In the 1950’s most of the Los Angeles Amateur Radio Emergency support was with the LA City Civil Defense/RACES. 10 meters was used for nets with base and mobile stations.
The State CD, Region 9, (W6PMJ), was running nets as was the LA City CD (K6ROC). Our RACES Radio Officers were required to be employees of the City.
Tim Huntley (W6LIP, SK) and Fred Crowder (W6ELC, SK) were the paid Radio Officers for LACD. Today for some reason they would need an FCC Waiver to operate.
Later, around 1956, The LA City CD purchased about 30 - 2 Meter Gonset 2B’s (Yellow CD model 3077B) and had them placed all around the city at parks, old Ground Observer Corps sites and military bunkers. Art Gentry (W6MEP, SK) provided a repeater for the city that was on top of Mt. Lee (Mt. Hollywood) where all the city communications were located. (The W6MEP/K6MYK story is in QST, March 2004, p.52.)
This provided an amateur VHF communications network over the 4000 square mile city for the first time. There were over 200 LACD members across the city.
Several of the original CD activations were hampered with confusion and poor results.
One supply order of 12 sandwiches for a shelter was received as 12 dozen sandwiches.
One volunteer assigned to operate a mountain top relay, switched frequencies and was rag chewing with his friends, breaking the emergency link. Volunteers across such a large city were hard to contact and dispatch.
Most of the Emergency Communications Corps (ECC) members were active in CD/RACES. After a few years of volunteer radio activities operations, it became obvious that a dedicated tactical communications group was needed. This would require ECC members to make a 100% commitment responding to and coordinating communication activities at any time all over the city.
The ECC was formed as a California nonprofit corporation on 1 May 1960.
The members were:
Jack Sonntag K6GQU
Bill Jones Jr. K6HWZ
Robert Perry W6QCE (SK)
Glenn Berry K6GHJ (SK)
John Cammarata WA6DWT
Paul Signorelli K6CHR
Louie Warnick K6KIP
Walter Matney K6CJJ
Lynn Brackett WA6HBS (SK)
Dennis Gotreaux
We had several Letters of Agreement with LA City CD, Burbank CD, and the Red Cross. Our primary affiliation was with the LA Red Cross Chapter.
After a few Red Cross operations, we found the people assigned to perform damage assessments, activate shelters, etc. didn’t have too much experience because disasters don’t happen very often.
We all took the Red Cross training so we could make damage assessments and run disaster activities as Red Cross Volunteers.
We were active in many brush fires and floods. Every Fall there seems to be a brush fire which is followed by a mud slide in the Spring.
Here are some of the major operations we participated in:
1958 Malibu/Zuma Fire, 103 homes lost. This required a mobile relay to be placed at Topanga Lookout to relay around the mountains.
1960 LAFD portable lighting support in River Search.
1961 Belair Fire, 484 homes lost.
1963 Baldwin Hills dam break found us on the football field at the Culver City High School, which was turned into a Heliport and a shelter. This disaster video is now on YouTube.
1964 Weldon Fire, 24 homes lost.
1965 Watts Riots – Radio spectrum surveillance for LAPD.
1967 Devonshire Fire, Chatsworth. 48 homes lost, I saw wind blown fires sweeping through Chatsworth homes, taking rows of houses in a line and not touching adjacent houses.
1971 SFV Earthquake that nearly cracked open the Van Norman Reservoir and had 10,000 people evacuated from the central part of the SFV. The main efforts were to communicate with shelters and order supplies. Public telephones at shelters became inoperative because full coin boxes. We were unable to provide any welfare traffic during the first week.
1971 Sylmar water tunnel explosion, 5 months after the earthquake, this was the worst tunnel explosion in California’s history. It is a sad thing to only be able to offer free bologna sandwiches to the wives who were waiting and crying for news of their husband’s fate.
The primary radio communications that we used was Special Emergency Radio Service, Red Cross frequency, and Mobile Telephone services.
The ECC Command Post was a 1949 IH Step Van (See Photos) that had about 6 Motorola 140D/80D’s, FHTRU/P31/P33/H21/H23 walkie talkies and even Gonset Communicators. There were several city owned radios, and a pair of PRC-6’s.


The main operating area in the Comm Van had 2 positions that could switch into and control any of the radios. The driver could operate on the main command channel while responding to a site. The communications van was supported completely by donations.
Each ECC member also had to equip his own vehicle with Motorola radios.
We were not a bunch of rich kids either, I recall working a local carnival for several years, Manning a ping pong ball toss booth, to make money for the ECC.
The California ECC group disbanded but re-emerged in Colorado as the Emergency Communications of Colorado and a group of local communications operators performed the same services to the Red Cross in the 1970's, but that is a different story.
Paul Signorelli
w0rw
| W0RW | 2022-07-20 | |
|---|---|---|
| Re: The Emergency Communications Corps Story | ||
| Additional Info about the 1971 San Fernando Quake.... My repeater, W6AQY, survived the 1971 Quake even though it was about 5 miles from the epicenter at 3500 feet elevation. It was set up on a really rocky ridge. See: "W6AQY, Early VHF FM Mountain Top Repeater in Southern Calif”, CQ Magazine, Dec. 2019, p. 42 - 43. Paul w0rw Reply to a comment by : W0RW on 2022-07-20 The Baldwin Hills Dam Break was small compared to what might have happened if the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake had broken the Van Norman Dam. See the story at: https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/disaster-helped-nation-prepare-future-earthquakes-remembering-san-fernando i had a seismometer running during that Quake and it was destroyed and buried in my office. Paul w0rw Reply to a comment by : W0RW on 2022-07-20 The Balwin Hills Dam Disaster Utube is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPUo_PtVH04 There are no videos of the Choppers picking people off roof tops or of them landing in the High School football field. Paul w0rw | ||
| W0RW | 2022-07-20 | |
|---|---|---|
| Re: The Emergency Communications Corps Story | ||
| The Baldwin Hills Dam Break was small compared to what might have happened if the 1971 San Fernando Earthquake had broken the Van Norman Dam. See the story at: https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/disaster-helped-nation-prepare-future-earthquakes-remembering-san-fernando i had a seismometer running during that Quake and it was destroyed and buried in my office. Paul w0rw Reply to a comment by : W0RW on 2022-07-20 The Balwin Hills Dam Disaster Utube is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPUo_PtVH04 There are no videos of the Choppers picking people off roof tops or of them landing in the High School football field. Paul w0rw | ||
| W0RW | 2022-07-20 | |
|---|---|---|
| The Emergency Communications Corps Story | ||
| The Balwin Hills Dam Disaster Utube is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPUo_PtVH04 There are no videos of the Choppers picking people off roof tops or of them landing in the High School football field. Paul w0rw | ||