Please contact him at +1 650 593 3811.

This class will help prepare us for the stress of working 12-hour shifts under difficult circumstances–in other words, SOP on a DRO.

After charging for several days, the house batteries are at 13.74 volts; a voltage they haven’t seen in years.

The long run of 6 ga to the generator meant to charge the starter battery, however, hasn’t charged it enough to start the engine, so that will have to be troubleshooted.

We have also run 8 ga zip cord to the DC distribution block on the dashboard, allowing us to power up 4 of the 6 radios installed there.

If you’re around before the meeting starts at 7:00, consider dropping in to lend a hand. Planned projects include:

• Uprighting a Motorola radio cabinet that was donated to us, and figuring out how to secure it to the side wall.
• Removal of the AC wiring distribution panel
• Running the 8 gauge 12 VDC wire from the dashboard to the rear

http://www.flickr.com/people/arcba_rcm/

Here are some things you should know about Flickr’s capabilities:

• A Photostream is a Flickr account’s entire selection of uploaded photos
• Tags allow you to mark photos you upload so they can be searched as keywords
• Sets allow you to group photos posted under one account together.
• Groups allow multiple Flickr users to selectively share their photos to group pools that can be seen by anyone searching Flickr

Remember these special Flickr names when sharing photos:

• Our Photostream is http://www.flickr.com/photos/arcba_rcm/
• Our Flickr group is http://www.flickr.com/groups/arcba_rcm/ Please post any relevant photos you have to this pool!
• Our Flickr map is http://www.flickr.com/photos/arcba_rcm/map/ Any photos you geotag will show up here. I have set the account to only show photo locations to those we trust (listed as contacts in this Flickr account), so we can use this for locations that might be sensitive, such as shelter trailer locations, repeater sites, etc.
• “ARC Response Communications” is a tag I created to mark Red Cross emergency communications photos. Please use it! (You need to enclose any tag that has spaces inside quotes.)
• You can see all the tags used in our photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/arcba_rcm/alltags/

http://twitter.com/ARCBA_RCM

I’ll figure out how we can have several people able to post to this and pass the instructions around.

Communications
Communication after an event of this magnitude will be difficult. Landline and cell phone service will be disrupted for a period of two weeks or more. We will utilize the following four methods of communication until phone service is restored:

1. California Chapters all received satellite phones several years ago. These phones will be tested and provided with maintenance service if necessary. The Service Area will provide a satellite phone roster to each chapter.
2. Five V-Sat kits will be strategically placed in Northern California (locations TBD)
3. Chapters will utilize local agreements with HAM radio operators.
4. National Headquarters will deploy ECRVs into the affected area as soon as possible.

Worth noting here is that NHQ is expecting us to rely heavily on Ham radio operators.

We are part of Disaster Services Technology, and our role is to support whatever communications–including radio, telephones, and data–is required to support the Red Cross’ response to a disaster in the San Francisco Bay Area.

More details about us will be posted here soon.