My notes from an Emergency Communication seminar in Forest Hill, MD hosted by Joe Krystoforski and Pat Scolla held on July 23, 2009 at 18:30.

Our goal is to be able to establish and maintain consistent and inter-operable communication between jurisdictions and functions. Emergency communication system includes (but is not limited to) 911, reverse 911*, public safety answering points, radio and television (via the Emergency Alert System or EAS), wired phones, cell phones. Baltimore County and Harford County have access to the EAS and NWS alerts from their Emergency Operations Center.

Failure of any of those system (overload or collapse) defines a communications emergency. Baltimore County ACS exists to maintain personnel and equipment necessary to supplement communications. All radios are consistent hardware with identical settings. All counties should have primary frequencies for their own county and mutual aid frequencies for the surrounding counties. Baltimore County Office of Homeland Security has two "go-kits," at their headquarters, health department has six others for use in disaster where shelter or triage sites need to be set up.

Emergency communicators should know proper (shared) operating procedures and conduct, and operation of radio and computer systems. Conduct includes maintaining a cheerful and positive attitude about the operation no matter how much or how little the operator is called on to perform. Clothing and appearance is also important, business casual but prepared to do what's necessary. An operator should be able to multi-task and write while listening, act on directions quickly, not assert yourself over the folks making the decisions, and provide help when needed. An operator should be caring, and be a team player.

The emergency communicator supports the emergency managers. They do not make the distinction of the order of messages, the incident commander does. As emergency communicators, amateur operators must be cheerful volunteers who strive to be the best in their craft with the necessary skills and abilities and able to follow procedures and correct deviations from it during operations.

At the discretion of the incident commanders and emergency managers, operators may be called on to work equipment that is not necessarily amateur radio gear, including computers, fax machines, public service radios, and vehicles as necessary. As resilient and open-minded we have to be, actions taken are always at the lead of the incident leaders. Amateur operators do not self-deploy. Folks who self deploy and get in trouble take resources away from other people to help them, and are not covered by liability insurance provided by the jurisdictions.

Emergency communicators must communicate an accurate, timely message and must be ready to become a primary method of communications. As primary systems become more complicated and tightly coupled, their failure mores do as well. After a certain number of spares, power companies tend to maintain JIT inventory of major infrastructure items like transformers, so a failure of more than a few dozen can result in a 7-15 day lead time for recovery. Cell phone towers and central office switches run approximately 8 hours (many cell stations on battery only). A typical EOC has power reserves for 30 days.

Amateur operators have access to ATV, analog, digital modes over analog, D-STAR true digital mode, D-STAR is the preferred format for Baltimore County because it provides spectral efficiency and simultaneous voice and data, no required TNC, high speed data on 23cm, and Internet and microwave linking capability. A D-STAR transceiver on 1.2 GHz can link two disparate local area networks together as a standard router.

*If someone has given up land-line telephone service in favor of exclusively cell phones they are not included in the reverse 911 system, but Harford County offers an opt-in list for cell phone customers to get into the reverse 911 if they choose. Reverse 911 works down to the granularity of a single block.

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