| Total number of ARES members | 1076 (568 active) | Change since last month | decrease 18 |
| DECs reporting this month | 8 out of 15 Call Signs |
ARES nets active | 104 sessions in 35 nets |
| ECs reporting this month | 29 out of 71 Call signs |
Nets with NTS Liaison | most nets from 11 liaison stations |
| Number of Drills, tests and training sessions this month | 61 | Person hours | 405 |
| Number of Public service events this month | 6 | Person hours | 146 |
| Number of Emergency operations this month | 1 | Person hours | 56 |
| Total number of ARES operations this month | 68 | Person hours | 607 |
Comments
K4DND: District 3
- From Albemarle County EC - NEW ANTENNA AT EAST RIVANNA FIRE HOUSE. Installation of an antenna at East Rivanna Fire House was completed during the month. This completes the antenna installations at the newly designated shelters in Albemarle County.
- From Greene County EC - Completed an "Emergency Communications" manual, using a lot of ARRL material (eg, Message Handling), plus items on nets, support to local authorities, a "go kit", working with Red Cross, etc. Attended Emergency Services Committee meetings (sheriff, fire chiefs, rescue squad, chair of board of supervisors, et al), working with Sheriff and board of supervisors to get a rig in EOC. Assisted an Eagle Scout candidate to install rigs in two Red Cross offices (another planned).
- As Communications Coordinator for Central Virginia Chapter of Red Cross, am anxiously awaiting some resolution to the "Hams working with Red Cross"/background check issue.
- From Fluvanna County EC - Joint event with Albemarle EC Net, using Fluvanna new repeater.
- From Louisa County EC - We are in the final stages of preparing for the 2006 VOPEX drill for Dec. 5th. All is looking good, and we all have good feeling it will be a success. Of course we are looking forward to hearing if and where we need to improve in providing backup communications. I also received my coordination for a 440Mhz. pair. We are still working with the county hoping they can share some of the cost of putting up a machine that would benefit all. Maybe this drill will show that a local repeater would come in handy since all the other local repeaters will be used by other counties for the same drill.Our primary freq. this year will be a simplex freq. And I'm sure it will work out OK.
WA4RTS: District 12
- Following stations participated in the annual Mountain Masochist 50 Mile Trail Run, held on November 4 - WA4RTS,KA4YNO, N4TIU, N4KSS, KI4KAN, W2CP, W4WWQ, N4QWF, KD4EMU, KI4IC, KC4ZWZ, AD4ST, KI4PVE, KD4MGI, N7FRW, WD4GYW, N1RKZ, KC1BH, KC4D and K4YCR. This was a 12 hour event, using WA1ZMS, K4CQ/Amherst, and KI4ZR repeaters to cover some 290 runners over extremely rough terrain. Central VA ARES has supported each of these races over some 25 years. Makes for a long day!
- Have not started the Amherst 32 channel radio yet, probably a winter project, the current VHF radio is working fine, the project will let us get UHF running out there as well by replacing the current VHF radio with a UHF one. I am looking for another MDX radio for that purpose.
W4FEG: Goochland County EC
- Forty amateurs took part in our four net sessions here in Goochland County. We continue to train in our nets each week. The LEPC continues to keep us informed about pandemic preparedness. Our emergency radios and power supplies as well as the packet system will soon be deployed to each location with security in place to protect the equipment.
K4RCK: Several advancements in the Chesterfield County ARES program took place this month.
- A meeting was held with the Richmond American Red Cross (ARC) to discuss further planning and projects for collaboration. It was agreed during this meeting that we would utilize the ICS-213 Message format for general traffic handling. Traffic going to the ARRL NTS system will continue to be handled by the standard ARL Radiogram. Several projects are in the planning stages to help our ARC. These include a complete inventory of radio equipment and resources; evaluation and check out of some ARC mobile equipment and possible pre-positioning of Amateur and ARC communications equipment at potential Red Cross Shelters.
- The team also took time to evaluate their location relative to these shelter sites and we have made some progress on pre-determining which operators could best respond to shelter sites based on a multiple site event.
- There is a new Chesterfield County ARES web site posted for the purpose of providing information to all our team and others who may be interested in our activities. The site is being updated and developed as we go, but has been published and made available as a link on the VA ARES web page. Click here to go the Chesterfield ARES website.
- Chesterfield ARES also kicked off its' first 2M NET on November 30th at 2100L. The NET is being held on the Metropolitan Repeater Association (MRA) repeater 145.430 (-) no tone. Our first net had 19 check-ins with a great representation from the ARES community including our DEC-6 (KG4YXP Anthony), ADEC-6 (AB4FJ Rick), Goochland County EC (W4FEG Ralph). While this is called the Chesterfield County ARES NET and is a local ARRL VA Section ARES NET, it is open to all participants regardless of location and affiliation.
Henry L. Wyatt K4YCR
ARRL VA Section Emergency Coordinator
12 December 2006