Cali State - Repeater Removal Update

[marcspaz]

For those of you who have heard about the state of California telling Hams that all their equipment must be removed from government vaults and towers... it appears that due to lobbying from the community, that decision has been reversed.  This information is per Nathan Zeliff, who was interviewed on K6UDA's YouTube channel, yesterday.

 

Per Nathan Zeliff, the state and county governments are going to be required to integrate amateur radio services into their emergency ops plans, leave all equipment in place and augment/update as needed, and all fees must be waive or rolled into the county/state budgets accordingly.

 

I guess we'll see what the official release from the government will be.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJnr-ryEi5Q

[axorlov]

Report Causes Concern and Confusion in California’s Amateur Radio Ranks

"http://www.arrl.org/news/report-causes-concern-and-confusion-in-california-s-amateur-radio-ranks"

[Steve]

This is great news.

[berkinet]

FYI. Nobody in California ever says “Cali”

[gortex2]

I am on the fence on this. I know its been brought up on multiple forums and not just for HAM stuff. If done right I have no issues with HAM gear being in sites. The issue is with the folks just like here that want to strap garbage together and put it in a shelter that a county spent millions on to protect. Time will tell but ITs more and more common to find HAM gear being set to the curb. If they spend the money and buy quality gear its not an issue 90% of the time. 

[marcspaz]

I am on the fence on this. I know its been brought up on multiple forums and not just for HAM stuff. If done right I have no issues with HAM gear being in sites. The issue is with the folks just like here that want to strap garbage together and put it in a shelter that a county spent millions on to protect. Time will tell but ITs more and more common to find HAM gear being set to the curb. If they spend the money and buy quality gear its not an issue 90% of the time.

Obviously I can't speak for every situation, but for the team I'm a part of, the government employees that don't know squat about amateur radio or RF comms in general, went out and bought a bunch of garbage and insisted we used their gear. The problems were that there gear wasn't just poor quality, but didn't cover bands and services needed. So even when it wasn't broken, it still didn't work.

 

 

After a few years of us bringing our own gear (including portable towers and power) the right people finally asked us what they should buy. So, the gear here is owned by the government and we just maintain and use it.

 

We still end up bringing our own gear 100% of the time, because we just never know what to expect.

 

I would like to think our situation would be worst case. I can't see a club or group like ARES wasting time and money on cheap gear.

[gortex2]

Your correct , however I have seen many ham clubs use cheap stuff and try to pass it to the county. I once walked to a site that had an adi mobile radio wire tied on top of a GE master II recever board and a cheap china duplexer in the site. Power supply was a RS 12V 10Amp unit with about 12 wires coming off it. When i went to the club to help i was told they knew how to do stuff. As a radio vendor at the time my hopes were to help them out, but walked away. A year later they were tossed from the site. I think alot of the younger hams see this, but some of the older guys are set in the way. Buy quality and i will be there when needed. 

[marcspaz]

@kb2ztx... wow, that is terrible.  It's hard to imagine, though I'm sure its true.  Good grief.  If I was the county gov EC or AEC, I would have asked them to leave, too.