Author: Deb KK7DEB

Welcome to our newest members!

Alpha Team: Kenn KA7VQH
Bravo Team: Shawn AG7JZ and Roy KI7PKL
Charlie Team: Grant N0FFF

A big thanks to all who participated in Walk MS and the Spring SET! They say a picture is worth a thousand words so enjoy all the photos of MCARES in action.

We know for sure now that we will be operating for Field Day on June 23 and 24 at Willamette Park. I hope you all can come and do a little HF operating.

Spring is in the air, which means the start of our busy season for public service events and various simulated emergency tests and field exercises. Walk MS is April 7 and you can visit the volunteer registration form to sign up to help. The Spring SET is April 14. Please contact your team leader to participate. This year we have a new event, Cars for a Cause, which is May 13 and more information will be coming soon about this. MCARES will also be operating its own Field Day event this year at Willamette Park on June 23 and 24. We hope our members will participate in as many events as possible to hone their operating skills, connect with other members, and just have some fun.

Please join us in welcoming Carrie K7CAC who is now the Charlie team leader. You can learn more about Carrie in her featured member profile.

The first team drill of the year was on March 10 and brought together the Charlie and Mike teams. I believed everyone learned a lot and got some operating time with the new digital go-kits. The base camp was at the old armory site on SW Multnomah Blvd. The teams went mobile to various locations, set up the go-kits and reported back simplex to net control at the ARES trailer. John KI7LYP was also on site to show and talk about various mobile antenna and radio suggestions. The weather cooperated with no rain in sight although the wind was a bit pesky for the canopy city field station that was erected.

A special thanks to Cory and Jim Schoch for their work on the MOU with Hoodview Amateur Radio Club and MCARES for the use of the MC2 147.280 repeater during an emergency activation. It was a pleasure to work with them and, as a result, we have a fine agreement. It is truly wonderful that we are all on the same page in providing the best emergency communications for our community.

Welcome to our newest members! Cory KI7RMG will join the Alpha team, Edie W7ELC joins the Charlie team, Paul KI7ADC joins the Delta team, and Ryan KI7QBR and Chris KG7ADQ both join the Echo team. This brings our total of active members to 85. WOW! Perhaps we will reach the magic number of 100 this year.

Our January 25 General Meeting had a record attendance of 74 people! What a great way to start the
New Year.

The Winlink training was well received and prepared us for the Saturday Drill from Home on January 27. We were burning up the air waves with Winlink traffic all around the county. We were very interested to see how the Winlink email forwarding would work from the ARES trailer. The messages sent to Nathan through the N7MCU gateway were held and then forwarded via Pactor to HF gateways in Nevada and Utah. This demonstrates our ability to get the messages out if no local Internet is available. Thanks to everyone who participated and a special thanks to our team leaders and shelter leaders who had their hands full replying to all the traffic. In all we had 45 members working from home and in the
field.

The next weekend, Saturday, February 3, was the copper J-pole build held by our training manager, John KI7LYP. In all, 14 people went home with a new antenna all tuned and ready to go. There was much excitement as everyone learned to cut and solder simple copper pipe into a nifty new antenna ready to boost their radio signal. We hope to hear these new antennas in our next simplex test. If you missed out on the February build session, John is keeping a list of interested folks for another weekend workshop. You can contact him at training [at] multnomahares [dot] org.

Finally we have received all the materials for the repeater kits and the build process has started. There will be one full-on portable UHF repeater and two portable VHF/UHF kits that can either cross-band repeat or be digipeaters. These kits have robust power options with big 105 amp-hour batteries, solar charging, and propane converted Honda inverter generators. The antenna and mast systems are also robust with Diamond X50 antennas and tripod masts that can reach over 30 feet in height. Testing with these kits should start this Spring.

Join me in welcoming our newest members. Nick KI7PTT has joined the Bravo team, Barbara KI7QLC has joined the Charlie team, Ken KI7RUN has joined the Echo team, and Ed KI7QID has joined the Charlie team. Jeremy W7BIO has also joined and is an employee with Multnomah County; he will be listed as a Supporting member.

Happy New Year! We hope everyone is ready to have a fun and productive year in the amateur radio world. We certainly started off with a great simplex net on January 3.

The Leadership team met on December 10 for an all-day planning session and reviewed the membership survey. We believe that the coming year is full of opportunities to sharpen our members’ skills and continue training of our newest members. We will continue to have team exercises and have added a couple of all team drills to the mix. This year Multnomah County ARES will have its own Field Day on June 23-24. A central location is being finalized.

Thanks to Rachel KI7NMB for volunteering to take on the Net Manager position and to Patti KB7GMM for taking the Net Content Coordinator position. We look forward to adding content to our weekly nets. Patti will be working hard to make this happen. Emily N7EMH has agreed to take on the Bravo Team Leader position; Matthew AF7PV will stay on as the PBEM Station Chief for the time being. Thanks to Emily for taking on this important role.

Our new training manager, John KI7LYP, has a great line up of training topics for the monthly meetings and several Saturday workshops throughout the year. Many of our monthly trainings will start off with all members and then split into beginning and advanced classes. Hopefully this will add a better learning experience for both our newer and older members. The Saturday workshops – the first being the February 3 J-pole building party – are designed to help with equipment needs and operating skills. We hope our members will take advantage of these opportunities to expand their knowledge and skills, and to build their stations and go kits to a higher level.

A quick review of 2017 shows we had a total of 2,596 volunteer hours for the year. Way to go everyone! We are starting the New Year with 83 active members and we will continue our membership drive in hopes of reaching the goal of 100 members this year. We appreciate everyone’s efforts on passing the word to friends and family as 2017 was a very high growth year. Please keep up the great work! If you have any outreach ideas, let Steve W7SRH know at PIO [at] MultnomahARES [dot] org.

The UASI grant order for the repeater kits has been completed and we are expecting to pick up the equipment any day now. The kits will include a full UHF Ham repeater and two portable VHF/UHF cross band repeaters that are also capable of being digipeaters. This will greatly enhance our abilities should there be a failure of the usual repeaters that we now rely on. Expect to see these kits being used in upcoming exercises as we test and train on their use. Our thanks to both Multnomah County Emergency Management and Portland Bureau of Emergency Management for their help and support in obtaining this grant!

Join me in welcoming our newest members. Justin KI7QBU will join the Echo team, Jay KI7QOZ will join the Alpha team, and Peter K7LEE will join the Charlie team.

Thanks to everyone who filled out the annual ARES survey! Your feedback is important as we plan the training and exercises for the new year.

This year was a busy one with the new team drills and the Spring and Fall SETs. The ARES trailer was deployed with each of the teams for some great hands-on training. We hope everyone had a chance to participate in a few of these important training exercises.

The four new digital go-kits are completed and now each team has one. Training on their use will be a priority for the coming year. A special thanks to the kit building team: Brian, Matthew, John B, Kenny, Ralph, Joe, John U., Patti U., Eli, Adam, and Deb. They spent several weekends building these new additions. The project was larger than originally expected as the team also built four kits for Mercy Corps along with the ARES kits. Way to go everyone!

Marino KG7EMV has decided to step down as net manager for our weekly net beginning January 1, 2018. He has done a fantastic job keeping the net controls reminded of their duties and keeping the logs up to date. Thank you Marino for your years of service!

Leadership is looking for a new net manager. Is this something you are interested in? We would love to hear from you! Send an email to leadership [at] multnomahares [dot] org.

Please remember to check your email for the annual MCARES survey! This information helps leadership plan for the coming year.

Join me in welcoming our newest members, Kimberly KJ6YWS, James W7NJ, Douglas KI7IPZ, and Marshall K7MWG. Kimberly and Marshall will join the Charlie team, James joins the Bravo team, and Douglas joins the Delta team. Way to go everyone for spreading the word about MCARES!