A District 69 Emergency Communications history from 1990 – present day
by Frank VE7DSN – advised by Len VE7XLH
Frank and his wife moved to our third home in Coombs off Station Rd in the summer of 1990. As was his habit, he immediately set up a minimalist ham station. A few weeks later, he was conducting a Sunday net on the VE7KU repeater (Mt. Cokely 147.240 + T141.3). Within a short time, they were enjoying checkins from Campbell River to east of Nanaimo.
One day, Rod VE7ESA showed up on air. He explained how, as the local hams were aging, they were finding if difficult to travel to Nanaimo for Nanaimo Amateur Radio Assn (NARA) meetings. Perhaps we should do something local. The idea on the Sunday net.
In the fall or 1990, a meeting of interested hams was convened at Frank’s home and a few meetings later, the Mid Island Radio Association (MIRA) was launched as a society.
As hams, they were aware of their role in emergency communications and assumed it would be conducted in the usual ‘ad hoc’ fashion when the situation arose, as it had in the past. However, there were rumors that the BC government was going.to require that municipalities have a written, filed, emergency plan. Doug Robertson (a member of Qualicum Beach Council at that time) was tasked to prepare the plan.
Doug’s first focus was to formalize a Emergency Social Services (ESS) group as there was no similar program within District 69 at the time. He was assisted here by a socially active, retired nurse with WW II blitz experience. She led the QB ESS program for the better part of 10 years.
Doug was aware of the importance of communications, so he approached Frank and Len VE7XLH. Shortly thereafter, masts and antennae for two stations — QB Civic Centre and QB EOC (then at the Town Hall) — were supplied complete with VHF FM tranceivers and KPC-3 terminal node controllers. Len built a couple of nice boxes to carry the stations easily.
It was found that these stations could link by packet radio to a relay point high on Saltspring Island should there be a need for ‘outside’ messaging.
MIRA carried on as a general interest ham club with an interest in acquiring a local repeater system. A ‘New Horizons’ Seniors Grant funded a system which was installed and operated at Trillium Lodge in Parksville. [Ed. Note — this system has now been decommissioned]
As often occurs in clubs, MIRA suffered a split. The traditionalists treated emergency communications informally. When there was a need, they would spring into action. Others wanted to follow a more formal mode with group planning meetings, the acquisition of an office and all that follows. They set up a separate organization, Oceanside Radio Communications Association (ORCA). ORCA thrived, largely thanks to Dave Taque, VA7DT (SK) and the Parksville fire chief at the time, Doug Banks. ORCA served for about 10 years. Then, age issues arose where ORCA members moved away or died. Soon there were too few to carry out their mandate. ORCA passed the torch to MIRA complete with their assets. With facilities now available, the Emergency Communications group expanded and created the Oceanside Emergency Communications Team (OECT). Most of the members of OECT remain MIRA members but this is not mandatory. Anyone can join OECT.
During this time, the provincial government insisted that the written plan should actually be implemented so Parksville and Qualicum responded by appointing paid coordinators. Aaron Dawson was appointed the Emergency Manager, while Chris James become the Emergency Volunteer Coordinator, handling both ESS and OECT.
Aaron and Chris worked to formalize our operation. They were much involved with the purchase and construction of the Emergency Communications trailer which can be towed to an incident site to provide communications within the region and provincially, as needed.
At this time, management/coordation staff has grown to three (3). Shinjini Mehta is the Emergency Program Coordinator for Qualicum Beach, Kate Pocock is the EPC for Parksville and Amanda Thompson has taken over from Chris James as the Volunteer Coordinator.