Please join me in welcoming our newest members, Sean K2CRW, Phyllis W6STZ, Mark KI7FJA, Emily N7EMH, and Ernie KI7EFT.
Our recruiting efforts are paying off. We have gained 28 new members since January. Thanks to everyone spreading the word.
July ARES Meeting Location Change: the Thursday, July 28 meeting will be at Sellwood Park picnic area I (India). Our annual Go-Kit Show and Tell will include a BBQ. Nate will be grilling burgers and Deb will serve chili dogs. YUM! Water and soda will also be provided. Bring a side dish or dessert to share.
The ARES trailer will be on display for those who have not yet seen our awesome new Mobile Communications Unit. Adam will be telling you about all of its amazing features.
Bring your family and/or friends who are interested in ham radio to feast and see all the innovative go-kits that our members have put together. If you don’t have a go-kit yet you will be inspired to build one!
The annual HF Campout date is set. Mark your calendar for September 23 and 24 and join us at Fort Stevens for our Second Annual HF campout. This year we will be operating as a National Parks on The Air (NPOTA) station to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of our National Parks service. This will be a great event to learn more about HF operations and have some fun and fellowship with other members. Robert WX5TEX is taking reservations for those who would like to get their HF certification; give him a shout at robert6594j [at] gmail [dot] com.
We have reserved several campsites. If you plan to attend, let Robert know so we can make sure there is room for all. Last year’s spaghetti and meatball dinner was a real hit so there could be an encore performance if Marino KG7EMV will bring his favorite Italian pasta.
Congratulations to John Core KX7YK, who is the new ARRL Oregon Section Manager. He replaces retiring Everett Curry W6ABM.
Sadly, we received word that Race for the Cure will no longer be using amateur radio for their communications. I personally will miss this yearly event. I have worked this event every year since I first got my Technician license in 2005.
Again this year MCARES joined the Portland Amateur Radio Club (PARC) on Kelly Butte for ARRL Field Day. Field Day is an annual amateur radio event, encouraging emergency communications operations and contesting among amateur radio operators. It is typically the largest single emergency preparedness exercise in the country, with over 30,000 operators participating each year.
It’s also about outreach and education, letting new hams experience HF contesting, and demonstrating ham radio to the public. But mostly, it’s a fun chance to camp out and play with radios for 24 hours.
Since the new McARES trailer was going to participate again, Deb KK7DEB and John KF7ZWX did some tree pruning near its traditional parking spot early in the week. Then Pete W7PR spearheaded cleaning the operating area and hanging the dipole antenna support ropes in the trees on Friday. As always, Pete’s use of the pneumatic tennis ball launcher system was a big attraction.
Antenna hanging started early Saturday morning. Pete is so experienced with hanging these antennas over the years, his team made short work of it. The station in the trailer used the venerable, 25+ year old extended Zepp 192-foot twinlead-fed dipole again this year, which is cut a little longer than a half wave dipole on 75m to increase its directionality. Lee’s CW station used his 20m ZL Special, which is a pair of phased folded dipoles made of 450ohm twinlead set up with directional gain pointing east. In the evenings it’s reconfigured with radials as a top loaded vertical to operate on 80m and 40m. Pete also hoisted an Alpha Delta DC-CC, which is a commercial 10-80m 82-foot dipole, up about 75 feet.
Deb arrived early with the trailer and had it set up in no time. Its propane fueled generator powered everything in the camp, except the radios, for 24 hours without a hitch – including battery recharging duty.
The trailer also furnished area WiFi for all the logging stations used by the radio operators. PARC has been using the Field Day edition of a contesting software package called Amateur Contest Log for years, and it has excellent multi-operator network capabilities. Unfortunately, the trailer’s WiFi couldn’t reach even one station, so Brian KE7QPV configured one of his mesh nodes as a repeater. You could get a signal in Salem with his outdoor, high-gain antenna.
Brian also brought his amazing HSMM Mesh display and did a bunch of experimenting over the evening with all his different hardware configurations. Deb brought the new MCARES solar generator display which was very popular and a big draw with the visitors. Nathan N9VCU grilled up a storm during the day and the evening potluck was delicious!
With three stations operating over 24 hours, over 300 contacts were made covering 45 states by 21 operators. See the adjacent screenshot of the cool worked-states map.
Over 70 visitors came by and signed the log, a jump from last year. Amazingly, Adam KF7LJH wasn’t told mysterious secrets by a coyote in his tent this year (the story gets exaggerated with each telling).
If you couldn’t make it this year, definitely put it on your calendar for next year – it’s the most fun you’ll have with ham radio short of a DX expedition!
The July meeting will be our annual Go-Kit Show and Tell, and we encourage everyone to bring their field operating gear and ideas to demonstrate and discuss. We’re stepping things up a bit this year, showing off the Multnomah County ARES communications trailer and hosting a pot-luck picnic and barbeque.
The meeting will be held on Thursday, July 28 from 7 PM to 9 PM at Sellwood Park in Portland. We have reserved Picnic Area I, which is at the north end of the park, near the parking lot, and we’ll be starting to set things up around 6 PM. There will be room around the picnic area to show off your go-kits (bring a camp-style table if you’d like; just don’t plan to stake anything into the ground).
Thanks to individual donations we collected at the last meeting, Multnomah County ARES will be providing burgers, hot dogs, sodas, plates, and utensils for the picnic. Members are encouraged to bring their go-kit, a side dish to share, their family, and anyone they may know who is interested in Amateur Radio.
Please join me in welcoming our newest members, Robert K7AAD, Eric KI6MU, and Jiro KG7YVJ. Welcome back to Richard KF7INQ.
The newly formed North County Field Relay Team is starting up with Ian K6IBX, Pavel KG7LXB, and Nick KG7ZEA. Nate N9VCU is the team leader and we are excited to expand our mobile capabilities to another section of the county.
The County ARES ID card process has hit a bit of a snag as the Multnomah County Sheriff’s office is now requiring a copy of your picture ID to be included with the background check form. We will be taking pictures at the June 23 meeting so please bring your picture ID (driver’s license). You can also email that picture to me at dprovo [at] yahoo [dot] com. I can hear some of you grumbling about this, however it is not something we have any control over. Believe me, I have tried.
The Sheriff’s office has also made a few changes to the background form and we need to make sure your form is the newest version as they will no longer accept the previous form. We will have the newest form available at the June meeting as well.
Cascadia Rising is now behind us and a big thanks to all who participated to make this a successful ARES/County/City exercise. Winlink again proved to be an efficient way to move messages to the State OEM and around the county. In all we had 24 of our members active during the three-day exercise and over 90 messages moved from here to there and back again.
Sea-Pac was June 4 and 5. Several of our members were there to show and tell the mostly completed Mobile Communications Unit (MCU). There was a lot of interest from area hams on the build and design and it is a wonder that Adam KF7LJH still has a voice left as he was a busy fellow giving tours. Brian KE7QPV had a display of a working HSMM Mesh node that also was very popular. Brian will be bringing his display and making an HSMM presentation at our June 23 ARES meeting. Steve W7SRH was also there promoting MCARES and is hopeful that we may add a few new members.
Field Day is coming! Mark your calendar for June 25 and 26. Multnomah County ARES has been invited to partner with the Portland Amateur Radio Club for field operations at Kelly Butte Park located at SE 103rd Avenue in Portland – turn south from Division and follow the road up the hill to the end. The ARES MCU will be operating there too. You can also join our east county friends at Hoodview Amateur Radio Club at their field operations up at Larch Mountain; follow Historic Columbia Hwy to Larch Mt. Road. Field Day is a great opportunity to meet and visit with other hams, see multi-mode field operations, and get on the air!
A new recurring net has been created with the goal of exploring some digital modes that should be useful for emergency communications. We’re using UHF and we’re initially focusing on SSTV (slow scan television) for image transfer and Fldigi for keyboard-to-keyboard text-based conversation. The net meets on the first Tuesday of the month at 8:00pm on the 443.300 MHz repeater, which requires a 100.0 Hz tone.
A deluxe rig for both SSTV and Fldigi would include a laptop with an external sound card (such as the popular SignaLink USB sound card) cabled to your 70cm radio, but simpler setups can also work. For instance, there’s an SSTV program for the iPhone that can produce the right tones from the speaker, which you could hold close to your radio’s microphone. SSTV transmissions can then be decoded by holding your phone’s microphone close to your radio’s speaker. There are Fldigi apps available for Android, but we haven’t seen one for iOS.
This net is totally about troubleshooting and practice, so feel free to join even if you’ve never used these modes before and you aren’t sure whether your rig will work. Matthew AF7PV is the net manager, and questions about the net may be directed to him at digitalnetmanager [at] multnomahares [dot] org. Links to useful software can be found on the Digital Net page.
Welcome to David KC7YOE and Bert WA7HI who have reactivated their membership. We had six of our new members at the basics workshop on May 14 and they will return on May 22 to complete their ARRO certification. Thanks to Eli W7ELI for arranging and teaching this very important training.
Congratulations to Brian KE7QPV, Matthew AF7PV, Marino KG7EMV, Joel N7LF, Steve W7SRH, Eli W7ELI, Doug KG7MJJ, Deb KK7DEB, and Bert WA7HI who have all completed their Packet RMS Radio Operator certification. A big thanks to Adam KF7LJH for arranging this session on May 15 and for all his hard work in putting together this new aspect of our training program. It is hoped that many more of our members will seek this certification as RMS/Winlink is in great demand and sometimes preferred over voice.
Portland Public Schools (PPS) is in the process of forming a ham radio club. Molly Emmons, the emergency preparedness manager for PPS, has requested that MCARES provide consultation to the group as they put their new organization together. Initially, the membership will be made up of faculty and staff. Once things are up and running, students will be encouraged to participate. This may lead to incorporating ham technology into the curriculum at some point in the future.
It is envisioned that one of the major benefits of forming this club will be to have AROs located in school facilities all across the district. This could have a huge impact on communication connectivity during times of extreme emergency.
Steve Konrad AF7DD and Steve Hall W7SRH made a presentation to 35 faculty of the PPS on April 27 at the club’s initial organizational meeting. Attendees were introduced to ARES involvement in emergency communications and community service activities. Steve Konrad is helping Molly coordinate a study process for those interested in becoming licensed which will culminate in a test session scheduled for June 11.
PPS is also partnering with Multnomah County government and Portland Bureau of Emergency Management regarding other preparedness efforts.
PPS is a Pre K-12 district with an enrollment of approximately 48,500 students and 3,000 teachers. About 85 schools and 50 special needs sites are maintained within the district.
The components for two digital go-kits for Multnomah County ARES have been purchased and the items are trickling in. Two 120 Watt portable solar panels are also on their way. Our thanks to Chris Voss and Alice Busch for making this happen! These kits will add an exciting new digital capacity to our West Side Field Relay Team and future East Side Field Relay Team. We are fortunate to have such great support from our Multnomah County Emergency Management Leadership!
The kits will include:
- a Kenwood D710GA radio with built in TNC,
- Power supply,
- SignaLink USB,
- Small Laptop computer,
- Portable mast kit with antenna and coax,
- Mag-mount antenna,
- Digital camera,
- and a yellow Pelican case.
Robert WX5TEX, our resident master kit builder, will assemble all the parts into an amazing little kit for grab-and-go deployment.
The City of Gresham has received the laptops for RMS/Winlink connections to the EOC and five fire stations. RMS Express has been installed and Robert is working on the needed wiring to make this happen. All Gresham team members should brush up on their skills and training. Testing of the equipment will occur sometime this summer.
The MCARES Mobile Communications Unit (trailer) will be going to Seaside for all to see at the Sea-Pac Ham Convention June 3, 4, and 5. If you are going to Sea-Pac please stop by for a closer look; the trailer will be located across the street from the main entrance. It is our hope that we can recruit new members at Sea-Pac. Contact Steve at W7SRH [at] ARRL [dot] net if you can staff the trailer for a few hours to talk up MCARES.
The trailer has been granted a club callsign and we are waiting for approval of the vanity callsign, N7MCU.
The trailer is fully functional, however many small details are still being worked on. The next phase is exterior graphics and then comes training, training, and more training.
Cascadia Rising is June 7, 8, 9, and 10. There are a few 4-1⁄2 hour shifts that still need to be staffed. If you are able to lend a hand contact Deb KK7DEB at dprovo [at] yahoo [dot] com. We will be operating at the County ECC, PBEM ECC and the Mobile Comms Unit (Trailer). Operations will be from 8:00 AM until 4:30 PM Tuesday through Friday.