Emergency Preparedness Week
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City of Vancouver Emergency Preparedness Week 2016
Our partner the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) of the City of Vancouver facilitated a terrific location for our exhibit; we were positioned in the centre of all the action adjacent to Emergency Social Services, Disaster Support Hub and Vancouver Volunteer Corps stations and directly opposite the popular Vancouver Fire & Rescue Services exhibits.
VECTOR members engaged with an interested public answering many questions, demonstrating equipment, and leading tours of our Community Emergengy Response Vehicle (CERV) which were popular indeed. We may have set a new foot traffic record for the bus!
We put many people on the air from the very young to the not so young, using proper phonetic calls of course, and it was obvious from their reactions there was real interest and enthusiasm for radio communications even in this age of ubiquitous connectivity. Most traffic was passed by voice over VHF FM simplex links. Data traffic was also passed between the two locations using the packet radio facilities built into the CERV and our Grab & Go Radio Kits.
Several demonstrations of voice communications using internet-linked repeater systems were performed; thanks to Dave VE6GAD and Doug VE6CID for organizing and participating in a mock EOC to EOC communications link between us on the Vancouver waterfront and Doug somewhere on a windswept hillside in southern Alberta. Of course those communications were noted by other Canadian amateurs so we soon had a mini pileup going with stations in Ajax, Toronto, and Montreal joining in to further demonstrate the flexibility and reach of Amateur Radio. As a sign of how quickly things can change, plans for VECTOR to support Calgary’s own EP Week event were quite suddenly overtaken by the Fort McMurray fire as that emergency has actived the entire province including the amateur radio commmunity.
In our booth we operated a Grab & Go Radio Kit off shore power while the CERV ran solely off its internal battery backed systems for both days finishing the event with approximately 52% capacity remaining. On Saturday Mike VE7ABP gave the CERV a little assist in the form of solar powered charging made easy by the brilliant weather. The two-day event was a timely readiness drill for the CERV.
Thanks to all our members who gave their time and energy make a success of our contribution to the City of Vancouver Emergency Preparedness Week Launch Event at Science World. Thanks also to the unsung heros in our Operations crew (and others) who worked tirelessly on our Community Emergency Response Vehicle (CERV) for many hours the week before. The CERV looked terrific inside and out and functioned well.
Your event team included Andrew VA7YAA, Anton VA7SNW, Daniel VA7GOV, Dave VE7CNV, David VE7MDT, Don VA7DGP, Jeanette VA7JEA, Jim VE7JYD, John VE7ODE, Jonathan VE7JDH, Judith VE7JUK, Robin VE7FFP, Russell VE7MTU, Sal VA7ORE, Steve VE7SGT, Tony VA7TXG and Tyronne VA7XTC, with support from our board of directors including Hiroshi VA7LET, Mike VE7ABP and Gary VA7GMW.
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Mike VE7WV VECTOR EP Week Event Organizer