PCCG General Bulletin Board

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====== Pickens County Emergency Communications Group ======

The Pickens County Communications Group (PCCG) has existed since the mid 1970's.

We are an official volunteer division of the Pickens County Emergency Management Department in South Carolina, and we follow the protocols and guidelines established by FEMA and other Emergency Organizations.

We maintain a number of VHF and UHF repeaters licensed for Amateur Radio usage and also have four repeaters licensed for GMRS usage by the general public in Pickens County and the surrounding areas.

We also support a series of member only email mailing lists, and obviously, the website that you are currently browsing, 


===== The WX4PG.org website is not your normal website. =====


    ...but then again, the organization itself is rather unique.

The Pickens County Emergency Communications Support Group (PCCG) is a community service type organization, in that its volunteer members have offered their Radio Equipment, Knowledge, and Time to provide Emergency Communications Support to the Emergency Management Department of Pickens County, South Carolina, on a "when needed, as needed" basis.

The PCCG is an official volunteer division of the Pickens County Emergency Management Department for Pickens County, South Carolina.

Many "Radio Clubs" are organized around common interests, such as CB Radio, or for GMRS equipment owner/operators. Most radio clubs are organized for Amateur Radio Operators (HAM Radio), and many have a special interest, such as Long Distance Communications (DX), or even "Moon Bounce", where they communicate by bouncing radio signals off of the Moon.
 
However,the PCCG is [u]NOT[/u] a "Radio Club", unlike most similar groups that provide communications support services to their local governmental Emergency Management organizations in their local City, County or State Emergency Operations Centers (EOC).


Nor is PCCG membership only open to Operators and Radio Equipment licensed under one __single__ section of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules, such as any of those listed in the table below: (The listing is in alphabetical order):

      Amateur Radio                        (FCC Part 97 rules), 
      Citizens Band radio (CB)             (FCC part 95 rules), 
      Family Radio services (FRS)          (FCC part 95 rules),
      General Mobile Radio Services (GMRS) (FCC part 95 rules), 
      Land Mobile services                 (FCC part 90 rules).

As said before, Most Radio Clubs are organized to support only one of the categories listed. PCCG is unique, in that we accept individuals from any and all of these service categories - providing, of course, that they can pass the required Background Investigation.

We, however, do have a common interest --- and that is providing a Public Service by providing Radio Communication services in times of need, like during any kind of emergency. Several years ago, the group assisted efforts in fighting a major mountain side forest fire by providing a portable repeater for supplemental communications to an area on the other side of a mountain that was in a radio shadow.
      
Some PCCG members also operate Radio Equipment under the rules of the The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), located within the Department of Commerce. In essence, the NTIA provides the rules and coordination efforts for Governmental Radio usage, while the FCC does the same for non-Governmental Radio usage.

Members of the Pickens County Communication Group are all Licensed Radio Operators authorized to operate their personal radio equipment under one or more of the rules contained in FCC rules parts 90, 95, and 97, or under the rules and regulations of the NTIA.

This website, is also unique, in that it supports public viewable pages, as well as areas that contain applications and information only available to PCCG members. Each PCCG Team can have additional resources uniquely available to each individual team, where members can document Team procedures and other reference material.

We also try to provide supplemental information about Radio Communications for our Members and for the General Public. If you have any suggestions or idea's, feel free to contact the webmaster, or a member of the WebSupport team.

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=== Why is the website called wx4pg.org?  Why not "Pickens County Communications Group"?  Or... ===
 

The PCCG website is known as **wx4pg.org**, as that is the FCC issued Amateur Radio "club" callsign assigned to the group, and under which, the group operates a number of Radio Repeater systems. To my knowledge, WX4PG has been used by the group since its original organization in the 1970's.


Another reason, why we don't use the PCCG name in our website, is that, as it turns out, "Pickens County" is not a unique county name either.  There are several "Pickens" counties in the southeast USA. And some of them are not all that far from here...\\
//Try using Google or Bing or DuckDuckgo and search for "Pickens".// I did, and I found it interesting.

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