EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Emergency Communications (Emcomm) is an organization within our club focused on emergency preparedness and communications support in emergencies. We are affiliated with the national orgnanzation, Radio Amateurs of Canada, and its Auxiliary Communication Service (ARES) organization.
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We work with emergency managers in York Region and its municipalities, preparing to provide backup communications to emergency workers when their usual communications systems are disabled or overloaded.
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We help manage the club's inventory of radios, antenna tower trailers, repeaters, and other equipment to ensure that we can meet the club's commitments to our communities. We also take emergency management training - often the same training as our regional and municipal partners - to be well-prepared to support them if needed.
How do you get involved in Emcomm? Contact us for full details.
Ontario ARES S.E.T. - 30th October 2021
Building a York Region ARES Organization
We have a building relationship with York Region Emergency Management Office and they are very supportive of the work we do both from a Public Service aspect and an EMCOMM/ARES aspect.
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We had a great Winter Field Day that was visited by 2 local Mayors a Deputy Mayor and a representative of EMO, who were all supportive of the help we can provide in a declared emergency.
Now is the time to ensure that we are a fully functioning and organized ARES group.
I would ask that each of you considers how you can help the EMCOMM/ARES group, with whatever time or talents you can provide.
I have realized that there will be two distinct groups of people, those that wish to play radio, i.e. the techie side of us that wants to understand packet or d-star or antennas and the group of people that are prepared to come out at a request of a government organization to help the community directly during an emergency.
With that in mind, I am looking for people to either become part of the research group or the operations group within YRARC.
The research group will run a half monthly net, where a technology will be discussed and then tried out two weeks later on the next NET. That technology could be D-RATS over D-STAR, or NVIS antennas for HF, whatever technology that may be used to pass information in the event of an emergency. The Operations group will be involved in handling Go-Kits and working on S.E.T's and working with the various organizations within York Region that we would support.
Please join the relevant forum and let's get the discussions going.
Regards,
Mike Crabtree
Emergency Co-ordinator York Region ARES.
Markham
The BIG picture
York Region ARES runs as part of a larger group called GTA ARES.
York region is made up of various Cities, Towns and Townships, i.e. Municipalities that all report into one Regional HQ based in Newmarket.
Each has its own E.O.C. or Emergency Operations Centre run by their internal group called E.M.O. or Emergency Management Operations.
In a disaster scenario, each municipality runs the emergency themselves until it is deemed they need help from the region. This is the opposite of the US system under FEMA.
Training in how the Incident Management System (I.M.S.) works is to be found at https://training.emergencymanagementontario.ca/TPOnline/TPOnline.dll/EMO_Public_Course/COURSENO=COUR2011070415145004500149