Amateur Radio at the Operational Area EOC

Presentation:  Amateur Radio for Emergency Managers

The radio room at the Santa Clara County Operational Area Emergency Operations Center (OA EOC) is well equipped, regularly tested, and stands ready to provide auxiliary communications services when needed.

All of the following communications services include both voice and data communications. The county ARES/RACES data network has multiple redundant connection to the global Internet. But it is also fully independent of the Internet and can support countywide communications (and beyond) even if all Internet connections are completely down.

• OA EOC to other OA EOC Communications
  • Communications between the Santa Clara County OA and other OAs, near or far.
• OA EOC to Local Jurisdiction EOC Communications
  • Communications between the OA EOC and local jurisdiction EOCs.
• EOC to Hospital Communications
  • The OA EOC will typically communicate with the Medical Health Joint Operations Center (MHJOC) to maintain situational awareness and to support hospital operations. If the MHJOC is not activated, hospitals will communicate directly with the OA EOC.
• EOC to Agency Communications
  • Government agencies non-government organizations which span multiple jurisdictions either have or are encouraged to have amateur radio stations at their Department Operation Centers (DOCs). Examples of agencies with amateur radio communications include: the American Red Cross and the Valley Water District.
• Gathering Situational Awareness
  • Hundreds of amateur radio operators across the county can gather situational awareness information and rapidly summarize it at the city level. Examples include: observed earthquake damage (Modified Mercali Scale), flooding locations and levels, communications outage locations, and more. The city-level information is summarized and transmitted to the operational area EOC to aid in establishing a common operating picture.
• Health and Welfare
  • Those working extended assignments can let family members know that they're OK.

• Credentialing
  • Similar to the way the State of California offers credentials at three performance levels for each EOC position, Santa Clara County RACES has maintained a resource typing and credentialing program since 2009. The program identifies those who have demonstrated their ability to operate in different roles (field, net control, packet, shadow) and at different capability levels.
  • Traffic levels in the OA EOC tend to be the highest. So the radio operators deployed to the OA EOC tend to have the highest level credentials.
• Mutual Aid
  • Local jurisdictions that have exhausted their local amateur radio resources can request amateur radio mutual aid from the county. Once approved, amateur radio operators from other cities in the county can be sent to supplement the jurisdiction in need.
  • Mutual aid resource assignment, activation and tracking is performed over the radio.
• Training and Exercises
  • A full suite of highly-rated training courses and exercises are provided by the county ARES/RACES team. Training covers everything from the basics up to specialist-level, resource type-specific skills. And regular exercises are provided to strengthen in-field performance capabilities. The training courses and exercises are open to all amateur radio operators throughout the county.

• Location
  • The radio room is located within the Operational Area EOC, where it is easily accessible to all EOC personnel.
• Equipment
  • The radio room is equipped with the following communications assets:
    • HF, VHF, UHF amateur radio voice
    • VHF, UHF (low speed) amateur radio, and WiFi/Fiber (high speed) data
    • Control 10, CESRS, CLERS, EOC, OASIS systems operated by County Comms