Captain Johnston says volunteer ARIES radio team supports county shelters during hurricanes

Captain Johnston, who identified himself as the Aries emergency coordinator for Oakland County, described how a volunteer radio team supports the county during disasters and hurricanes. “Our main job here in the radio room is to support the county in disasters of whether it be man-made or natural,” he said, and added the group handles message traffic for shelters and the emergency operations center.

Johnston said the ARIES radio room fields three operating positions equipped with VHF, UHF and HF radios. He described position one as an HF/marine-band capability that “we can talk all over the state of Florida and far as that goes all over the world with this particular radio,” and said the marine radio allows direct coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard during hurricanes. He said position two handles local VHF/UHF traffic from communities into the county EOC and that position three is a backup combining VHF, UHF and HF to ensure redundancy.

Johnston said the team consists of eight members who are trained radio operators and veterans, and that two team members are staffed at the main shelter in Davidson to relay incoming shelter traffic to Chief Prince at the county EOC and onward to the EOC in Tallahassee. “We have a capability…which means we can talk all over the state of Florida,” he said when describing the scope of their communications.

He invited new volunteers to join, saying, “We're always looking for good new members,” and identified himself as the Aries emergency coordinator for Oakland County. Johnston provided a contact address (w4kjox.net) and asked interested people to supply a name and phone number so he can follow up on applications; a phone number was not specified in the remarks.

The remarks focused on the volunteer group's communications role, equipment capabilities, shelter staffing and recruitment; no formal county actions, votes or directives were reported during the presentation.