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!
If you would like to build your very own J-Pole, here is your chance! On Saturday, February 3, I will conduct a workshop where participants will build a copper pipe J-Pole antenna for the 2-meter band. This is the antenna build we demonstrated at the November, 2017 General Membership Meeting.
There will be a fee of $15.00 per person to cover the cost of materials. Space is limited, and advance registration is required so we can procure materials. Contact training [at] multnomahares [dot] org to sign up.
Please join us for our general membership meeting on Thursday, January 25 at the Portland Fire and Rescue training center at 4800 NE 122nd Ave in Portland. There will be a Q&A session and informal gathering for new members from 18:15 to 19:00. The main meeting will run from 19:00 to 21:00. You do not need to be a member to attend – everyone is welcome!
We will meet in the main room at 19:00 for leadership updates and general business, and then break into two groups for introductory and advanced discussions of Winlink operations. You are free to choose either session, based on your level of experience.
John KI7LYP and Eli W7ELI will provide an introduction to Winlink software for newer users. Bring your laptops and join in while they demonstrate how to configure the software, find forms, and create and send messages. We will be using the WiFi in the training facility to send and receive real messages.
Adam KF7LJH will lead the advanced session for more experienced users who would like to learn how to operate/interface with a TNC and SignaLink, find gateway stations, and operate using a packet session.
There will not be a general membership meeting this month, due to the holidays. Instead, the Leadership team will be meeting for a day-long planning session to work out our training and event schedule, and other business, for 2018. Have a great holiday month, and we’ll see you in January!
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.
Multnomah County ARES has an open position for Net Manager. The Net Manager’s primary job is to make sure there is a net control operator scheduled each week for our Wednesday night net, and to bring to the net content which will be interesting and valuable for net attendees. The Net Manager is also responsible for keeping a log of net checkins and maintaining the net control script.
If you are interested in taking on these duties, or if you would like more information, please contact leadership [at] multnomahares [dot] org.
I am leading a set of workshops for members who would like to be certified in Winlink operations. I will provide an overview of the Winlink system and will go into detail on configuring Winlink Express, sending and receiving messages, and using templates. Plenty of time will be provided for hands-on practice, and operators who feel ready will have an opportunity to complete their check sheet and earn their Packet RMS Radio Operator (PRRO) certification.
There are two workshop dates currently planned, and more will be added if there is interest. Locations will vary, in an effort to make travel easier for folks in different parts of the county. Each workshop is scheduled to run for four hours, but we’ll probably finish earlier.
Upcoming Dates
December 2, 13:00 to 17:00, in St. Johns
January 13, 13:00 to 17:00, in Gresham
These workshops are open to all Multnomah County ARES members who have completed their ARRO certification, however space is limited. To sign up for either workshop, email me at KE7QPV [at] arrl [dot] net.
Tagged as:
digital modes,
Winlink
This month’s meeting will be one week early due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We will have a demonstration of making a copper j-pole antenna. This will be followed up in January with a Saturday workshop, where participants will be charged a small fee for parts and will go home with an antenna.
Please join us for our general membership meeting on Thursday, November 16 at the Portland Fire and Rescue training center at 4800 NE 122nd Ave in Portland. There will be a Q&A session and informal gathering for new members from 18:15 to 19:00. The main meeting will run from 19:00 to 21:00. Everyone is welcome!
Additional information about our monthly meetings can be found on the meeting page.
We had a great meeting tonight! There were 52 attendees, including representation from the Multnomah County Office of Emergency Management (MCEM) and the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM). We had five new people with us this evening.
The meeting was started off by our EC, Nathan N9VCU, who covered general business and announcements, and then presented certificates to two members who recently completed their ARRO certification. Michael AE7XP made an announcement about the NET Net, which is held at 20:10 every Sunday night on the ARRG 147.040 MHz (100.0 Hz tone) repeater – this is MC6 in the regional frequency template.
Chris Voss and Alice Busch from MCEM addressed the membership, thanking us for our service, and presented certificates of appreciation to the volunteers who helped with the Eagle Creek fire response. Mark McKay, also from MCEM, presented certificates of appreciation to those who helped with communications in Grant County during the solar eclipse in August.
A panel of six folks – three ARES volunteers, two Multnomah County employees, and one City of Portland employee – talked about their experience in Grant County during the eclipse. They had some very interesting stories about the technical and logistical challenges they encountered, and lessons learned.
