Mar 19: General Meeting – Orange County Fire Watch Program with Tony Pointer, Gordon West, Ray Hutchinson, and Patti Peschel

 

Tony Pointer Will be our featured speaker as Orange County Fire Watch Program Coordinator, . Tony manages the Orange County Fire Watch program for the Irvine Ranch Conservancy, OC Parks, City of Irvine, and City of Newport Beach with the assistance of over 300 volunteers at 36 locations in Orange County. He will be sharing information on the activities of the Fire Watch program and the current fire situation in Southern California. Orange County Fire Watch and SOARA are currently partnered to utilize the SOARA repeater for Fire Watch deployments on Red Flag Warning days.

Gordon West WB6NOA will be our second speaker. Gordon West has been a licensed ham radio operator for more than 50 years and is widely-recognized as the leading ham radio educator in America. Gordon’s presentation will be to promote amateur Radio and the benefits for Fire Watch as well as explain the licensing process for the non-ham volunteers of Fire Watch or those who may be interested in both.

Ray Hutchinson AE6H is the current President of the SOARA board and will explain SOARA’S involvement as a partner agency with Fire Watch and how you as a Ham Operator and a member or non-member of SOARA can get involved.

Pattie Peschel AD6OH will explain the use and monitoring of the mountain top cameras, especially the ones used for OC Fire Watch. (you may not have known how man cameras are out there)