Thursday, January 07, 2010

CERT duty tonight


Tonight was not spent Fox hunting or PFR3A building. Tonight was spent doing CERT duty. Our county sponsored a free H1N1 vaccination clinic for all of Middlesex County and it was held in South Plainfield. After coming home from work for a really quick bite to eat, I headed over to the Police Athletic Building to volunteer my time for a couple of hours. No Amateur Radio was involved; but it was nice to see the other RACES Hams who showed up to volunteer, also.

Our time was spent writing up and handing out "receipts" for those individuals who chose to receive the H1N1 vaccine either by injection or nasal mist. Children under 10 require a second dose, spaced about 30 days after the first. There is going to be another clinic in the county; but it is not definite that it will be in our town again. The advantage of holding such a clinic in South Plainfield is that we are super close to a lot of highways that run through New Jersey; so we are VERY centrally located. The NJ Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway, Interstate 287 and US Routes 1 and 9 are all not very far away.

The clinic ran all day from 9:00 AM until 8:00 PM; and just under 1,200 vaccinations were administered.

As we were leaving, our Director of Emergency Management told us that he wanted us to hold another Amateur Radio licensing class sometime between now and summer. He wants the first offering to go to newer CERT members; but anyone from town or neighboring towns will be welcome. I believe that last class we taught was 4 or 5 years ago; so it will be nice to do again. I also think that a couple of the graduates from that first class would also be interested in teaching a session or two; and that helps to free Marv K2VHW and I from giving the class each week.

It is nice to live in a town where the town officials believe in the value of and want to incorporate Amateur Radio into our Emergency Plan.

Just for kicks, I decided to check the FCC's ULS (Universal Licensing System) Website the day after I electronically filed my renewal. Sure enough, W2LJ is now renewed until 2020. Ain't technology wonderful?

73 de Larry W2LJ

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Hi Larry, you can read Chinese? Well, it's nice your license is renewed. Now I have the change to work you before 2020. In the Netherlands a license is for life. It will never expire. 73 Paul

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  3. Great - Chinese spam & disgusting spam at that! If this keeps up, I am going to have to put the comments on moderation!

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