Emergency Services
OUR MISSION
Sonoma County Radio Amateurs (SCRA) Emergency Services provides assistance and resources to all radio operators, and the community, in the event of a major disaster. Our resources of members and equipment are available for any disaster or emergency situation.
Sonoma County Radio Amateurs (SCRA) does not itself directly provide emergency communication nets for any agency, public or private. However, we do work very closely with local agencies and groups as a resource for trained and skilled operators. We conduct training classes and exercises, often in conjunction with agencies such as the ARRL sponsored Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and the City of Santa Rosa’s Auxiliary Emergency Communication System(AECS). Many of our members are also affiliated with the Sonoma County Auxiliary Communication Service (ACS).
RESOURCES
We provide direct training of local neighborhood groups who are interested in local emergency communications unaffiliated with official disaster agencies. We provide not only ham radio training for these groups, but Family Radio Service (FRS) and General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) training as well. These local groups are an essential part of disaster self-help missions at the micro level.
The SCRA Repeater is available for use by all amateur operators in an emergency or disaster. It is anticipated that the Repeater would be used by all licensed operators, whether SCRA members or not, to convey relevant information to others in the area. No formal net is anticipated, but could be activated if traffic warrants. The use of this Repeater would offer non-emergency service operators valuable facilities to share information, and would avoid using and perhaps overwhelming the established Agency emergency nets which are dedicated to a particular use. It has been reported that the established Nets have monitored the SCRA repeater for information because the wide-spread distribution of Amateur Operators may give a fuller picture of disaster conditions, especially in the event of phone or other communication failures.
SCRA operates a Storm Watch Net during severe weather events when flooding, power outages and road closures are expected. Scheduled times are 8:00 AM, 4:00 PM, and 8:00 PM and is open to all hams, whether SCRA members or not, to exchange weather related and hazard information. The Net operates on the SCRA repeater (147.315 – PL88.5) and is ordinarily activated by an email to the membership. If email is down the Net will continue to operate at the scheduled times. In the event of repeater failure the net will operate on 147.315 simplex (no offset) at the scheduled times. All hams are encouraged to monitor the net at any time and report hazardous conditions.
Emergency Service Net
SCRA does not operate a separate Emergency Services net. However, members and other hams are encouraged to test their equipment by joining the SCRA Service Net on the SCRA repeater every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM, or the ARES net every Monday night at 7:30 PM, also on the SCRA repeater. We also have a 10 meter net that meets every Tuesday night at 8:30 PM on 28.403 MHz. Although a general chat net, tests have shown that it works well as an emergency net. This frequency is in the Technician portion of the band and is available to all licensed amateur operators.
For further information, contact SCRA at k6son@arrl.net.