The new 2025 frequency templates have been posted to the website (Resources > Frequency Lists).
Please reprogram your radios soon!
We will not have our usual 4th Thursday meeting on August 28! Instead, we will have a Go Kit Show and Tell on Saturday, August 23 from 10 AM until 12 PM at the Portland Fire & Rescue Training Center at 4800 NE 122nd Avenue.
We are very excited to have both of our ARES trailers at this event. Many of you have not seen the west side “Red” trailer and now is your chance to see the amazing transformation by Joe and other Charlie team members. Please try to stop by for a tour of both trailers and bring and share your go kit design. If you are still planning to build one this is a great place to get a few ideas from your fellow members.
We have completed our summer 2025 Ultra Marathon race season. Thanks to all who helped out and a special thanks to our planning team: Jeff, Robert T., and Phyllis. The three races that we provided communications for seemed to go quite smoothly this year thanks to their oversight and planning! We hope to encourage more of our members to participate next year.
The GPS food drive this past weekend sure was fun and we were able to collect lots of much needed food items to donate to the Snowcap food pantry. I know the need is even greater this year with the lack of funding. Thank you to all who participated and helped us collect 235 pounds of food!
We are planning to be back at PCC Community Hall for our September and October meetings. Please plan on participating in our annual team field exercise on Saturday, September 6. Details will be coming soon.
This Saturday is our annual Member Appreciation Picnic! We hope you will join us at Wilshire Park, NE 33rd Avenue and NE Skidmore Street in Portland, at Picnic Area A, from 11:30 AM until 3:00 PM. We will be cooking up burgers and hot dogs, and will have plenty of cold drinks. Bring the family and a side dish or dessert to share if you would like. The weather is looking good for a mid-day gathering!
Thanks to all who helped out at the Mt. Hood Ultra-marathon this past weekend!
We will not be holding a General Meeting in July.
Happy summer (almost)!
Thanks to everyone who signed up to help out at the summer Ultra Marathons. The first event is this month at Mt. Hood near Parkdale. The WY’ East Wonder happens to fall on Field Day weekend.
If you are not joining us at Mt. Hood, we hope you all have a chance to join either Portland Amateur Radio Club (PARC) or Hoodview Amateur Radio Club (HARC) at their weekend events.
PARC will be at 32355 NW Beach Rd. in Hillsboro and HARC will be at Larch Mountain, east of Corbett.
Our monthly meeting will feature Bob W7JNM giving a presentation about SSTV. This is a hybrid meeting and we hope you can join us at Portland Community College SE campus, Community Hall or online with Zoom.
This month’s meeting will be online via Zoom and is one week early, on Thursday, November 16. We do not have a December membership meeting, however the Leadership team will meet to plan for next year. If you have suggestions for trainings for 2024, please email leadership [at] multnomahares [dot] org. We value your input!
We hope you will join us for the SKYWARN Recognition Day on December 2 at the Portland National Weather Service office.
Multnomah and Clackamas County ARES have been asked to partner in supporting the National Weather Service (NWS) SKYWARN Recognition Day. Last year we had a fun time, and the NWS staff are great to work with. The tour of their facility is really interesting. The event is scheduled to take place Saturday, December 2 at the Portland Weather Service office located at 5241 NE 122nd Avenue in Portland.
Operations will start at 8:00 AM and end at 4:00 PM. The Multnomah ARES Mobile Communications Unit will be set up in the parking area for operations, so you will be warm and dry. The goal is to make contacts with other participating NWS offices and SKYWARN members. Contacts will be made using HF, VHF, and Winlink. It is anticipated that two local repeaters will be used during the event.
Each 2.5 hour shift will include a radio operator and a logger. The operator and logger may switch off during their shift. Volunteers will also be needed to help with set up and take down before and after operating hours. Tours of the NWS office will take place at scheduled times during the day.
Members are encouraged to sign up for shifts.
We hope you can join us. Let’s show our support for the NWS SKYWARN program!
This month’s meeting will be in person at Portland Community College, SE 82nd Ave and SE Division St, in the Community Hall meeting room. This will be the last in person meeting for the year.
We will switch to Zoom for the November 16 (one week early), January, and February meetings. We do not have a December membership meeting, however the Leadership team meets for planning for next year. The holidays are a busy time for us all. Eli and Dylan will be teaming up to give us a refresher traffic handling and forms course for the October meeting.
We hope you will join us for the Shakeout exercise on October 19 and the AREDN/mesh demo on the 21st. See your email for details on both of these events. We have been contacted by the Portland office of the National Weather Service (NWS) to help again this year with their SkyWarn 2023 event. We are working on details and it looks like this will be December 2 unless there is a government shutdown happening at that time. Please save the date as this was really fun last year and very much appreciated by our local NWS folks.
Fall has definitely arrived! It is a good time to check your go kit and include colder weather gear and rain protection. Check your batteries to make sure they are fully charged or perhaps needing replacement.
On Saturday, October 21, MCARES, PBEM, and Cascade Amateur Radio Society (CARS) are presenting an AREDN mesh networking demonstration and hands-on training event. Hosted by PBEM at the ECC facility at 9911 SE Bush St, the event will run from 09:00 to 12:00. We will set up in the parking lot just south of the ECC building, and also use some of nearby Ed Benedict Park. There will be two presentations with the same content at 09:15 and 10:30, under a canopy in the parking lot. The rest of the event is drop-in style. The presentations will show what you can do on the mesh network, different node types, and how the equipment works.
If you’d like to set up a mesh field station during the event, you will need:
- your own laptop, tablet, or phone with a browser (Firefox works fine);
- optional umbrella or cover to protect your laptop in case of light rain;
- an ethernet connection to your device using either a built-in jack or dongle;
- your own somewhat long ethernet cable.
Everyone who comes should bring a laptop to go on the mesh, even if you do not want to set up a field station. You will have full mesh access via normal WiFi without needing to do anything more than bringing your laptop.
We will provide the mesh equipment and power supply ready for you to practice with. Please bring a folding chair for the presentation, and for later use if you’ll be setting up a field station.
If you already have flashed AREDN software onto one or more mesh node devices, bring them and try them out. If you’re not sure about a particular device, bring it along and we can help you evaluate it. If you don’t have any mesh equipment, this session will help you choose what to purchase.
Stay as long as you like to explore the various mesh services available. We will demonstrate file servers and other services like live chat and email. Anyone with a Winlink account will be able to and is encouraged to send and receive Winlink messages over the mesh.
Assuming that no actual emergency arises during the event, PBEM staff may also be able to provide brief tours of the ECC and radio room for interested participants.
We will need volunteers at 08:00 and at 12:00 to help us set up the canopies and disassemble things afterwards. Your lending a hand with that will help expedite the event.
Contact Roger Wirt (KI7RW [at] ARRL [dot] NET) with any questions.
An anticipated AREDN mesh orientation and demo is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, October 21. Mesh antennas have now been installed at enough high places to provide ad hoc access in various parts of Multnomah County. What it takes to connect, and how we can expand the network with additional nodes, will be among the topics addressed at the October 21 meeting, so please mark that date on your calendar if you’d like to learn more about AREDN mesh systems and how portable arrangements may be useful to ARES. More information will be provided as the date approaches.
This month’s meeting will be in person at Warner Pacific University, SE 68th Ave and SE Division St – a new location for us as our usual meeting space at Portland Community College SE is not available. I will send a detailed map next week.
Adam and Jeff with be presenting an overview of the 3 ultra marathons that we provided communications for this summer. We will also have instructions and a demonstration of using acoustic coupling for SSTV (slow scan TV) using your cell phone and radio.
Fall is in the air! We will be moving to online Zoom meetings for at least January and February, and possibly November.
A reminder: The new 2023 Regional Template has been posted to the website. There are several important changes to the Multnomah County frequencies and we hope you will get your radios programmed soon. The County and Cities EOCs are all updated as well as all the MCARES go kits. If you need help programming your radio, contact your team leader.