8. About BCAREC & History

History

The year 2001 brought some serious concerns to the amateur world, for providing long term Emergency Communications support, with the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The attacks got many Hamilton, Ohio radio amateurs thinking about emergencies that could occur in the county that they live in. They questioned their readiness, abilities, and skills to handle such an event, locally, or on an even larger scale; volunteering to assist amateurs in other affected areas.

A group of members from the Butler County VHF Association (W8CCI), an organization providing volunteer amateur radio communications for over 30 years, volunteered to provide amateur communications to the Hamilton Red Cross and Butler County Emergency Management Agency (EMA). Likewise, the Dial Radio Club, of Middletown, Ohio volunteered to provide amateur radio communications to the Middletown Red Cross Chapter.

During July, 2002 the W8CCI group participated in the County Wide Disaster Exercise coordinated by the Butler County EMA and the Red Cross Chapters in Hamilton and Middletown.

The W8CCI group, had a "post" which created an easy to find semi-fixed location for public officials and other operators to report to. An operator was equipped with a full powered (50 watt) mobile unit and two other operators on portables acted as "runners" to deliver messages and respond back to the "post" with an immediate reply. The replies from the runners were relayed via the "post" operator to the Communications Center officials.

Critical posts were limited to two operators, the hospital operators were planned to be a team of two, however, only one operator was available per hospital. The Red Cross Chapter in Hamilton stayed in contact via the 155 Mhz radio system. There was no operator available at the Middletown Chapter. There were not enough operators to fill in all the locations that needed coverage, and this was a planned drill!

Having inadequate resources to fill the assignments on this drill caused the group to begin looking at the other clubs in Butler County for additional operators.

In August 2002 two other major clubs, in Butler county, were visited at their monthly meetings. Other amateur operators also felt the need to strengthen the emergency communications in the county.

Training

During the W8CCI Monday night informal meeting, emergency communications training was planned to later be provided to team members that wanted to become more involved.

In addition, Red Cross offers First Aid, CPR and Disaster Services courses such as Introduction to Disasters, Damage Assessment, Shelter Management, Emergency Assistance to Families, and Emergency Response Vehicle Driving.

The Butler County EMA provides training courses for Terrorism Awareness, Emergency Response Guide Awareness, and the Emergency Operations Center.

The Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) also provides additional training for communicators through online courses, for those who want to take them.

The following courses were previously offered by ARRL, however, are replaced by fewer online substitutes:

Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level I (no longer offered)

(Entry level for every Emergency Communicator)

Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level II (no longer offered)

(for NCS, NCO, AEC's, Net Managers etc.)

Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level III (no longer offered)

(Organizational management level personnel)

The courses currently offered by ARRL is "Introduction to Emergency Communication (EC-001)", which is a replacement for the entry level "Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level I" that is now discontinued, and "Public Service and Emergency Communications Management for Radio Amateurs (EC-016)". EC-016 which is designed to train licensed Amateur Radio operators who will be in leadership and managerial roles organizing other volunteers to support public service activities and communications emergencies.

Note: It is encouraged for amateur radio operators providing volunteer emergency communications to take advantage of available training. Training is a great benefit because operating confidence comes from discipline and training. However, training is NOT required to participate in volunteer emergency communications as an amateur radio operator.

Affiliations

The Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communication team is an entity of its own providing volunteer emergency communications within FCC regulations.

It is not a recruitment activity for any of the existing or future radio clubs in the county.

Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), the Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications team has a written agreement with repeater owners in and around Butler County for the use of their equipment on a daily, secondary, and as-needed basis for conducting volunteer emergency communications, including priority, health & welfare traffic, and training.

W8CCI/BCVHFA has entered into an MOU with the Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications team for use of the Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Center (ARECC) facility at D. Russell Lee (Butler Tech), to support volunteer emergency communications.

Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications can provide volunteer emergency communications as a Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) unit when activated. RACES is a Service authorized by the FCC, which, when operating on the Amateur Radio Service frequencies, requires that the operator be FCC licensed, and one who must belong to a RACES unit of a State or Local government.

Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications can also provide volunteer emergency communications as an Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) unit. The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) is a corps of trained amateur radio operator volunteers organized to assist in public service and emergency communications. It is organized and sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) and the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC).

Membership Requirements:

Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications is an independent organization that will utilize any licensed amateur radio operator willing to become involved in volunteer emergency communications.

There is no requirement to belong to any amateur radio club to belong to Butler County Amateur Radio Emergency Communications.