April 29, 2007
Grand Opening of OCC CEP a Success
A big thanks to all of those who participated in today's Grand Opening of the Center for Emergency Preparedness at Owens Community College. I believe we made an excellent showing for Wood County Amateur Radio Emergency Services with a great display of what we're all about. A special thanks to the following people who helped us with set up operations got on the air and made some contacts, answered questions from interested parties and also hung around to pack up at the end of the day.
Loren (Phil) Philips, W8PSK
Steve McEwen, K8BBK
Don Buehrer, K8OVO
Eric Willman, WD8LEI
Ed Brown, K8ZCS
Larry Scott, WB8NLS
Bob Harold, K8SCL
Steve Ashenfelder, N8XSF
With Steve, K8BBK and Phil, W8PSK at the operating positions we managed to log calls on 17, 20 and 40 meters to as far away as California and Florida with 8 states recorded in the log book. The addition of Eric Willman's hamshack on wheels and his abilities on 2 meters and 440 we had all the bands nearly completely covered.
It was a beautiful day and we had many interested people stop by to ask questions. With that we also got the normal compliment of politicians and public service officials. Our very own Craig Lahote, K8IXL, wearing a different hat today (or should I say suite) in his official role as Perrysburg Township Trustee stopped by to say hello and admire our operations. Even Wood County Commissioner Carter stopped by to shake hands and see where his money is being spent.
I think a couple very important lessons were learned today, by at least me and I'm sure a few others. Low tech in an emergency operations environment will often win out over high tech. We were complete up and operational on full battery power (without the air of generators) in less than 45 minutes. We demonstrated today how portable and mobile we can be. It's not necessarily the biggest trailer or the highest tech equipment that's going to get the job done when you need to. It's experienced, innovative people that make up the ranks of Wood County ARES that make all the difference in the end and our people came through today.
Again, thank you to all of you who contributed your time today to make this event a success.
I will be posting some pictures shortly. If anyone else who attended this event has pictures, please send them to me as well so I can put together an online account of our participation. Thanks.
Bob, W8NYY
Emergency Coordinator
Wood County ARES