This guide to obtaining a Technician-class Amateur Radio license is tailored for the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay, but its basic explanation is true everywhere in the United States.
This guide lists some resources that will be helpful to those who are interested in training to provide volunteer emergency communications support using the Amateur Radio Service or one or more of the Personal Radio Services (including FRS, GMRS, MURS, and CB).
Here is a calendar of public events in the ARRL East Bay Section for which volunteer Amateur Radio Service communications support has been requested.
The ARRL East Bay Section comprises California's Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, and Napa Counties. Over 8,000 licensed Amateur Radio operators live in the ARRL East Bay Section, one of 71 ARRL sections in the United States.
ARRL East Bay Section ARES®, part of the nationwide ARES program of the ARRL, consists of licensed Amateur Radio operators who have voluntarily registered their qualifications and equipment, with their local ARES leadership, for communications duty in the public service when disaster strikes. In an emergency or disaster, ARES goes into action to support agencies with which it has written agreements and which request its assistance.