Although much of the city and county enjoys strong cellular and public safety radio coverage, significant areas have poor or non-existent coverage due to terrain. Albemarle AUXCOMM has assembled a complementary set of operating capabilities and procedures to address the coverage challenges and provide communications suiting the unique requirements of each incident. These capabilities include:

• Portable, off-grid operations using batteries, solar, and generators
• VHF/UHF voice communication direct and through local repeaters
• HF long-distance and local (NVIS) voice and data
• Winlink radio email (see winlink.org)
• Two portable HF/VHF/UHF Winlink gateways, UHF voice repeater, GMRS voice repeater
• High-speed private wireless data network (see cvadn.net) capable of carrying any traffic that can be carried on the Internet
• Portable Incident Area Network (IAN), a quick-deploy Ethernet and WiFi data network with flexible options for backhaul to the ECC/EOC/UCP/Internet
• Private Voice-over-IP (VoIP) telephone system built on the CVADN
• Portable cameras and live video streaming via the CVADN
• A suite of file sharing and text/voice/video conferencing services to support operations
• Adherence to interoperability standards supporting mutual aid among ARES® units at the regional and national levels
• Volunteer communicators qualified to operate on the public safety trunk radio system when requested
• Adherence to interoperability standards supporting mutual aid among ARES® units at the regional and national levels

Coming soon:

• Airborne CVADN/VHF/UHF relays using fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)