Grays Harbor College has joined with members of the Grays Harbor Amateur Radio Club to help improve the emergency radio broadcast capabilities of the region.
This week, club members completed final steps in moving their repeater station from Grays Harbor Community Hospital to the top floor of the Manspeaker Building on the GHC campus in Aberdeen. Equipment was installed in a fourth-floor records room and connected to the 20-foot antenna placed on the building’s roof, with much of the work done by Chris Palmer, owner of GreenTree Communications of Sequim, and club technician Peter Policani. The new GHC station links with a second relay station on Saddle Mountain in Ocean Shores.
With the transfer, the amateur radio operators can tie emergency radio communications together up and down the Washington coast, reaching from Astoria to Queets, and as far inland as Olympia, according to Policani. The 80 members of the local Amateur Radio Club frequently practice emergency drills and are prepared to assist first responders with radio communications for the entire area in a major disaster. They also are directly connected with the State Emergency Communications Center at Camp Murray.
The club had been using the Community Hospital site for more than 10 years, according to Policani, but the GHC location provides a greater ability to link radio coverage. Club members were also concerned about liability coverage with the antenna being located so close to the hospital’s helicopter landing pad. As at the hospital, the equipment will be managed and maintained by local, commercially licensed technicians.
The state-of-the-art commercial equipment also has a self-contained power back-up that allows radio operations to continue for days, should the power be out. The GHC relay station does not rely on commercial power, the internet to cell phone systems for communication, Policani explains, since those would all be part of the infrastructure which could fail in a disaster.
The local amateur radio club meets monthly on the first Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Hoquiam Timberland Library meeting room. Anyone interested in public service via radio communications or want to learn more about radio operations are invited to join the meetings. The club members also provide mentoring, classes and testing for those interested in obtaining FCC-required radio licenses.
For more information about the Grays Harbor Amateur Radio Club, contact John Adams, president, k7dgu52041@aol.com, 360.589.9778 or 360.591.6601; or Leslie O’Brien, secretary, johnobriencatering@gmail.com, 360.533.4359.
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