MISSION REPORT: 98-02: Stand-by for Overdue Dirt Biker, Benton County
A 20 year old male OSU student who was an inexperienced dirt biker got the motorcycle he was riding stuck near mile post 6 on the Beaver Creek road. When he failed to return on time, he was reported missing about 1940. He left the bike and began walking and was found by a Benton county Deputy around 2200.
All Benton County SAR personnel (including CMRU) were placed on Stand-by with a page at 2044. A Stand-by page was sent by CMRU at 2048 with 18 members responding: 7-Yes, 3-Maybe, and 8-No. The mission was cancelled at 2200. Remember, all members receiving a page are expected to respond -- even if unavailable. But responses from 18 of the 22 members with pagers was pretty good!

OMRC REACCREDITATION
OMRC holds its reaccreditation on the third weekend in April each year. This year Eugene Mountain Rescue will be evaluated in the three modules which MRA requires of full member teams: Rock, Winter, and Search. Also, CMRU will be re-evaluated on the "Glacier Travel" portion of the Winter Module. We attempted to complete this requirement last September on Mt. Hood, but the Mt. Washington rescue happened. Then, we attempted to complete it at the snow practice on Mt. Hood earlier this winter and were buried with several feet of new snow. Hopefully we can get it done this month -- barring flood, fire, famine or any of the other "Seven Horsemen."

MRA MEETING -- Timberline Lodge
The Mountain Rescue Association will be holding its 1998 summer meeting on Mt. Hood. This year is the 40th anniversary of the organization which was founded at Timberline Lodge. Although CMRU did not exist 40 years ago, its predecessor, the Corvallis Unit of the Mountain Rescue and Safety Council of Oregon (MORESCO) was present "in the beginning." As the host team, Portland is asking for help from other teams in Oregon.
On Friday, June 19, outdoor sessions are scheduled on White River Glacier covering topics such as ice axe, crampon use, and self-arrest; avalanche transceiver use; snow and ice anchors; crevasse self and team rescue; patient care in the cold; and improvised litters. PMR would like to have help with these sessions. If you would like to help, contact Jon Sears.

NEW MEMBER -- Dustin Mitsch
Following the March Unit Meeting, Dustin was interviewed and accepted as a Trainee. He can be found on our April Call List and has been assigned the county identifier 4 Rescue 10. Welcome Aboard, Dustin.

TIME CHANGE -- Daylight Savings Time
By now, you have probably changed your watch, alarm clock, car clock (if yours still runs), computer clock and maybe even your smoke detector battery; but have you changed the clock in your pager and other computer driven timing devices -- like your GPS receiver? Many of us have the "World Clock" feature on our pagers showing Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) otherwise known as "Zulu time." When we change to daylight savings time, we are now seven (7) time zones away from UTC, Zulu, or Greenwich time. So to show the proper UTC time, you need to change the "World Time" field to +7. Since GPS receivers run on "GPS Time," if you want your receiver to show the proper "zone time" it must be changed to -7 hours (Pacific Daylight Time is seven hours behind GPS Time). And yes, next October we'll need to go through all this again because Pacific Standard Time is 8 hours from UTC and GPS time.
As a piece of time trivia, UTC and GPS times are not exactly the same. UTC is based on astronomical events and takes into account the Earth's rotation is slowing down-- therefore adds "leap seconds" every so often. GPS time does not take into account leap seconds and is about 11 seconds different.

GPS RECEIVERS AND Y2K
With the year 2000 (Y2K) date problem becoming recognized as a major computer problem, people have begun to wonder if their GPS receivers will suffer any problems at the end of the millennium. Garmin recently issued an announcement saying that its products had been designed with the Y2K problem in mind. However, there is another problem coming up in August 1999 which may cause problems for some GPS receivers -- including early Garmin units. The almanac contained within the receiver's computer apparently uses a 10 bit date code for the "GPS week." In August 1999, we will complete the 1024th week and roll into the 1025th week -- however that date code will be all zero's. (Kinda feels like back to the future, doesn't it?) Garmin says their latest models will handle this situation without any problems, but that earlier models will need to be "re-initialized" following the end of the 1024th week.