After Action Report
06/23/06 District 11

Submitted by:

Description of Activity:

Lyons Good Old Days communication direction

Duration in hours:

36

Serving Amateur Radio Group(s):

D11 BCARES

Served Agency(ies):

City of Lyons, Longmont fire, Boulder County Sheriff's office, Medical, and many others.

Describe Served Agency Participation

The city of Lyons puts on this event each year. They have done it by themselves for many years but this year moved things to a better location and needed help. They asked Longmont Fire to coordinate all emergency services (police, fire, medical, etc...). Longmont fire asked BCARES to operate net control on various public service frequencies as they did not have the personnel to accomplish this task. The agencies directed traffic, took care of emergencies, and provided security for the event.

Number of amateurs participating:

12

Optional - List of amateurs participating

None shown

Man hours for the event (checkins*duration)

96

List the goals of the activity:

pass out and document who was there and what radio they were using.
Program public service radios (clone).
Charge batteries.
Operate net control

Were those goals met: (Y/N)

Y

Explain:

One of the Boulder County Communication vans served as the central coordination of all emergency services agencies. BCARES provided the only personnel to man this van and coordinate communication.

What went well?:

Scheduling and participation of BCARES members. Our knowledge and ability to be flexible and learn new radios. Communication!

Areas needing improvement:

Planning for the public service radios used. Many of the radios provided were programmed incorrectly and the "correct radio" was actually programmed wrong for one of the channels used. This needs to be coordinated in advance with county communications personnel.

Lessons Learned:

Don't rely on fire fighters to know how or program radios correctly! Coordinate with the people who do before the event.

Additional Training needed:

Training with county dispatch would be helpful.

Ideas for future exercises:

None shown

Comments:

This is the first recent event where we were asked to operate and use public service communication equipment without participation from the normal communications coordinators (radio techs or dispatchers). While we handled this well it was not easy and could be done better in the future.