Communications Boot Camp

[floridacyclist]

The North Florida Ranger School will be coordinating a Communications Boot Camp from 26 May to 3 Jun, 2007

Subjects covered will include but not be limited to:

• Amateur Radio Technician License

FCC Rules, station license responsibilities
Control operator duties
Operating practices
Radio and electronic fundamentals
Station setup and operation
Communications modes and methods
Special operations
Emergency and Public Service Communications (inc using special events for training)
Radio waves, propagation, and antennas
Electrical and RF Safety

• ARRL Emergency Communications Level 1

Introduction to Emergency Communication
Amateurs as Professionals - The Served Agency Relationship (adapted for CAP customers)
Network Theory and the Design of Emergency Communication Systems
Emergency Communication Organizations and Systems
Served Agency Communication Systems
Basic Communication Skills
Introduction to Emergency Nets
Basic Message Handling
Net Operating Guidelines (per CAP guidelines)
The Incident Command System
Preparing for Deployment
Equipment Choices for Emergency Communication (NVIS, beams etc)
Setup, Initial Operations, and Shutdown
Operations & Logistics
Personal Safety, Survival, and Health Considerations
Alternative Communication Methods
What to Expect in Large-Scale Disasters
Hazardous Materials Awareness
Marine Communications
Other Learning Opportunities
Modes, Methods, and Applications
Disaster-zone driving safety and navigation
CISM Awareness

• FEMA IS200 and 700
• CAP Basic Communications User Training(BCUT)
• CAP Advanced Communications User Training(ACUT)
• Mission Radio Operator (MRO) tasks
• Communication Unit Leader (CUL) tasks
• Incident Management Utilities (IMU) for MRO/CUL
• Mother of all Comm Exercises (2 of them actually)

Other points of interest:

• Cost of the 9-day camp will be $90.00, payable online.
• Registration will be limited to the first 30 participants to complete registration
• All books, academic supplies, and testing materials are included. $90 retail value.
• Funded mission status pending. Gas reimbursement potentially available for COVs and approved POVs;carpooling encouraged
• Civillian ham radio operator instructors where appropriate
• All participants must be self-sufficient as far as food and lodging. Water available.
• Primitive and self-contained RV camping available onsite at Ft McGee, Officers are free to make other arrangements
• Pickup available from Greyhound station or airport (bus recommended)
• Air-conditioned classroom (not the usual Ranger School I know)
• Graduation swimming party/cookout
• Previous Encampment required for cadets unless permission obtained from Unit commander and School Project Officer
• All conflicts between Amateur and CAP practice will be taught according to CAP practice if possible or will be thoroughly discussed if not

See http://www.tallahasseecap.org/commcamp for more details including regisration and schedule. Please feel free to email commcamp@tallahasseecap.org or call me at (850)284-3677 for details

[stillamarine]

Good luck with this, I really would love to go, but I leave for 9 days to OK for a annual trip on June 3rd!  If I could only find a way to justify 2 weeks off!!!

[JC004]

Air-conditioned classroom (not the usual Ranger School I know)

Waaaait a minute here...are air conditioned classrooms allowed at ranger schools?

[floridacyclist]

Not usually, but we have civillian volunteer instructors. In Florida. In June.

We really would like to maintain a decent relationship with our local ham club

It's a funny situation really; both the squadron and group were uninterested in being involved due to the perceived time and financial commiment, so the Florida Ranger Training Officer suggested that the Ranger Program sponsor it since we need good field comms as much as anyone....if not more so due to the lack of cell service in places we tend to play (wilderness, hurricane zones etc).

In due time, it might be interesting to explore development of a Ranger Comm Track, like the medics. I could see something like:

Field Communicator

• Ranger 2nd Class
• Technician ham license
• ARRL EMCOMM Level 1
• MRO
• IS700
• various practical skills (erect VHF antenna etc)

Field Communicator First Class

• Ranger 1st Class
• General ham license
• ARRL EMCOMM Level 2
• CUL
• IS200
• various practical skills (erect HF antenna in field conditions etc)

Master Communicator

• Advanced Ranger (or is Master Ranger required for Master Medic?)
• Extra-class ham license
• ARRL EMCOMM Level 3
• LSC
• IS800
• ICS300
• ICS400
• various practical skills (erect complete communications base without infrastructure support etc)

[arajca]

So you're not teach IS-200, you're teaching the test. IS-200 is a two day course (it uses the same materials and schedule as ICS-200).

One issue I see with spending so much time on the Ham stuff is you're giving the impression that Ham is more important than CAP.

Remember, CAP is prohibited from using Ham frequencies for CAP operations. Period.

Instead of the ARRL EMCOMM courses, use NWCG (National Wildfire Coordinating Group) courses. They are accepted in NIMS and are the basis for ICS communications staffing. I'm not saying the ARRL courses are bad, but it is more important to train to standards that are accepted and interchangeable in ICS. EMCOMM is not. CAP MRO/CUL is not. NWCG RADO, COML, COMT, etc are.

[floridacyclist]

We can't completely de-emphasize ham radio because if this grant goes through, ARRL is paying for a major portion of our books and expenses (which explains how we can charge $90 and give them $90 worth of stuff in addition to such niceties as bathrooms, showers, classrooms, a graduation dinner etc), and like I pointed out, part of what we're doing is giving them a hobby to play in to learn even more about radio on their own once they leave.  After all, when was the last time you saw a cadet experimenting with building an antenna for their CAP radio that they use to check in on the nets?

You would have to read the page itself to understand some of the reasoning behind even teaching ham radio to start with. It's not just about teaching the skills, it's about giving them (cadets especially, who can't afford to fully participate in CAP communications these days) a sandbox to play in so they can learn more about radios and communications on their own through trial, practice, and interaction with other hams  than we can ever teach them in the time that we have available. It's about giving them the skills needed to solve the problems using their own brain rather than applying a 1-size-fits-most canned solution.

You might have missed the material both on the page (and in bright red in the ops order) stating that the purpose of this camp was not to teach CAP members how to use ham radio on CAP missions, but how to use ham radios to increase their own understanding and knowledge level of radio theory in general. In the ops order, it went on to say that:

At no time will ham frequencies or unregistered ham radios on CAP frequencies be used to conduct CAP business. In order to avoid even the appearance of misuse of the ham bands, no CAP member will communicate exclusively with another CAP member on an amateur frequency during this event especially during our normal duty hours; this does not preclude the possibility of two ham-licensed CAP members being involved in the same conversation with other hams on a ham frequency while off-duty. Ham radios will be for ham use only and breaking this rule will result in immediate removal from the class.

With the IS courses, we work straight through the online class itself with the ICS200 book as backup for the tougher parts, not the test and it takes about 3-4 hours including some classroom discussion. I would like to try to find some time to expand this part of the course so that we can include some of the tabletops from the regular ICS200 course, but haven't identified it yet. Either way, the students still come out with a much better understanding of the class than after clicking through the online course on their own. This section will probably grow once we explore exactly what portions of EMCOMM we can eliminate or gloss over as I'm not particularly interested in teaching them the finer points of the ARES command and control system (further ICS time would make a very logical replacement for this) and may even forego the EMCOMM test completely, although with ARRL paying for the books and providing the bulk of the volunteer instructors we might want to use them at least this time around.  One other thought that came up recently was to eliminate the IS200 and 700 exams and send the students home with the links to take the online class and finish the exam on their own, therefore treating our classes as orientations rather than self-contained classes, using that time instead for more instruction and practice. I will probably publish that change in the next revision of the schedule (due after Sun'n Fun) as the MS Word Ops Order source document is locked in my office at work and inaccessible until I come back from 3 days in a PIO course and 4 days as OSC for Sun n Fun.

As for standards, the FL EOC has set EMCOMM level 1 as the minimum qualification for volunteer communicators, so someone recognizes it at least down here. I would dare say that as volunteers responsible for supplying the majority of our own radios and gear (from our local squadron's supply cabinet if not our own pocketbook) we have more in common with ARES volunteers than an Incident Communications Technician setting up and programming handheld radios in a pre-deployed federal radio cache (which may or may not even include HF - I know that our DMAT cache doesn't as I'm one of the techs responsible for setting it up). This doesn't even begin to take into account whether we can even find someone to supply the books and teach S-258 along with the required S-110 and S-130 prerequisites, which we could possibly get permission to eliminate.  I also did not see anything in the S-258 curriculum about disaster-zone operations or message-handling, which will also necessarily be a major part of our emphasis here. I did just find the RADO qualifications and some of that does look quite interesting; we may have to see about adapting some of it, but in the absence of prepared training materials, I'm not going to attempt to make the change before the camp. We can still try to incorporate some of that into the training, or at least keep it in mind when teaching specific tasks since I don't think any of us are qualified to teach or sign off on that; some of the standards are also listed as only being able to be signed off on during wildland fire events, which I highly doubt we will be seeing anytime really soon.

As mentioned above, there are some parts of the EMCOMM training that we will probably eliminate or gloss over as irrelevant to our situation and may consider eliminating the test itself (since we technically do not have to meet the state standards for volunteer communicators), but we haven't gotten to that stage of curriculum development yet; we are working on it and our curriculum is fluid enough to accept some change. Some of the EMCOMM stuff may find itself re-invented as part of a Ranger core curriculum for a communications track; a lot of the level 2 and 3 information is even more ARES-specific regarding chains of command, so we may eventually find ourselves gutting those portions of the courses and replacing them with ICS or CAP command-structure material if we even decide to include that material in the advanced classes at all as that was just a gee-whiz impulsive list of potential standards earlier; call it a non-binding brainstorm . We just need time to figure out exactly how to approach the revamps. We still have a month and a half until the camp and I predict that you will see some changes in the details of the curriculum, but not the overall approach to the camp itself.

A while back, you posted a bunch of subjects that you would teach in this situation and we may find ourselves stealing some of those ideas as you had some good ones. I do not want to lose track of the purpose of introducing our comm folks to ham radio though, which is to give them a way to play with their trade, something that we have lost with the switch to NTIA. Overall, this is a pretty clear benefit of our MOU with ARRL.

Thank you for challenging me and forcing me to think things through differently; you will see some changes from some of your thoughts, although perhaps not as drastic as you might want. You have no idea how valuable your input is when one is trying to plan something like through through practically on their own.

[Major Lord]

So you're not teach IS-200, you're teaching the test. IS-200 is a two day course (it uses the same materials and schedule as ICS-200).

One issue I see with spending so much time on the Ham stuff is you're giving the impression that Ham is more important than CAP.

Remember, CAP is prohibited from using Ham frequencies for CAP operations. Period.

Instead of the ARRL EMCOMM courses, use NWCG (National Wildfire Coordinating Group) courses. They are accepted in NIMS and are the basis for ICS communications staffing. I'm not saying the ARRL courses are bad, but it is more important to train to standards that are accepted and interchangeable in ICS. EMCOMM is not. CAP MRO/CUL is not. NWCG RADO, COML, COMT, etc are.

An operator, unlicensed or not, can use any frequency they need to in an emergency. Many CAP radios have the 2 meter call frequency on them.  Also, the Ham Radio study information is nearly identical to the FCC Commercial Radio Telephone License (GROL) If you can pass the highest ham test, you can probably pass the commercial test. Avionics and Radar repair and adjustment require this license, and teaching Cadets and/or Seniors the information on ham licensing will make them better and more proficient operators, as well as keeping trained techs and operators available to CAP.  Operator courses can make good operators, but anybody who can talk can be an operator, CAP needs a few tech Gurus for the next generation, and I bet there are a few cadets out there ready to bring us into the new frontiers of radioland.

Capt. Lord

[floridacyclist]

One thing to watch for with that statement about operators using any frequency in an emergency is that you can't train that way. Yes, the operators may be very aware that they can do what they have to do in an emergency, but you can't include that in your contingency planning and you have to exhaust all other feasible possibilities first.

For that matter, if it was truly an emergency, it wouldn't matter if the person was a licensed ham or not - they could still turn to the ham calling frequency if that was available and they had no way to contact Mission Base or 911 through other "legal" means.

What I teach in EMCOMM class is that if you are willing to lose your license or go to jail rather than face the consequences of not making the call (like watching someone die or suffer), it's probably a good call. This kind of heads off the folks who want to use their opened-up ham radios to report a MVA with no or minor injuries directly to the police dispatcher. Yes, the FCC MIGHT find your actions excusable, but that wouldn't stop the police from charging you with interference.

[sardak]

They are accepted in NIMS and are the basis for ICS communications staffing. I'm not saying the ARRL courses are bad, but it is more important to train to standards that are accepted and interchangeable in ICS. EMCOMM is not. CAP MRO/CUL is not. NWCG RADO, COML, COMT, etc are.

we have more in common with ARES volunteers than an Incident Communications Technician setting up and programming handheld radios in a pre-deployed federal radio cache (which may or may not even include HF - I know that our DMAT cache doesn't as I'm one of the techs responsible for setting it up).

I'm looking at my S-258 student manual and there is a total of 4 pages, in 12 point, double spaced type, devoted to "radio theory." The schedule shows 1 hour to the topic.  We spent more time on that because several students' level of radio knowledge didn't include the term "squelch."

The rest of the 4 day class was spent on the make-up, ordering and setup specific to the NIFC radio cache equipment, which does not include HF. The only useful part applicable to a "generic" comm assignment is the technique for single-handedly assembling and raising a mast with antenna.  This is a slick technique I think all comm personnel should know.

The "National Incident Radio Support Cache User's Guide" which the course is based around is here: http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/niicd/docs/2006_users_guide.pdf

There was other useful information but it wasn't part of the class so it was optional.  The instructors held sessions outside of class to show landline telephone and CAT-5 wiring techniques because the comm section is often asked to wire incident facilities.

This doesn't even begin to take into account whether we can even find someone to supply the books and teach S-258 along with the required S-110 and S-130 prerequisites, which we could possibly get permission to eliminate.

S-258 has no prerequisites (what is squelch?).   Books aren't hard to get (see below) but finding instructors is difficult, and I don't see a need to train everyone to S-258.

S-110 "Basic Wildland Fire Orientation" is a 1 hour video and is only required to be "red-carded" as a COMT in the wildland fire system.  A COMT must pass the "light' physical fitness test  (pack test) which is to walk 1 mile in 16 minutes with no pack.  To maintain the qual, a COMT must attend annual wildland fire refresher (RT-130).  S-130 is a 32 hour course required to be a wildland firefighter and is not required for COMT.

I also did not see anything in the S-258 curriculum about disaster-zone operations or message-handling,

Nope, because the equipment setup is the same regardless of incident type, and message-handling is not a responsibility of a COMT.  The responsibilities of a COMT are basically repeater system setup and maintenance and radio programming.  Comm leaders, comm center managers and RADOs are responsible for system design, management and for talking on the radios.  However, a COMT will do a lot of this because of the overall lack of personnel in the comm section.

I did just find the RADO qualifications and some of that does look quite interesting; we may have to see about adapting some of it, but in the absence of prepared training materials, I'm not going to attempt to make the change before the camp. We can still try to incorporate some of that into the training, or at least keep it in mind when teaching specific tasks since I don't think any of us are qualified to teach or sign off on that; some of the standards are also listed as only being able to be signed off on during wildland fire events, which I highly doubt we will be seeing anytime really soon.

There are no prerequisites, classes or fitness requirements to be a RADO in the NWCG system.  There is a job aid, J-157.  There is also a separate rating as an aircraft base radio operator (ABRO).  As with all ratings, there is a task book to complete to become qualified in a position, and some tasks must be completed on a wildland fire to be NWCG qualified.

Ordering of all NWCG materials is from the catalog located here: http://www.nwcg.gov/pms/pubs/catalog/catalog.pdf
Anyone can order publications from the system, it is not restricted to fire agencies.
Task books and job aids can be downloaded free from here:
http://www.nwcg.gov/pms/pms.htm

I wouldn't incorporate any of the NWCG material at this time, but I would consider some of it for the future.  Comm techs with S-258 training are indeed what most operations would prefer.

Hopefully you're covering "public safety comm techniques" and equipment because hams and CAP radio operators for the most part and some COMTs don't understand PS/tactical comm.  Many aren't familiar with commercial radios.  Our county EOP includes ARES/RACES.  They do a super job as hams at the EOC and shelters, for example.  However, the county IMT is selectively training hams to be RADOs and COMTs for the team which is on VHF and 800.

Mike
COMT, RADO, GISS, DPRO, and a ham