Craig Cherry, N7RWB [April 2024]
To be sure there are trained participants available in case of an emergency, more volunteers are needed for several tasks. If you’re interested in any of these, please contact us.
- Equipment maintenance. Mainly this involves charging batteries in our stockpile of extra radios several times a year.
- Meeting coordinator. Arrange a monthly meeting to plan the Second Sunday exercise, and other activities.
- FRS and Ham net control operators. We need a few more people in the monthly rotation as net control operator, for training purposes and adequate staffing. There’s a written script and after the first time or two it’s easy to do.
- FAN Quarter Leader backups. We can always use a few more people interested in learning how to cover the Quarter Leader position. There’s a written script, and it’s a good skill to practice.
- Equipment setup. We haven’t been setting up the shelter for radio equipment during the past few Second Sunday exercises, but it would be great if a few people would read the equipment setup instructions (in a section below) and be ready to help when the shelter is used in the future.
- Equipment storage. We have a couple of leads on storage opportunities, but they are unheated. It would be better for the radio equipment and batteries to keep them in a habitable space. If anyone has a heated space available for FAN equipment storage please email fan-ready-planners@googlegroups.com .
- Record keeping. After a Second Sunday exercise (and other events) the completed ICS-214 forms are scanned and uploaded to the FAN Google Drive. The list of participants in the FRS and Ham nets are entered into a Google Docs spreadsheet to record who is active in the group (needed for radios on loan, etc.).
- Monthly exercise packet preparation and distribution. At this point a couple of people know how this is done. Training another person or two to spread out the knowledge and have a rotation of people doing the task would be helpful.
- Radio coordinator. It would be great to have another person or two familiar with the program, to provide information to prospective new members.
May and June Second Sunday exercises, and summer hiatus
Thia Bell volunteered to set up a planning meeting for the May exercise. Other than that, everything is available to volunteers interested in keeping things going – reply to fan-ready-planners@googlegroups.com . The past couple of summers we have taken July and August off, so expect further information about that.
Resources
There are a few “how to” documents in the FAN Google Drive. If someone is interested in revising or adding to these, improvements and additions are always welcome. Email fan-ready-planners@googlegroups.com .
- How To Edit and Send the Monthly SSS Packet
- DRAFT – How To Maintain and Set up the FAN Net Control Station
- DRAFT – How To Maintain and Set up a FAN Quarter Leader Station
Other news – College Hill Reservoir update
According to news from KLCC, the recently completed EWEB reservoir tanks at 40th and Patterson have been filled and are in use. The College Hill reservoir has been drained, so EWEB can begin removing the old structures. https://www.klcc.org/environment/2024-04-11/ewebs-new-water-tanks-are-now-supplying-water-to-eugene