7th May 2017
SECRO exercise, Godstone.
I was in a small team sent off into one of the mines to test one of the rescue Nicola radios. First issue was finding, once we got right in and at the end of the earth return phone, that it wasn't working, despite testing it at the entrance. It later turned out that the base station handset at the entrance had a dodgy battery connection.
The Nicola radio tests all failed, as we never managed to get a good earth connection, despite clipping into the end of a water pipe, and to various metal items fixed to the mine walls such as gate hinges and old metal cable clips.
The odd thing was that the other teams, in the mine next door, managed to get excellent results with their Nicolas. The two factors left to eliminate are the devices themselves, in case ours was faulty, and the nature of the floor, which in the other system is wet compressed mud (formerly mushroom compost) and which in our mine is much drier and with little material to bury the earthing point.
After a late lunch break, we then carried out a short stretcher carry exercise, which was mildly entertaining and useful. The casualty had, apparently, been run over by an idiot on a child's tricycle.
After the event we met the family of the late Paul Dold, former SECRO member, who tragically died in the sea in Cornwall last summer. The collection in memory of Paul made £8000, and a third of this was presented to SECRO for equipment funding. A lovely end to the day despite the tragic background to the donation.