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Annual Los Gatos Children's Holiday Parade - 2019

Date: 12/07/19 Start: 8:30 AM End: 2:00 PM Location: Pageant Way@Main Los Gatos
Credential Credit (What's this?): No

The 63th annual Los Gatos Children’s Holiday Parade will be held on Saturday, December 7 in downtown Los Gatos, rain or shine. The parade starts at 11:00 AM and will run until sometime between 1pm and 2pm. This is a low key, low stress way to help out the community as well as getting practice in being a field operator.

The Los Gatos Lions Club and the LG/MS PD have asked the Los Gatos ARES-RACES group to provide a cadre of hams and CERTs with GMRS licenses for help in providing supporting communications along the parade route.

The volunteer requirements have changed since last year.  We are now looking for those who are CERT trained, have a GMRS license, a Los Gatos/Monte Sereno DSW card, and optionally a ham license.  The positions are for rovers deployed along the North Santa Cruz Ave portion of the parade route and net control/scribes at the Incident Command post..

You will need to bring your own HT ham radio (2m, 5W output, + spare battery). A better antenna than the “rubber ducky” is recommended. A “speaker-mike” is optional. We will issue you a GMRS radio, but you need to have a GMRS license.

Wear an ARES-RACES or CERT bright green vest. and dress in layers as it will be cold in the morning but may warm up. This is a rain or shine event.

The streets are closed at 9:00 AM so being there for the 8:30 briefing is essential. The Incident Command station is in the parking lot for the Police Department (old library parking lot). Entrance is from Pageant Way off Main St.  We will have our CERT trailer, and a pop up tent adjacent to the CERT trailer.  The Police Incident Command trailer will be located adjacent to us in the parking lot.

We will gather at the ARES-RACES/CERT Incident Command Post  at 08:30 for the briefing and distribution of materials including GMRS radios.  You must have  a Los Gatos/Monte Sereno DSW card.

Have your ham radio programmed for the following frequencies: 

* Resource Net (and Message Net backup) frequency will be the W6PIY 2 meter repeater: 147.390 MHz, + offset, PL of 151.4 Hz.

* Primary Message Net frequency will be GMRS Ch 21

* Command Net will be LG Tac3 (441.000 Simplex)

To volunteer for a position, you must be first be logged in to the VISITOR menu, and when viewing this parade event, select "Sign me up". Once you are signed up, you  will see check boxes for open posiionts.  "click" one of the boxes to sign up for that position.. For questions contact Peter Hertan at k6plh@yahoo.com, or Patrick Dirks, Incident Commander at pwd@mac.com.

The following positions are available for this event. You can state your preference when you sign up for the event. The event coordinator will attempt to accommodate your request. Based on the event and its requirements, the event coordinator may move hams to positions other than those requested.

Click on a position title for a description of the specific requirements for that position

PositionAvailable
Net Control1
Scribe, backup Net Control1
Event Manager0
Rover7
Event Planner0
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