| Total number of ARES members | 1137 | Change since last month | +93 |
| DECs reporting this month | 12 out of 15 |
ARES nets active | 252 sessions in 53 nets |
| ECs reporting this month | 55 out of 73 Call signs |
Nets with NTS Liaison | most of these nets |
| Number of Drills, tests and training sessions this month | 85 | Person hours | 683 |
| Number of Public service events this month | 24 | Person hours | 1303 |
| Number of Emergency operations this month | 2 | Person hours | 4 |
| Total number of ARES operations this month | 105 | Person hours | 1905 |
Comments:
Old Dominion Emergency Net:
We passed 2 pieces of traffic on ODEN. We will continue to pass test and operational traffic on ODEN from time to time so everyone gets used to the format. March will find us talking about tactical callsigns again, and hopefully, some of us using them to check in for the 3rd Monday net.
District 3:
- From AD6JV in Albemarle County: The annual ARES / RACES presentation at the Albemarle Amateur Radio Club took place this month. K4DND and AD6JV were the speakers. Planning is underway for spring emergency preparedness exercises to be coupled with Albemarle County spring drill simulating a burst dam event.
- From N3DFS in Greene County: Have scheduled the first Greene County Emergency Net session for March 6, 7 PM, on the AARC Repeater 146.760. All amateurs in the county, that I could locate, were invited to participate.
- From WW4GW in Buckingham / Cumberland Counties: Things are still quiet in Buckingham / Cumberland Counties. I participated in the Farmville Special Olympics on February 10th by helping to provide radio communications between the various venues. This was an all day event, and the organizers had requested ham operators to assist with the coordination of events between three separate locations. District 12 ARES had signed up to provide communications at the event and needed one more person to fill the needs. Buckingham ARES volunteered to fill the slot. Buckingham ARES participated with other District 3 members to install a new antenna on top of Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville. This antenna will be attached to a new 2 meter repeater to provide additional radio coverage for the Charlottesville area.
District 4:
- Boyd, KO4WK, EC / RO, Caroline County: Another quiet month. We were on alert for the ice storm on Feb. 12. Even though one limb fell on our house, and the breaking limbs and trees around us sounded like gunfire during the night, no major damage resulted - lots of limbs and debris to clean up, however. Still working on it! Oh, and my HF antenna was knocked down and broken (80 m horiz. loop). We had 16 hams check into 6 sections of our CarCo net.
- Steve, KD4KNR, EC / RO, King George County: Held very successful meeting of KG hams. Discussed local emcom issues and upcoming projects. Hams that attended KD4KNR, K8DH, K4QS, AG4BW, N4WDC, KI4OQA, K8EAC, KG4SCP, KD4BYB, K1JOZ
- Tom, KI4AFE, EC / RO, Spotsylvania County: A quiet month given the cold and that is it post holidays. I am taking the CERT course offered in Fredericksburg this month. Spotsylvania ARES has increased the coverage of the APRS net in the county by establishing a digipeater in the Courthouse area. Another digipeater should come on line in February.
- Tom, W4LLK, EC / RO Fredericksburg City: The Fredericksburg club is hosting an 8-week General Class license course; we had our second session last week (still time to join).
- Bart, N3GQ, EC/RO, Stafford County: Thank goodness the cold snap we had did not cause our community serious problems, except for a few broken backs shoveling icy snow! The sudden change of temperature caused us to have to replace 2 cracked windshields. About 15 members of our county club went to Frostfest and had a great time.
District 6:
We held the first D6 EC meeting for 2007 on Feb 3rd with all of the D6 ECs in attendance. We held a Packet Radio training session just prior to the EC meeting with 17 area hams in attendance. We met at Richmond Ambulance Authority where a new amateur radio station has been deployed for ARES / RACES support of the City of Richmond EOC. We have a new EC for Powhatan County, Greg Mika (KI4PXU), joining the D6 team. W4FEG: A very busy month here in Goochland County. Our breakfast meeting and packet training that we held on Feb 17th had in attendance 14 amateurs, including the DEC and AEC for D6 and ECs from Hanover / Powhatan / Chesterfield. Also in attendance were the Deputy Dir. of EMS and the Deputy Dir. of Emergency services, 9 Fire and Rescue personnel, a representative from the Sheriffs Office, two local newspaper reporters, and several other guests. ARES is alive and well in Goochland. More to come later as another SET is being planned for later in the year.
District 7:
- Newport News ARES participated in one public service event for the Newport News Shipyard Employees' Credit Union. We also conducted our regular bimonthly meeting where we held our annual Emergency Operations Center refresher training, as required by our Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Newport News. Some of our members also participated in planning for an upcoming special events station for the opening of the USS Monitor exhibit, part of the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown. We also participated in four nets with our net liaison, Mike Hawk, KB4CAU.
- Gloucester / Mathews: As A / SEC-Training, Joe / K4JJS attended the two-day VDEM-sponsored IS-400 Advanced Incident Command System Course at the VDEM training facility in Richmond. He also attended an excellent District 6 day-long training / information class hosted by DEC-6 / Anthony Harbour / KG4YXP in Richmond. As A / EC Gloucester and Gloucester RACES RO he had three short meetings with the county CERT coordinator and a luncheon meeting with a senior official of the Gloucester County Sheriff's Department discussing the new county emergency operations center and Operation Lifesaver, a program to help track local registered citizens with Alzheimer's Disease and other afflictions using fox-hunting techniques. The Middle Peninsula ARC is going to be working on this project as well. 13 District 7 personnel worked the annual Newport News Shipbuilding Credit Union's annual meeting at the Hampton Coliseum providing parking and traffic control duties."
District 8:
February was a slow activity month for our ESHARC ARES / RACES group. March will be picking up steam. On March 14, we participate in an all day table top exercise in Chincoteague, VA with the Accomack County Department of Public Safety and the Eastern Shore Disaster Preparedness Coalition in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to test our ability to recover from a major hurricane. Then on March 28, we participate with the DELMARVA Emergency Task Force in a multi-state (Virginia, Maryland & Delaware) functional exercise which will focus on recovery from a cat 3 hurricane hitting the DELMARVA peninsula. This exercise will involve Ham Radio operations from the Accomack Co. EOC where we maintain a ham radio support station. In addition, ham support for the Eastern Shore annual Health Fair planning will be provided.
District 9:
Portsmouth EC and AEC were called out by Deputy Emergency Manager to help locate interference problem with the 911 Operators headsets. Nine PARES members received IS-100 and IS-700 Certificates for training. PARES goal is to have all members trained in the next 90 days. Virginia Beach EOC activated for Hospital Drill on 2/15/07. This is a series of three drills. One more to go in April.
District 11:
Brunswick County ARES, Mecklenburg County ARES and Lake Country Amateur Radio Service sponsored a license test session in February. We are glad to report that we licensed three new amateur radio operators and welcomed all three new hams into ARES. I would like to extend my congratulations to Edward Hite, KI4TXC, Timothy Simmons, KI4TXD, and James Mills, KI4TXE. I would also like to thank Andy Moseley KF4KBS, Mecklenburg County EC and VE, and Gary Turner, W4WGT, Brunswick County EC, as well as the rest of our testing team, Joanne Moseley, KF4MFW and Paul Sojka, KS2S. Our local hospital, Community Memorial Health Center allowed us use of their Education Center for our test session.
District 12:
Five area hams assisted with the Virginia Special Olympics State basketball tournament in Farmville, VA in February. The services of WD4GYW, KC4UAO, WW4GW, KI4RIT and N4CFA were greatly appreciated by Tina Andes, the coordinator. WA4RTS presented the February program at the Lynchburg Amateur Radio Club on moving to Linux. Many of our ARES members in D12 are LARC members. N4TIU has arranged for a donation of a new antenna and diplexer to the emergency Amateur station at the Campbell County EOC.
District 13:
- Floyd County: 1.The first license upgrade study group will meet Mar 6 and monthly from then on. 2. I now have 7KW of automatic standby power to be installed next week. 3. We welcomed a newly licensed ham to the group: Faith King, KI4TSJ.
- Franklin County: Changed net operations to the 146.685 repeater and instituted on air message voice and digital training. PSK31 messaging through repeater has been extremely successful. Stations utilizing this mode have all employed an audio cable from the xcvr to the sound card input for receive, and audio coupling between the computer speakers and xcvr microphone on transmit.
District 14:
Mears had 7 members participate in a timed husky team race. There were 3 teams of 6 dogs that ran from Iron Horse campground near Damascus to Alvarado, a distance of approximately 4.5 miles. After resting for a few minutes, they made the same trip back. After the 3 teams left Alvarado on the return trip to iron horse, there were 12 other teams that ran from Alvarado to Iron Horse. The teams left about 3 minutes apart. Each team consisted of from 1 to 4 dogs. The sleds were timed with synchronized watches from the start point to the finish line with Mears furnishing the communications for each start and finish. Dallas Cassell, KD4CCO, also had a GPS tracking unit on some of the sleds. The husky rescue group assured Mears they would be in contact again next year for the races.
I would like to express my appreciation for the reports and comments from all of the reporting districts. The last comment from Franklin County (D-13) shows the simplicity with which we can operate (digital) in an emergency … audio coupling the computer speaker to a VHF transceiver microphone. I queried W4BOT about “timing-out” the repeater and he answered that none of the exchanges were long enough and that he would examine the sending of status reports (in reference to the time out problem) Apparently the 100 Hz tone required on the repeater does not affect the PSK31 transmission. Anyone else using repeaters for digital transmissions (?) might want to contact W4BOT.
Henry Wyatt, K4YCR
SEC VA