EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS

There are a few axioms in amateur radio emergency communications:

1. You must have a relationship with your served agency / agencies before the emergency. When an EOC is operational is the wrong time to exchange business cards.

2. Your volunteers must have training and certification required by your served agency in order to “play.”

3. Above that, your volunteers must know their stuff. You won’t be called back if you can’t do the job.

Let’s take a look at the third element. From my first days as a ham in the 1970s, there have been operators who jump at the chance to get involved and help their agencies (formally or informally) after a disaster on any scale. I remember following a fire chief carrying a ham handheld and several different fire handhelds to help him coordinate multiple agencies. Now that the response is much more formal, expectations are higher for