OCRACES Online and In-Person Meetings and Group Activities
OCRACES has resumed some
outside group activities, while observing current COVID
conditions. Online OCRACES meetings have been
well-attended during the pandemic. We will continue online monthly
meetings, interspersed with in-person meetings, perhaps
quarterly. Monday night 2-meter nets at 7:00 p.m. and Saturday morning 60-meter nets at 10:00
a.m. will continue (except for some major holidays).
However, due to new schedules in the OCSD Reserve Bureau,
mandatory PSR meetings will occasionally be held on Monday
evenings, resulting in OCRACES ACS net cancelations on those
evenings and possible shift in OCRACES meetings to a different Monday.
Websites with COVID-19 Information
The Orange County Health Care Agency website at
https://occovid19.ochealthinfo.com has information that is
regularly updated regarding the status of COVID-19 in Orange
County. A good site to monitor for the latest Orange
County COVID-19 news is
https://www.ocgov.com.
For information about COVID-19 in the state of California, visit
https://covid19.ca.gov. That site emphasizes that if you
have any symptoms or are at risk, it’s especially important to
stay home and avoid in-person contact with others.
CDC and FEMA have an informative website at
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov. You can also visit
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/coronavirus.
FEMA has a website at
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/coronavirus/rumor-control to help you
distinguish between rumors and facts regarding the response to
the pandemic.
Sign up for County of Orange AlertOC COVID-19 updates to your
smartphone. Text “OCCOVID19” to 888777.
City/County RACES & MOU ACS Exercise Held on May 7,
2022

Steve Livingston, NJ6R
(left), at the 2-meter simplex station; Scott MacGillivrary,
KM6RTE (center), at the Winlink station; and Ken Bourne, W6HK
(right), at the 60-meter station at the OC EOC RACES Room. Chi
Nguyen, KE6MVS, operated the OCHEART station.
Simulating repeater outage, a City/County RACES & EmComm ACS
exercise was held on Saturday, May 7, 2022, on 2 meters simplex,
60 meters SSB, Winlink, and AREDN mesh. OCRACES and OCHEART net
controls were at the Orange County EOC at Loma Ridge. The drill
began at 0900 hours with each agency calling its members on
their primary 2-meter or 70-centimeter simplex frequencies for
the first half hour, and then reporting to OCRACES net control
on 146.595 MHz simplex how many had checked in on their primary
frequencies. Participating OCRACES members included Robert
Stoffel, KD6DAQ, Ken Tucker, WF6F, Ken Bourne, W6HK, Scott
Byington, KC6MMF, Randy Benicky, N6PRL, Steve Livingston, NJ6R,
Scott MacGillivray, KM6RTE, and Fran Needham, KJ6UJS. Besides
OCRACES, other participants (their unit check-ins in
parentheses) included RACES units from Anaheim (5), Brea (6),
Costa Mesa (15), Cypress (6), Fountain Valley (5), Fullerton
(4), Huntington Beach (5), Irvine (26), Laguna Niguel (7),
Laguna Woods (5 + 3 guests), Mission Viejo (12), Orange (13),
and Westminster (4), plus Newport Beach Repeater Club (5) and
OCHEART (9). The 60-meter portion of the exercise began at 1000
hours, with 34 check-ins, including stations throughout Orange
County plus San Diego County and Ventura County. On Winlink, 91
messages were sent and received from 31 unique operators, over a
24-hour period. There were 19 operators on telnet. AREDN mesh
participation included RACES units from Anaheim Costa Mesa,
Fountain Valley, Irvine, Laguna Niguel, Mission Viejo, and
OCRACES, plus OCHEART. Most had RF connection to the network.
There were 17 successful VoIP phone calls, and 25 files were
successfully transferred to the FTP file server.
38 Participate in Earthquake Drill on October 21,
2021
OCRACES conducted a countywide Great ShakeOut earthquake
emergency communications exercise on Thursday, October 21, 2021.
All communications were on the OCRACES 2-meter repeater on
146.895 MHz. The exercise provided City and County RACES and EmComm units an
opportunity to practice giving observational reports following a
major earthquake in Orange County. Under actual earthquake
conditions, the reports would provide data to local and county
agencies for creating an initial picture of the situation at
various locations across the county. RACES members would provide
“eyes and ears” for an early and wide assessment.

Eric Bowen, W6RTR. |
Net control was at the
Orange County EOC and reports were received from
throughout Orange County. As would be typical during a
strong earthquake, net control (which included Ken
Bourne, W6HK, and Eric Bowen, W6RTR, taking turns as
radio operator and scribe) received multiple reports
every minute and did not have time to fill out
individual ICS-213 message forms. Messages were quickly
jotted down and those requiring immediate agency
response would have been rushed into the EOC Command
Center by a runner under actual conditions. Scott
MacGillivray, KM6RTE, experimented with Winlink and
AREDN/mesh at Loma Ridge during the exercise. |
Earthquake intensity reports were given as “Mike-Mike,” based on
the Modified Mercalli Earthquake Intensity Scale, using expanded
USGS standards. ”Observational” reports included “Mike-Mike”
ranges of 1 through 4 or 5 and the general location (such as the
city name) and typically would not be needed by the Command
Center, but would be useful in determining which areas of the
county were not severely affected. “Critical” reports included
“Mike-Mike ranges above 5 or 6 plus the exact locations and
conditions requiring agency response, including fires, downed
utility lines, power outage, traffic-signal outage, bridge
collapse, tsunami warning, broken windows, and gas leak.
Participating OCRACES stations in the field included KD6DAQ,
WF6F, KK6HFS, KC6MMF, N6PRL, NJ6R, and K3TOG.
Many members from city RACES/ACS units participated, including
Anaheim (KW6ACK), Costa Mesa (MESAC) (KJ6PFW, WB6NOA, and
KM6UJD), Fountain Valley (KK6OEX), Fullerton (K6FUL, KB4GOD, and
K6OGD), Huntington Beach (KE6BNS, K6HMS, WB6OZD, and W6SNX),
Mission Viejo (KF6BRC and W6EDT), Laguna Niguel (WB6CKG, KK6CUR,
K0PGE, and KK6URR), Laguna Woods (NH7WG), Los Alamitos/Seal
Beach (KM6RSY), Orange (COAR) (KK6YUP), and Westminster (KJ6EBA
and N6HVC). From Orange County Red Cross were K6HMS, KG6WTQ, and
KM6ZPO, and San Diego County Red Cross was WA6DNT. From OCHEART
were KE6MVS, K0PGE, and KM6RSY.
City/County/EmComm Drill Held on October 2, 2021

Eric Bowen, W6RTR (left), at
2-meter simplex station; Scott MacGillivray, KM6RTE (center), at
Winlink station, and Ken Bourne, W6HK (right), at 60-meter
station at the OC EOC RACES Room.
On Saturday, October 2, 2021, from 0900 to 1200 hours, OCRACES
conducted its biannual City/County RACES & EmComm ACS Exercise.
Net control operators at the Orange County EOC RACES Room at
Loma Ridge included Eric Bowen, W6RTR, on 2 meters simplex and
observing AREDN mesh, Scott MacGillivray, KM6RTE, on Winlink,
and Ken Bourne, W6HK, on 60 meters.
This simplex portion of the drill simulated repeater failures
throughout the county and each RACES/ACS unit conducted this
drill on their simplex frequencies. From 0900 to 0930 hours,
city RACES units and MOUs called a roll of their members on
their primary simplex frequencies, while OCRACES net control
called the roll of its members on the OCRACES primary simplex
frequency of 146.595 MHz. From 0930 to 1000 hours, net control
called the roll of the city RACES and MOU units on 146.595
simplex frequency. Each unit responded with the total number of
participants from their members, as well as any visitors
checking in to their net.
AREDN mesh was added for the first time to this exercise. Each
unit was asked to log in to a node and take a screenshot from
the attached camera, as well as make phone calls to other AREDN
mesh users.
In the Winlink portion of the exercise, operators prepared a
message with an attached Express Check-In form and sent it to
OCRACES tactical and member addresses. To maximize the delivery
options, with the OCRACES Winlink RMS Gateways currently offline
and very limited alternative gateways available in Orange
County, the Winlink messages were sent using any of the
communications modes available to the operator, which included
telnet (i.e., direct connection to the internet). A total of 82
messages were sent and received, with messages sent from 31
unique Winlink operators.
The 60-meter portion of the exercise began at 1000 hours, on
5371.5 kHz (dial frequency) upper sideband. Participants
included 21 County and City RACES and other EmComm members,
RACES and EmComm stations from Los Angeles, San Diego, and
Ventura Counties, and non-EmComm stations from Orange, Anaheim
Hills, Santa Maria, and a mobile from the Sierra National Forest
northeast of Fresno.
OCRACES Participates in Alternate EOC Drill on June 30,
2021
OCRACES played a role in the
2021 Alternate EOC Exercise on Wednesday, June 30, 2021.
For realism, this exercise was kept confidential from
much of OCSD Emergency Management Division (EMD)
personnel until it was activated Wednesday morning.
OCRACES, which is an EMD AuxComm unit, was made a
component of the exercise, and the exercise was also
kept confidential to its members until the OCRACES
2-meter repeater was activated for the event. The
exercise scenario was a fail-soft of the 800-MHz radio
system, coupled with immediate and severe network
connectivity issues at 0600 hours. OCSD Dispatch and
Control One experience identical failures, rendering
them unable to communicate. |
|

Radio Officer Scott
Byington, KC6MMF, Assistant Emergency Manager Lee Kaser,
KK6VIV, and Chief Radio Officer Ken Bourne, W6HK (left
to right), at OCFA during the Alternate EOC Exercise. |
OCSD Systems confirmed that both the 800-MHz system and the OCSD
network connections to Loma Ridge had experienced a very complex
cyberattack and they were unable to estimate when the services
to the facility would be restored. OCIAC determined that
multiple response agencies, transportation, and large
corporations across the county were having similar issues and
that a foreign government may be at the root of the problem.
The next step in the scenario was for OCSD Executive Command to
place all sworn and essential professional staff on Tactical
Alert. The OCSD Department Operations Center (DOC) activated to
Level 2 at the Southwest Operations Division, Saddleback
Station. EMD activated OCRACES on the 2-meter repeater for
deployment to predetermined areas to assist with communications.
A decision was then made to relocate the EOC to an alternate
location. EMD staff rallied at Orange County Fire Authority
(OCFA) Headquarters in Irvine, recovered the Alternate EOC
equipment, and began setup. OCRACES Chief Radio Officer Ken
Bourne, W6HK, and Radio Officer Scott Byington, KC6MMF, were
assigned as AUXC to Control 7 at OCFA, to operate net control,
beginning at 0930 hours. Joe Selikov, KB6EID, was ready to
activate OCRACES members via AlertOC. He and Steve Livingston,
NJ6R, and Fran Needham, KJ6UJS, sent and received exercise
traffic in the field.
FEMA ICS and NIMS procedures were followed during the exercise.
An ICS-211A form was used at Control 7 for checking in Ken and
Scott. Messages were sent and received with the ICS-213 form.
All activities were logged on an ICS-214 form.
Radio Rodeo Tests Interoperability on May 19, 2021
The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
(CISA), Interoperable Communications Technical Assistance
Program (ICTAP), in partnership with the California Statewide
Interoperability Coordinator, with local leadership provided by
OCSD Control One Supervising Communications Coordinator Derek
Gard, KK6VGY, held the California Interoperable Communication
Functional Exercise, called “Radio Rodeo,” on Wednesday, May 19,
2021, at the Honda Center in Anaheim, with some command
functions at Loma Ridge. Harlan Squires, KJ7BLY, from Department
of Homeland Security/CISA/ICTAP, came in from Arizona to oversee
the exercise and greeted OCRACES Chief Radio Officer Ken Bourne,
W6HK, and Joe Selikov, KB6EID, at Loma Ridge with a surprise
Master Scenario Events List (MSEL) of 28 AUXC exercise tasks to
be accomplished in addition to ICS 201 (incident briefing) and
other RACES tasks that had already been planned. Participants
were required to maintain an ICS 214 unit log as they
accomplished their tasks. The same MSEL was given to OCRACES
Radio Officer Scott Byington, KC6MMF, who was in charge of RACES
operations at the Honda Center. This list kept Scott extremely
busy, as he delegated tasks throughout the venue to various
agencies.
The MSEL required that a frequency for all AUXC be designated,
which was already done in our original planning. We had a
modified ICS 205 for identifying frequencies according to the
exercise timeline.
Setup began at 0700 hours at the Honda Center. Scott Byington
set up an impressive 88-foot 60-meter dipole between the tops of
tall light posts in the north parking lot. Gary Standard, K6GSX,
and Peter Putnam, NI6E, from the Newport Beach Repeater Club
EmComm unit, set up another impressive antenna on a very tall
trailer-mounted pneumatic tower with Gary’s military adjustable
dipole at the top, resonated on 40 meters. This fulfilled
another MSEL task.
RACES operations began at 0900, with communications from both
locations to outside Orange County exercise venues (Riverside
City CERT, Riverside County RACES at the Ben Clark Training
Center, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Communications Center, and
Maricopa County ARES in Phoenix, Arizona, via the Cactus
Intertie System on 70 centimeters. At 0930 hours, communications
from both locations were conducted to outside Orange County
exercise venues on 40 meters and 60 meters. The stations at the
Honda Center were more successful on HF, because they were using
horizontal antennas, which are effective for Near Vertical
Incidence Skywave (NVIS) propagation. The Hy-Gain DX-88 vertical
antenna at Loma Ridge has a lower angle of radiation and is
effective at greater distances, but is not good for NVIS
communications within 300 to 400 miles.
Beginning at 1000 hours, simplex communications were conducted
locally at the Honda Center and from Loma Ridge on 146.595 MHz.
Before 1100 hours, communications were also conducted on the
156.895 MHz repeater and on the 449.100 MHz repeater, with
attempts to reach Riverside County RACES.
Honda Center net control on HF, 2 meters (simplex and repeater),
and 70 centimeters (Cactus) was operated from Control 7 and from
stations provided by Scott Byington (OCRACES) and Gary Standard
and Peter Putnam (Newport Beach Repeater Club/EmComm).
The MSEL had several tasks related to Winlink, starting with
“Access the AUXC specific portal on Winlink.” Scott
MacGillivray, KM6RTE, operated both a temporary RMS gateway and
a portable Winlink Express client station from the City of
Orange Amateur Radio (COAR, the city’s RACES unit) location of
the Honda Center parking lot.
The exercise MSEL requested a demonstration of a mesh network,
which was fulfilled by Mission Viejo RACES Member Don Hill,
KE6BXT, who demonstrated an AREDN mesh network to communicate
with Riverside County RACES via a node on Pleasants Peak in the
Santa Ana Mountains east of Orange. He also communicated locally
with Costa Mesa’s mobile communications vehicle (MCV),
coordinating with MESAC’s Chief Radio Officer Patrick Williams,
KJ6PFW, who also communicated via Winlink with Scott
MacGillivray’s station.
RACES Wants You!
Experience
the most exciting and rewarding part of amateur radio. Being a
RACES member gives you the opportunity to sharpen your
operating skills and technical knowledge while volunteering your services
in public-safety communications. Get involved in emergency communications now.
To become an OCRACES member,
you must first be a Sheriff’s Professional Services Responder
(PSR, which is a non-sworn Reserve) or a Reserve Deputy Sheriff.
PSR information may be found on
this page on the Orange County Sheriff's website. Click on
“Reserve Interest Form” in the left column. Then attend the next
PSR Orientation followed by the PSR Prescreen. You can find the
dates for those events by clicking “Reserve Testing &
Orientation Dates” on the above web page. A background check
will be conducted by the Sheriff’s Department. You must also
attend three OCRACES meetings (online or in-person), in addition
to passing the OCSD background for PSR, to become an OCRACES
member.
OCRACES members need to have
a dual-band radio to access our 2-meter and 70-centimeter
repeaters. Members are also required to pass the IS-100, -200,
-700, and -800 courses, which may be found on the FEMA website
at
https://training.fema.gov/is/crslist.aspx.
Click the
Contact
OCRACES link for more information.
|
Events Calendar
August 13: 1000 hours OCRACES ACS Net 60 meters
channel 4
August 15: 1900 hours
OCRACES ACS Net 2 m: Randy Benicky, N6PRL
August 20: 1000 hours OCRACES ACS Net 60 meters
channel 4
August 22: 19oo hours
OCRACES ACS Nets 2 m/70 cm/1¼ m/6 m: Steve Livingston,
NJ6R
August 27: 1000 hours OCRACES ACS Net
60 meters channel 4
August 29: 1900 hours
OCRACES ACS Net 2 m: Scott Byington, KC6MMF
September 3: 1000 hours OCRACES ACS Net 60 meters
channel 4
September 5: Labor Day (no
net, no meeting)
September 10: 1000 hours
OCRACES ACS Net 60 meters channel 4
September
12: 1900 hours OCRACES ACS Net 2 m: Eric Bowen, W6RTR
September 12: 1930 hours OCRACES Meeting
(online) Severe Fire Weather Patrol Training
September 17: 1000 hours
OCRACES ACS Net 60 meters channel 4
September
19: 1900 hours OCRACES ACS Net 2 m: Ernest
Fierheller, KG6LXT
September 24: 1000 hours
OCRACES ACS Net 60 meters channel 4
September
26: 1900 hours OCRACES ACS Net 2 m/70 cm/1¼ m/6 m:
Ken Bourne, W6HK |