Rod, thanks for the comments on redundant communications. And you are correct on a number of things. First of all, ARES, for all intents and purposes is non-existent in the County, I don’t think that the meaning of that has sunk into the SBARC yet—ALL of our communications sites are because of ARES and not SBARC.

Next up is that SBARC has, and has had, a tool for CERT and Homeowners available for over 4 years. I donated a GMRS repeater to the club and it is up and installed at the TZ site, it has a multi-PL tone deck in it so that different organizations can share it IF they obtain a simple $80 FCC license. FURTHER, there is radio at the EOC radio room which is ON the GMRS station so that an organization can contact the OEC directly and vice versa. The ARES van is also at the OEC AND the new director is really interested in working with the ham radio community, at one point we had arranged for ARES to hold their Monday night radio nets from the OEC radio room but nobody ever did.

CERT needs to be trained with Ham radio classes, I would recommend that someone, ARES, or SBARC or a combination, start working with the County EOC, and I believe that there is a way of combining ARES, SBARC, and RACES into a common pool of people who would respond when needed and train as needed.

Just my two cents.

Andy