It is nearly time once again for the annual Walk MS event in Portland. Multnomah County ARES is honored to have been asked by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to provide communications support for their event again this year. In years past this event has been well regarded as a training and public service event for the Amateur Radio community.
The event takes place on Saturday, April 15 from approximately 08:00 to 14:00, and is held in downtown Portland along the Esplanade and in the World Trade Center Plaza.
To learn more, or to sign up to help, please visit the Walk MS Portland Communications Volunteer Registration Form.
UPDATE: Due to amazing volunteer turnout, we have been able to staff all event communications positions much earlier than expected. We have therefore decided to close volunteer registration early, on March 8. This will allow the event communications team more time to finalize position assignments and other details before the event.
2017 has already been a busy time for MCARES outreach. Here’s a quick look at what’s been happening.
Fix-It Fair
On January 28, Adam KF7LJH and I staffed a Fix-It Fair event at George Middle School. We estimate that several hundred people were in attendance!
One of the primary reasons for attending these types of events is to recruit new ARES members. We had the good fortune to be set up right next to our partners from Portland NET. There was a steady stream of folks interested in learning what we do to support Multnomah County. Conversations with a number of attendees may well lead to some new members.
We introduced two new twists to this event. Adam demonstrated a digital go-kit, which proved to be a big draw to our display. We also brought along a continuous loop slide presentation, featuring many of you at past MCARES events. Our slide presentation needs a little more work, but it provided a great source of activity at our table.
There were over 60 different organizations represented at this Fix-It Fair. Learn more about Fix-It Fairs!
PacTrust Presentation
On February 16, Joe WA7FWC, Eli W7ELI, and I made a presentation to about 35 employees of PacTrust. PacTrust is one of the Pacific Northwest’s largest real estate developers and investment property owners. We were invited to talk about the MCARES organization and how we support the emergency communications infrastructure. Joe also demonstrated both image transfer and Winlink messaging.
Looking Ahead
Our next scheduled outreach event will be on Saturday, February 25. Rolf KI4HOP, Bob N6ZKL, and I will provide a MCARES presence at the Overlook Sustainability Summit. The theme of this event is Putting Preparedness into Action. The event will run from 9:45 AM to 2:00 PM at Beach Elementary School Auditorium at 1710 N Humboldt Street in Portland. If you have some free time that day, stop by and say hello.
If you are interested in helping out at an outreach event, contact Steve W7SRH at hallstr [at] hotmail [dot] com and get on the Outreach Roster. No presentation expertise is required; just come along to learn and share your own experiences with MCARES.
Our first team exercise was last Saturday with the Charlie and Alpha teams. The Mike (ARES Trailer) team also participated as a field station for the Alpha team. The focus was on sending ICS 213 messages both by voice and Winlink, and image transfer via SSTV. Logging on the ICS 214 and ICS 309 was also a top priority. The primary planning was done by the Charlie team and they did a great job. The County ECC was activated by the Alpha team and Lewis and Clark was activated by the Charlie team. Both teams had one field team acting as shelter locations. In all we had 18 AROs active for the 2 hour exercise.
The feedback from the teams was extremely positive. Team members really appreciated the opportunity to get hands-on experience. Everyone felt this was time well spent and they learned a lot. Mother Nature was even cooperative and seemed to approve by giving us mild temperatures and clear skies. Thanks Charlie and Alpha team members for spending a few hours to sharpen your skills.
All members are strongly encouraged to participate in their team drills. The next one is March 11th with the Bravo and Echo teams.
Our February meeting is nearly here! We will have 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 and will start with general announcements, followed by a presentation on power options and expectations for field operations. The meeting will be held at the Portland Fire and Rescue training center at 4800 NE 122nd Ave in Portland.
Anyone who is interested in emergency communications is encouraged to join us! Additional information about our monthly meetings can be found on the meeting page.
Join me in welcoming our newest members, Kathi KA6TND, Barney KD2VB, and Dan N7CQR.
Our membership drive for 2016 brought us 35 new ARES members! This brings our total membership to 87. Of the 87 members we have 72 which are “Active Members”. Remember that we need to see you four times per year to retain “Active status.” We would love to continue to grow and expand our capabilities so for 2017 let’s keep the drive alive!
Steve AF7DD is stepping back from the Training Manager position, so once again I am filing that role. Thanks to Steve for all his service and hard work this past year. Steve will still be around and has some other projects he will continue to work on.
This year’s training calendar has been built around the needs of the county and the requests of our membership from the fall survey. We are only including training subjects pertinent to our ARES mission and so some of the requests have not been addressed. We do not use D-Star, IRLP, or Echolink. Those interested in these modes can seek information of these subjects from the local clubs, Google, YouTube, and the many ARRL publications and online resources.
Portland Bureau of Emergency Management has many excellent resources on their website regarding personal, family and neighborhood disaster preparedness. It is each ARES member’s responsibility to be as prepared as is possible and reasonable so that you and your family will be safe, and you will be able to serve when needed.
We will no longer be passing around a sign-up sheet for net control at the monthly meetings. Instead, each team will be assigned a month. This will give more folks a chance and we hope that every member will do it at least once. If you want help or moral support for your first time, just ask your team leader. An orange Go-Kit will be available for those needing a higher powered radio.
The Digital net has been very successful and several members are gaining expertise in sending images both with sound card (SignaLink) and acoustic coupling, which only requires a radio and a smart phone. The Open Camera app for Android devices and Solocator for Android and iOS devices are camera apps that can embed GPS coordinates as well as time/date stamp onto the image. GPS coordinates must be included for images to be of any use to Emergency Management. Both apps are free. The DroidSSTV app for Android devices costs $6.99 and is what most of the smartphone users are using to send pictures from our phones; there is also an iOS app for this. You just hold the phone to the radio, hold down the PTT and send. You can check into the net for help in setting these up.
The Traffic Handling Training Net (THTN) is gaining ground. We had 18 checkins on our last net. We sent two ICS 213s and a radiogram, and got lots of questions answered. You can use sample 213s to practice sending on the net, or compose your own NTS Radiogram.
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Thanks to everyone who responded to the annual survey. The leadership team meeting in December reviewed and tried to address your requests and suggestions. This year’s calendar reflects many of your requests for more training and additional certification opportunities. The new monthly team drills are small scale exercises involving two teams. They are designed to give everyone more experience with our served agencies and field operations.
On January 7 we were informed that the Multnomah County office of Emergency Management and the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) were opening a joint ECC for weather issues. It seemed like a great opportunity to show our abilities with a quickly put together SSTV demonstration. Adam took our new digital go kit to PBEM and eight of our members were able to send from their homes images of the current snow fall and conditions. The pretty cool part is that the pictures were uploaded to WebEOC and displayed on the map using the GPS coordinates embedded on the photos. The Portland EM staff had their first look at this ham radio technology and seemed pretty impressed.
Robert WX5TEX will be leading the Q&A sessions at 6:15 PM prior to our monthly meetings. Bring your questions and he will help you get the answers. New members are encouraged to attend also.
Nate will be reviewing the changes for 2017 and he will cover logging and ICS forms with us all at the January 26 meeting. Hope to see everyone there!
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Please join us for our first general membership meeting of 2017!
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 and will cover Leadership updates for 2017 as well as provide training on logging and forms. Everyone is welcome!
The meeting will be held on Thursday, January 26 at the Portland Fire & Rescue Training Center at 4800 NE 122nd Avenue in Portland.
Please join us in welcoming our new member, Bill K7WXW.
