Statewide Medical/Health Exercise

The annual Statewide Medical/Health Exercise is approaching. Due to the current HepA outbreak in the county consuming so many public health assets, Santa Cruz County Public Health has decided to concentrate this year’s exercise on redundant communications. You know what that means – we will be a necessary component.

The exercise will be on Thursday, November 16th, from 0800 to 1230 hours local, with a hotwash at 1300 to 1430 hrs. The hotwash is optional, though if you want to share what worked well, and what could have been better, you are naturally welcome to attend.

Public Health is particularly interested in testing the transmission of documents by radio in digital format, though plain ‘ol voice will also be used. So if you have the capability to handle docs through flmsg and either fldigi or (preferably) WinlinkExpress, we would really like to have you join us and practice this method. Templates for the forms will be made available ahead of time. We plan to utilize FM through repeaters as much as possible, though FM simplex may be employed.

We would like to see operators at the following locations:
County EOC
Public Health DOC (Emiline)
Dominican Hospital
Watsonville Hospital
Sutter Surgery
Watsonville County Clinic

With enough participation we would like to staff some of the skilled nursing facilities, clinics and hospice facilities as well, though some of these facilities will be utilizing runners to nearby facilities with amateur radio capabilities. A more detailed list will come out later.

Please send me an email at ae6i@live.com with your interest and capabilities (e.g. flmsg, HT only, mobile only, your non-HT radio inside facility, etc.) as well as preferred location.

We’ve been able to field 16 or more operators for this annual event in the past, and hope to do even better this year.

Thanks,

Jerry Inman, AE6I
ARES Emergency Coordinator, Santa Cruz
ae6i@live.com
831-334-4086