Hello to all…
On Monday, April 21st, the Boston Marathon will be held again this year, with the race starting at 1200. Additionally, for the second consecutive year, all public safety efforts will be coordinated by the Unified Command Center (UCC), which will be hosted in the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), Framingham. SEOC operations will be supported by RACES radio operations there, and I will be located there all day as well. My contact information for the day appears at the end of this message.I am requesting that all RACES/ARES nets in the EMa Section be activated on a standby basis fromapproximately 0800 to 1800. The sole purpose of the activation is to provide support communications for any incidents to the community at large (outside of the race course) that may occur during the event day, either as a result of an incident within the race, or independent of it.
1. FOR DEC’s: Please coordinate a sked of net control stations (NCS)’s for the day on RACES sector nets in your districts. This is a great opportunity for those members needing training and experience. Please monitor any SKYWARN mobilization to determine who on your list may also be a SKYWARN NCS.
2. FOR NCS’s: Please assume net control in STANDBY mode. This means that you announce your presence periodically, while allowing normal QSO’s. However, during your announcements, you should remind users to leave gaps between participant transmissions, keep transmissions shorter to allow breaks, and be ready to move to other repeaters as needed. Please also take the opportunity to practice communications with stations in your area, as well as with NCS’s of neighboring RACES repeaters. Obviously, playing out any scenarios during your practice comms would be risking confusion to anyone monitoring our frequencies.
3. Should an incident take place, proceed as we have practiced. Assume positive control of the net. Move QSO traffic to other repeaters. Take in checkins, prioritizing those with traffic. Move traffic stations off to secondary liaison repeaters (or simplex freqs) as needed. It is very important that you relay information to the SEOC RACES desk as it develops in your area.
4. I suggest “watch” periods of about 5 hours for the day.
My contact information (for the day only) on Monday is as follows:
Landline: 508-820-1428
Email: massraces@yahoo.com
Radio: 53.31, 147.15, 146.64, in addition to other liaison frequencies to the race course
Thank you in advance for your participation on Monday. 73,
s/Michael P. Neilsen
Michael P. Neilsen, W1MPN
EMa SEC
978.562.5662 Admin
978.389.0558 FAX/Secondary