WICEN BUNDABERG CAPABILITIES

Contact WICEN Controller

In response to the growing awareness of the need for well trained and capable emergency preparedness in Australia the Wireless Institute of Australia [WIA] has brought together many elements of the amateur radio service so they are ready to serve the community when required.

WICEN (Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network) operating at National and State levels, serves to bring a coherent approach to emergency preparedness.

WICEN Bundaberg, as part of this Australia-wide affiliation is a non-government, self financed, volunteer-based organisation sponsored by the Bundaberg Amateur Radio Club.

WICEN Bundaberg has for many years been a part of emergency and disaster management plans for the Bundaberg region and can fulfil the following roles.

• Provision of communications for and between response and/or recovery agencies.

• Provision of communications to the community where conventional communications facilities are not available.

• Provision of relief operators for other agency communications equipment.

WICEN maintains a voice communications capability flexible enough to be utilised for communication within an agency or between two agencies. Situations where such a service might be required are:

• Where an agency does not maintain their own communications capability e.g. Red Cross

• Where two agencies who need to communicate do not share a common communications medium e.g. St John’s Ambulance and Bundaberg Regional Council Welfare officer.

• Where the normal communications media have become overloaded or non-functional.

• Where a separate communications channel becomes desirable e.g. to segment traffic functionally to reduce the need of operators to monitor traffic of no concern to them.

The range of frequency bands at WICEN’s disposal is exceeded only by the military and allows us to select the best band for a particular task.

WICEN has radio equipment that is portable and self-contained, able to be quickly deployed wherever it is required whilst at the same time operating a powerful base station at the SES Headquarters in Kendalls Road with VHF, UHF & HF capabilities.

Through the ongoing support of the Bundaberg Regional Council WICEN also maintains telephone and internet links at the Base of operations at SES HQ with links to Council and Emergency Services networks.

The Bundaberg Amateur Radio Club Inc., maintains 3 Repeater sites at;
Mt Goonaneman (near Childers); The Town Repeater (in Bundaberg); and The Northern Repeater at Mt Watalgan.

WICEN can utilize these hilltop repeaters to establish VHF & UHF networks extending from Burrum Heads in the south; To Childers, Gin Gin and Winfield in the North, to link the region and facilitate handling of emergency radio traffic.

When required long distance HF networks which require no infrastructure deployment can be utilised.

Because the equipment utilised by WICEN is either Club or privately owned by our volunteers and often requires specialised knowledge to operate, WICEN always deploys operators to operate the equipment. This has the advantage of relieving the staff of the agency being supported of the mechanics of actually transmitting a message. However, person to person radio conversations can easily be established.

As well as maintaining traffic logs, WICEN operators are trained in procedures to handle “formal” radio traffic which provides the customer with an audit trail of how and when a message moved through a WICEN network.

Although it is a volunteer organisation, many of WICEN’s operators have worked or are working in the Radio, Electronics, Electrical and IT industries. This gives WICEN’s networks additional robustness as fault finding and repair expertise is ready to hand in the event of a failure.

WICEN’s systems are designed to operate without mains power. Batteries are used to power the equipment, and generators are available to charge the batteries should mains power be unavailable for longer periods.

We have a written agreement in place with Century Battery (North Bundaberg) for the supply of batteries free of charge to all WICEN operators in the event of any emergency situation affecting or likely to affect our region.

 The Amateur Radio operator today is highly skilled and holds a Licence only after extensive training, study and examinations overseen by the ACMA. The Amateur studies Theory and Regulations and must pass graded, written examinations as well as an extensive practical assessment before they are permitted to operate the equipment and undertake Amateur Radio has a hobby.

It is from these accomplished Amateurs that WICEN draws its members.

Provision of communications to the community where conventional communications facilities are not available.

In the event that normal telephone communications were destroyed, or simply required by the combating agencies, WICEN can provide a two way voice message service for the general public that does not rely on the normal telephone system or the GSM or Next G cell phone systems. 

As there is a tendency in disaster management plans to evacuate the public to centres not affected by the emergency, there will remain a need for publicly accessible communications in an affected area during the early recovery stage.

Provision of relief operators for other agency communications equipment.

WICEN radio operators can be utilised to relieve other agency personnel operating radios and release them for tasks more specific to their own agency.  WICEN operators are practiced at voice procedures for radio systems as well as the logging of traffic required in an emergency situation.

With a solid background in general radio communications equipment and procedures, WICEN operators have little difficulty in adapting to the equipment and voice procedure and log keeping standards.

2010/2011 has seen the implementation of additional nationally accredited training instigated by the Wireless Institute of Australia.

Operators will achieve Certificate II in Public Safety (SES) so that they are recognised as competent to enter and work for other agencies, organisations or Government institutions.

Provision of Communications to assist with the conduct of Emergency Training Exercises

WICEN can provide communications for agencies wishing to conduct Training Exercises.

This can be particularly valuable as it provides a communication channel to the organisers which the participants cannot easily monitor. e.g. WICEN could be utilised to provide communications for the ‘umpires‘ of a training exercise while the participants used their agency’s normal communications systems.

Conclusion

WICEN’s strength is its flexibility. Although we train with systems we have developed over the years, these systems are flexible enough to adapt to a variety of situations. If necessary WICEN can deploy a Statewide HF communications system that does not require any hill top infrastructure. Our technical expertise means that if and when the need should arise, we can develop new systems to meet an emerging need.

As such WICEN Bundaberg is happy to put our expertise at the disposal of local agencies that have identified a communications need during their planning phase and want to develop a system to address it.

Bundaberg Regional Council Local Disaster Management Group, Wellbeing & Recovery Groups and Emergency Officers should receive contact information for the WICEN Bundaberg Controller.

Further information on the WIA is available @ www.wia.org.au and on

WICEN in other states at the National WICEN Home Page @ www.wicen.org.au

Contact

WICEN Controller Bundaberg - John (Rusty) McGrath

Telephone: [07] 4159 6224

Deputy Coordinator - Gail Lidden-Sandford

Telephone: [07] 41561965

P.O. Box 129, Bundaberg QLD 4670

If you notice any errors on this page please contact the