Good afternoon EC/ROs,

 

Last week EMD made a media release available on our Radio Amateur AMBER Alert Net.  Washington State RACES, in cooperation with the Emergency Management Division and the Washington State Patrol, is the sponsor of the program.

 

Please visit the AMBER Alert Web Portal and sign up to receive AMBER Alerts:   http://washingtonamberalert.com/

 

Please encourage your team members to sign up at the web portal to receive AMBER Alerts.  While we haven’t discussed a procedure yet, it will basically be:

 

1. Upon receipt of an AMBER Alert relay the alert, updates and cancellations on local repeaters/simplex frequencies.
   A.  The recommended format is our normal QST – QST – QST followed by announcing the AMBER Alert and reading
         the alert as received from the web portal.       
2. It is asked that the County RO’s work together to deconflict duplicate uses of high level repeaters that access more than one county.
3. Amateurs who receive the information are requested to watch for the suspect vehicle, suspect or victim(s) and if observed make an immediate report to
   the closest law enforcement agency, e.g., call 9-1-1.  They should not intervene in any way or take steps that will jeopardize their safety.
4. Encourage ROs to work closely with their DEM director or other point of contact.
5. While some ROs are not ECs and normally do not have reporting requirements other than to their DEM it would be appreciated if they would report
   their team’s involvement in an AMBER Alert to the RACES Regional Coordinator/DEC.

 

There are nearly 28,000 license amateur radio operators in the State of Washington and we need their help.  We need to include clubs and other interests groups that hams participate in.  APRS is a perfect place to share AMBER Alerts.

 

Participation is voluntary, so please let your staff know that their participation in the program is sincerely appreciated by the Director of EMD and his staff as well as the Chief of the Washington State Patrol and his staff as well.

 

In case you have those who question the legality of the Washington Radio Amateur AMBER Alert net, please inform them that when consulted Mr. Riley Hollingsworth of the FCC replied:  “There's no problem at all with such alerts over Amateur stations and would be considered a very important public service.”

 

To those of you who provided me with comments and questions early on, I can’t thank you enough. 

 

I am available to answer any and all questions and to entertain comments so share my e-mail information with your team leaders and team members.  Just in case you didn’t see the press release let me know and I’ll send you a copy.

 

73,

 

Monte, K2MLS