Although I’ve never been big on emergency communications, public service, is one of the main reasons amateur radio exists. With that in mind, ARROW recently participated in two public service events. I chronicled these in an earlier post. Now, we’re getting involved with the local chapter of the American Red Cross.
Over the last couple of months, I and a couple of other ARROW members have been meeting with local Red Cross people, trying to find out what their communications needs are and then devising a plan to satisfy those needs. After several meetings, we still don’t have a complete plan, but we have enough knowledge now to get started. That being the case, I put out a call for ARROW members that were interested in working with the Red Cross to attend a volunteer orientation meeting.
I expected maybe eight guys to show up. Instead, sixteen hams showed up on Thursday. I told the Red Cross folks that we’d get a good turnout, but I didn’t expect this many! And more are on the way. There were at least three others that couldn’t make the meeting last week and plan to attend a future meeting.
After the orientation meeting, we toured the radio room, such as it is now, and got a close look at the 70-ft. tower. We also began some informal planning:
- One group started talking about the antenna system, discussing how to mount the antennas, how many feedlines to run, etc.
- Another group will be forming to install the Red Cross’s 47 MHz radios. They have several base stations–although they’re a little on the ancient side–and some very nice mobile radios. The current plan calls for testing the base radios and getting two of the mobile radios programmed and installed in vehicles.
- A third group is forming to assess amateur radio equipment needs. The RC folks think that they may have found a source of funds for amateur radio equipment, but our club also has some equipment that we could station at the Red Cross. We plan to investigate what other Red Cross chapters have and see how that would work in our situation.
- I’m also trying to interest the Red Cross folks in offering a Tech Class course to their volunteers. Bruce KD8APB suggested that we target the youth volunteers for this class. I’m hoping that they’ll be receptive to this and that not only the kids get licensed, but many of the Red Cross staff as well.
This is really exciting, and I think it will be a good thing for ARROW, the Red Cross, and the people of Washtenaw County. If you have any experience with your Red Cross, I’d love to hear from you.
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