me know how I can help and 73,
J.M. Rowe N5XFW
Arkansas ARRL SEC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ARRL Arkansas Section
Section Manager: James D Ferguson Jr, N5LKE
n5lke@arrl.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
--- SBBSecho 3.20-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - Little Rock, Arkansas (432:1/112)
