WICEN Vic: WICEN in The Future

Wed Feb 5 02:51:09 CST 2020

Hi Graham,

I was not involved in this year's fires myself but was at an unofficial "debrief" over the weekend and heard accounts from VK2 members who were on the front line, at least as "front line" as WICEN should be, including some who worked in fire control centres. Your point about our skills in log keeping is a relevant one, and one of operators' consistent observations was that the WICEN operators were much more comfortable with log keeping at speed than other operators. Their training is at a much slower pace whereas we do it all the time in the events that we participate in throughout the year and that would be true of WICEN operators around the country. WICEN operators are quite comfortable driving the radio and logging at the same time, whereas other agencies often have a radio operator and a separate log keeper. The fact that WICEN could keep up while not compromising log accuracy did not go unnoticed by the incident controllers, particularly when things got busy.

There was a lot of other WICEN involvement in the fires here and it's a pity that the CFA didn't take advantage of the availability of operators in VK3 as they did here. One of the things that has helped us gain visibility and trust of the emergency services in NSW has been our involvement with the VRA. This is an umbrella group over a number of specialist volunteer groups, including both WICEN and CREST NSW. As a result, we have a better channel into emergency planning than we would as an individual group.

Another thing that has helped us has been our strategy of acquiring some commercial channels and equipment. This has allowed us to build systems that can be operated by non-amateurs, so increasing our flexibility to deploy comms systems where we can't provide enough operators, or where it is impractical to put a WICEN operator at each location, such as vehicles that are already full. This helped us in the Bega fire, where infrastructure damage meant the VRA (who were supporting the RFS) lost their own repeater in that area, as well as mobile phone coverage and repeaters of other services in the area. The fact that we had a mobile midband repeater ready to roll, that could operate on channels present in radios already in the vehicles, meant that we were able to give them a working radio network in around a day with no need for a heap of operators. Because of WICEN's non-profit status, we are able to obtain channels at no cost as you would no doubt also be able to. The challenge is finding free channels 🙂

Your comment about interstate collaboration is also one that I think is worth exploring by all WICENs. The reason I joined this list in the first place was when we were trying to organise some VK2 operators to go to VK3 many years ago, and it was quicker and easier at the time to communicate this way. That transfer ultimately fell through because the wheels of bureaucracy moved too slowly to be able to confirm that our operators would have appropriate insurance. As things happened, a fewf operators made the decision to wear the risk themselves and did end up travelling to VK3. We had a similar situation this year where a number of operators from VK1 helped us out on the Bega fire. In this case, the wheels moved much more quickly and they received appropriate coverage. Amazing how quickly things can move when the shoe is on the other foot and we are the ones seeking help! Given how long these agreements can take to get in place, the time to start the ball rolling is well before we need them.

I can't speak for the current committee but they are all reasonable people, so I can't imagine why they would be opposed to such interstate collaboration. There is an opportunity for more informal collaboration already on the unofficial WICEN Facebook page but there is a need IMHO for more formal channels to be established, to work through issues such as interstate operator exchange. I have been around long enough (and there are plenty who have been around longer than me) to remember when we had a national WICEN coordinator within the WIA, however he was never replaced when he stood down. Since then a lot has changed - WIA has moved from a federal model to the national model, WIA seems to have less interest in WICEN in general (at least, that is my outsider impression as I am no longer a member of WIA), legislation has changed probably everywhere, emergency management in each state has evolved, and fire seasons are getting longer. I personally think now is as good a time as any to try to re-establish those inter-state links where possible.

Apologies for the length of this post but there is a lot to talk about, and the fire season isn't even over yet. And apologies in advance for any grammatical errors above - I haven't had time to re-read this email as I need to go an feed the family!

Cheers and 73,
Mark VK2XGK

________________________________
From: wicenvic <wicenvic-bounces at vic.wicen.org.au> on behalf of Graham & Kay Mason <mason.group at iinet.net.au>
Sent: Tuesday, 4 February 2020 10:03 AM
To: WICEN Victoria <secretary at vic.wicen.org.au>
Cc: WICEN EMail List <wicenvic at vic.wicen.org.au>
Subject: Re: WICEN Vic: WICEN in The Future

Hi All

I have been reading the mail with discussion on our future involvement in emergencies in Victora and I comment on Training and National information sharing.

Training
Some of the discussion so far has suggested that we should undertake training to operate equipment for other agencies. ( SES  CFA and the like ). I do not believe that this is relevant to our operation even if we are called to operate in ICC’s or Opperation Rooms in the future.
Reflecting on the past I have been activated to work in ICC’s and a Forward Control Communication Centre, and my experience was that the radio was set up on a particular channel and my only interface with the system was the microphone and the PTT. My job was to handle messages and keep a log. In the Ovens ICC I had some shifts where I monitored a phone and I was required to handle messages and keep a log.
In King Lake in a CFA forward control van I was required to handle messages and keep a log. The only interface with the radio equipment was the microphone and the PTT.
The point I make is that it is not nessesery to train to use other agencies radio equipment, our expertise is as message handlers and log keepers and that is reflected in our training package.
That is not to say that we shouldn’t expand and update our training. It would be helpful to add CFA procedures and pro words. These were circulated to WICEN members in the past but not actually included in our training.

National I formation Shairing
I accept that the various WICEN groups are state based ( although there is a national coordinator who ever that is) but I now see that there should be formal discussion between them. In our current fire season we have seen NSW called to perform the same rolls that Wicen Vic have performed in the past, but in Vic we were not called. In Queensland their fire service has employed a professional training organisation to train and qualify (and I expect licence) hundreds of their fire fighters as Ameteur Radio Operators. This seems to be some sort of reverse thinking.
I think the time has come for some formal interstate discussion and information sharing to see how we can help each other into the future understanding of our roll.

Graham Mason
VK3KMG

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