Our Organization
Membership
We invite all persons who may have an interest to join us, whether or not you have an FCC Amateur Radio license or two-way amateur radio equipment. We'll help you get trained to get your license, a radio, and to maintain your radio communication skills.
How to Join Us
An online enrollment form for membership in the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno ACS-RACES (LGMS-ACS-RACES) EmComm group is provided at: http://www.scc-ares-races.org/arrl-info.html
Some of the information solicited is optional (such as your DoB). Other information you may not know unless you are already covered (such as Disaster Service Worker (DSW), the mechanism within the State of California that provides Workers' Compensation to voluntary emergency assistance persons, such as ourselves).
Membership in the LG/MS ARES group signifies that you are willing and able to volunteer your amateur radio communication services to the town of Los Gatos and city of Monte Sereno in the event of a declared emergency or related activities.
Disaster Service Worker (DSW) Liability Insurance
Los Gatos and Santa Clara County both provide members of Los Gatos-Monte Sereno CARES with DSW registration for activities within their legal jurisdiction during declared emergencies and for activities in which we are trained and supervised.
Certain field exercises and emergency activities provide DSW coverage with the restrictions above. In addition, Los Gatos has an umbrella liability insurance policy from ABAG that covers volunteers in most circumstances.
Active Membership
You will be considered an Active Member if you have participated in any of our activities at least once in the prior 12 months; otherwise, you will be considered InActive. Of course, if you permanently move out of the area you will be removed from our roster.
You do not need to be a formal member to participate in our weekly check-ins, our monthly Hospital Net, attend our monthly meetings, or volunteer for the Children's Holiday Parade. Any of those activities are an easy way to become familiar with our group.
Meetings
Our monthly member meetings are usually on the second Saturday of the month at the LG-MS Police Operations Center, 15900 Los Gatos Blvd (near Blossom Hill Rd) from 3:00p to 5:00p. All are welcome.
Goals
We currently have about 50 active members with a goal of 64 members by the end of 2018. We need that number of active members to provide sufficient coverage of our designated locations in emergencies for periods of up to 72 hours.
We plan to achieve these goals by helping more CERT members get their Amateur Radio license. Almost all of our members are CERT trained.
An active member is one who has made radio contact with us during the past 12 months and is willing to engage in emergency volunteer activities within Los Gatos & Monte Sereno.
Local Ham Radio Statistics
The population of Los Gatos is about 30,500 and Monte Sereno is 3,500, for a combined total population of 34,000 (77.7% are 18 or older). The FCC database lists just over 450 combined residents (with a Post Office address of Los Gatos or Monte Sereno) having a current ham radio license. That is 1.7% of the LG/MS population 18 or older. The incidence of hams across the U.S. at the end of 2015 was 0.3% of the population 18 and older. That is about twice the per-capita ratio of the U.S. population with ham licenses.
While the FCC does not have any restriction on the age of a license holder, for our purposes, members should be at least 18 to be unrestricted in assignments; however, teenagers with parental permission may be assigned to certain support activities.
Leadership
Leadership Activities
- Represent the organization at meetings with town and county emergency and public safety personnel on matters relating to amateur radio communications
- Assign the weekly Check-in Net Control function for LG/MS members and assign the reporter of the results to the Santa Clara County weekly SVECS city check-ins
- Conduct the monthly Hospital Net practice at El Camino Hospital - Los Gatos using the emergency radio equipment in the Hospital Command Center
- Organize and conduct the monthly membership meetings
- Assign the Net Control role for LG/MS at the SVECS check-in (once every 11 weeks)
- Manage the LG/MS ACS-RACES activities in support of the quarterly Countywide ARES-RACES exercises
- Organize and manage the communications support for the Annual LG/MS Children's Holiday Parade
- Manage the content of the group's website
- Manage the content of the group's educational offerings
- Manage the analog radio equipment
- Manage the digital radio equipment including implementation and maintenance of the WEN node
Current Leadership (2020-2021)
EC/CRO (ACS Emergency Communications Coordinator and RACES Chief Radio Officer)
- Patrick Dirks, N6PWD (pwd@mac.com)
AEC/ARO (ACS Assistant Emergency Communications Coordinators and RACES Assistant Radio Officers)
- Peter L Hertan, K6PLH (Digital Library Officer)
- Gregg Kerlin, KM6CLI (Analog Membership Officer)
- Juval Lowy, KK6YZS (Digital Innovation Officer)
- Clay Couger, WC6YJ (Analog Safety Officer)
- Matthew Hudes, N6XJL (Digital Planning Officer)
- Klaus Schumann, KK6EBL (Analog Engineering Officer)
- Jeff Miller, AJ6LG (Digital Comms Officer)
- Brian Whitaker (Analog Antennas Officer)
Members
Honored Guests
- KK6VF Kevin S (Campbell) — WVARA board member
- WB6KHP Dave S (San Jose) — WVARA board member