Overview
Services
Each local jurisdiction's ARES/RACES team maintains an EOC radio room which can provide auxiliary communications support when needed. The local ARES/RACES team provides auxiliary communications services to their local EOC. Most local ARES/RACES teams provide the following types of services at the local EOCs:
- Local Jurisdiction EOC to Operational Area EOC Communications
- Communications between the local jurisdiction and the Santa Clara County Op Area EOC
- Local Jurisdiction EOC to Local Agency Communications
- Allied health facilities, Hospitals, Schools, Shelters, Special Districts, Service Providers
- Local Jurisdiction EOC to Local Points of Distribution (PODs)
- Situational awareness and coordination with Points of Distribution in the local jurisdiction.
- Gathering Situational Awareness
- Dozens of amateur radio operators across the city can gather situational awareness information and report it to the city EOC. Examples include: observed earthquake damage (Modified Mercali Scale), flooding locations and levels, communications outage locations, and more. The city-level information is summarized and transmitted to the operational area EOC to aid in establishing a common operating picture across the county.
- Health and Welfare
- Those working extended assignments can let family members know that they're OK.
More information about services in local jurisdictions:
Personnel
Following the State of California Standardized Emergency Management System (SEMS), the Santa Clara County ARES/RACES team supports the local ARES/RACES teams and provides the following additional services to local jurisdictions.
- Credentialing
- Similar to the way the State of California offers credentials at three performance levels for each EOC position, Santa Clara County RACES has maintained a resource typing and credentialing program since 2009. The program identifies those who have demonstrated their ability to operate in different roles (field, net control, packet, shadow) and at different capability levels.
- Traffic levels in the local jurisdiction EOC tend to be the highest within that jurisdiction. So the radio operators deployed to the jurisdiction's EOC should to have the highest level credentials.
- Each city sets its own standards for which credentials are expected of EOC operators. The general recommendations is for local jurisdiction operators to posses at least a Type III credential in whichever role they are operating. Larger jurisdictions may wish to have Type II credentialed operators in the EOC, and Type II or Type I credentialed operators as Unit Leaders.
- Mutual Aid
- Local jurisdictions that have exhausted their local amateur radio resources can request amateur radio mutual aid from the county. Once approved, amateur radio operators from other cities in the county can be sent to supplement the jurisdiction in need.
- Mutual aid resource assignment, activation and tracking is performed over the radio.
- Training and Exercises
- A full suite of highly-rated training courses and exercises are provided by the county ARES/RACES team. Training covers everything from the basics up to specialist-level, resource type-specific skills. And regular exercises are provided to strengthen in-field performance capabilities.
Station
See our City/Agency Emergency Operations Center Equipment page for complete information about constructing an amateur radio station at a local jurisdiction EOC.
Additional Resources:
- Voice Communications
- County ARES/RACES maintains relationships with a variety of repeater operators for use as countywide nets.
- County ARES/RACES also provides frequency coordination for simplex frequencies.
- Data Communications
- County ARES/RACES operates a countywide data network and several data services that are available to all jurisdictions. The county ARES/RACES data network has multiple redundant connections to the global Internet. But it is also fully independent of the Internet and can support countywide communications (and beyond) even if all Internet connections are completely down.