The Director of the Jefferson County’s Department of Emergency Management says "The ability to deal with a crisis is largely dependent on the structures and relationships that have been developed before the emergency.".
Marrowstone Island's Ham/FRS network is one of those key communication structures and relationships.
Hams (with FRS radios) in your neighborhood want
to connect with you via your FRS (walkie-talkie) radio. You should want to connect with them to get/give help and information in the event of an emergency and a damaged or destroyed infrastructure.
Get an inexpensive FRS radio,
Tune it to the proper channel/sub-channel for your neighborhood, (currently 8.8 for MI)
Find other FRS users and Ham operators in your neighborhood (see map below), and
Conduct periodic tests to maintain your Ham/FRS Neighborhood Radio Network.
After you read through this page, come back here and click on this map link to view a much larger version of the map to the right to find who is connected in our neighborhood and join them.
The larger map has a Search box in the upper left corner where you can type in your complete address to go directly to your neighborhood.
If you see a neighbor with a "balloon", click on the balloon to see which one of 3 status codes (below) they have. Contact each neighbor to schedule a periodic test with them to make sure you can connect with them in an emergency.
FRS operator
Ham operator
Ham/FRS operator communicating with other FRS operators
Now, please click this link to an electronic form to add your status and information to the map so your neighbors can find you and connect with you. Please include as many of the optional fields (name, phone#, and email) as you are comfortable adding to make it easier for your neighbors to contact you. (But remember, all of this is public information.)
The map will not update automatically. I need to do that manually. I will upload the updates when there have been several changes.
Everyone needs to be connected in a disaster, so please send the link to this web page - www.miep.us/hamfrs - to your neighbors.
Click here to view the database where your information is stored. I use it to recreate the map.
FRS (walkie-talkie): Checkin between 8:50 and 9am each Wednesday.
Ham radio
Jefferson County: Starts at 9am each Wednesday - Click http://bit.ly/jcvecom to view the Protocol.
Marrowstone Island: Starts at 9:30am each Wednesday - Click http://bit.ly/mi-arc to view the Protocol.
Click this link to view a report (a work in progress) of the roll up drill that was conducted with 17 Islanders and the Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management on 2/18/2015. This was the first of its kind in Jefferson County. We hope this report will be useful in future roll up drills.
The report is a work in progress. I invite those who participated to help in its development. Click on the link above and add your comments.
(TBD)