For the Reporter
Five members of the Kent Communications Support Team (KCST) recently participated in Field Day, a national amateur radio event, sponsored by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), which is dedicated to testing amateur radio under simulated emergency conditions.
Two sites, one on Kent’s East Hill and the other in Covington, were operational using voice and Morse code modes of communication. Each site operated from non-commercial sources, battery or generator, to power 100-watt portable amateur radio transceivers. More than 100 contacts were established ranging from Alaska to Florida and Hawaii to New York. A variety of transceiver and antenna configurations were successfully tested during the event.
KCST is a 25-member, all-volunteer amateur radio emergency response team established in 2009 by the city of Kent to help the Kent Office of Emergency Management (OEM) by providing rapid and reliable communications during natural and man-made emergencies. Each volunteer is highly trained and thoroughly vetted, and most are FEMA Incident Command System, CERT and CPR qualified.
Weekly nets and quarterly training days are scheduled to maintain member proficiency. An OEM mobile communications van with extensive emergency communications capacity, to include digital modes, will soon become an operational part of KCST and Kent OEM.
The Kent Communications Support Team is continuously recruiting new members from the ranks of CERT volunteers and local amateur radio operators of all classes. The monthly membership and training meeting is held on the third Monday of each month at 1830 hours at the Kent Fire and Police Training Center, Fire Station 74.
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