The Red Cross station has amateur equipment for voice and digital on HF, VHF, and UHF, plus commercial voice equipment for HF, MF (47MHz), and UHF (463MHz). The Portland headquarters is responsible for all Oregon counties (except for Malheur county) and six counties in Ssouthwest Washington. We could get called upon to provide communication for disasters in any of those counties. The team is responsible for communication between headquarters and the various mobile feeding trucks and any shelters using amateur or commercial radios as appropriate.
A new year brings new opportunities to improve communication skills and have some fun along the way. We completed our January General Meeting with 74 in attendance, including some who were there to express interest in becoming a member of ARES.
Some of the areas the organization will focus on this year include building on our excellent General Meeting training experiences. In addition, we will soon be announcing new content and material in response to the year-end surveys you have completed.
Recruiting is a second area leadership will focus on during the year. Steve W7SRH is leading a small group and is currently assembling a tactical plan to achieve an additional 30 members this year. This may include a licensing class for those seeking to become a ham and an ARES member.
We currently have over 15 people who have completed the Net Control workshop, and they are getting scheduled through Marino KG7EMV to run their first MCARES Weekly Net.
Our February General Meeting focuses on ICS forms and logging (ICS 309, 213, and 214). Eli W7ELI and I will team teach this meeting.
Our March General Meeting focuses on Net Control and Net Protocol. Guest speaker Hal KC7ZZB will be our lead for this meeting. Hal is Net Manager for the D1 Net, assistant manager for the NTTN and has years of experience as net control for the Race for the Cure and other public service events as well as some actual disaster radio experience. This should be an entertaining and informative meeting.
Remember that resistance is not futile. It’s voltage divided by current.
Chris Voss, Emergency Manager, and Alice Busch, Operations Chief, attended our January general meeting and were impressed with our attendance of 74, a new record. They have expressed a willingness to procure for us six field digital go-kits and a drone! 2016 looks more and more exciting as we expand our knowledge and capabilities.
We are working on plans to issue county ID cards for all our active members. More details coming soon.
The team – Dylan W7KEF, Bob N6ZKL, and Steve W7SRH – has held several email discussions during January and February to review team organization and do an equipment and skills inventory. The team will set up and operate a resource net for the upcoming February 16 exercise being conducted in conjunction with Multnomah County Emergency Management.
Thank you everybody for participating in our Weekly MCARES Wednesday Net. The 2015 numbers are in and we got just shy of one thousand checkins to the Net! The tallied total for 2015 is 972 checkins; an average of 18 per week.
Here are the most dedicated MCARES net participants of 2015:
| Name/Callsign | Checkins |
| Deb KK7DEB | 51 |
| Eli W6ELI | 49 |
| Dylan W7KEF | 37 |
| John KF7ZWX | 37 |
| Michael AE7XP | 36 |
| Marino KG7EMV | 35 |
| Steve W7SRH | 35 |
| Lori W3LOR | 34 |
| Matthew AF7PV | 34 |
| Nate N9VCU | 34 |
| Rolf KI4HOP | 32 |
| Paul N7NTW | 31 |
| Helen KE7SCS | 29 |
| Adam KF7LJH | 28 |
Thank you to all who participated and those who took their turns at Net Control!
We are looking forward to training a new class of operators and getting them certified as Net Control Operators. If you have any questions about this certification please inquire with our new training manager, Steve Konrad AF7DD.
We have heard your feedback and in 2016 we will shake up things a bit and try to make this Wednesday Net even more informative and interesting for you. While the initial part of the Net will retain the familiar preamble and check-in sections, in the latter part of the Net we will experiment with different formats and bring original content. This may include notable special guests, flash talks (5 minutes max) on subjects of interest and updates from the ECs or other EmComm group representatives. Some ideas are in the works. We cannot do it without your input and feedback! Let us know what you think by sending us email at leadership [at] multnomahares [dot] org.
On Thursday January 21, I along with three other leadership team members, Deb KK7DEB, Adam KF7LJH, and Steve AF7DD, made a presentation at the monthly Hoodview Amateur Radio Club (HARC) meeting. Our focus was on the MCARES mission as well as providing an update on our comms trailer project. HARC made a donation to the trailer fund raising drive. The following evening, January 22, I gave a comms trailer update to the Portland Amateur Radio Club (PARC). PARC is a major sponsor of the trailer project.
On Sunday, February 8, I attended a Western Oregon Radio Club (WORC) D-Star workshop where I made several contacts and did some networking with WORC and OTVARC members. On February 9, I gave a brief recruitment presentation to the Multnomah Neighborhood Association meeting.
On Sunday January 25, members of the leadership team met to discuss and develop a new member recruitment strategy. On Monday February 8, Deb, Eli W7ELI, Steve and I met to continue the discussion on recruitment and new member strategy. I have made contact with six VEs to discuss their assistance in disseminating MCARES recruitment materials to hams who just passed their technician test or upgraded their license. Also, during this same time frame I have made several MCARES recruitment QSTs on the Heart Net, NET Net and the ARES D1 Net. Follow-up letters were sent to eight prospective members following the January general membership meeting.
In case you haven’t heard, Gresham ECC was issued our station callsign, which is WG7EOC.
We will be having an HF operator certification session at the Gresham ECC on Saturday, March 12, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM. This is open to all ARRO certified MCARES members. To attend this session, contact Robert WX5TEX at RGAnglin [at] gmail [dot] com.
We are looking to staff several locations in the east half of Multnomah County, including several Gresham Fire stations as well as Troutdale and Fairview. If you or someone you know is interested in working on a team on the east side, contact Robert.
The Rover Team looks forward to participating in all the MCARES SETs and events that are planned for 2016. Many of us are also planning to join in on some of the exercises and training organized by the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management (PBEM) Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) and Basic Emergency Earthquake Communication Node (BEECN) programs.
At 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 27, there will be an exercise of the BEECN system, and Rovers – and non-Rovers – are serving as net controls, fire station amateur radio operators (AROs), BEECN cache radio operators, and Roamers. Roamers are trouble-shooters who typically ride with a Portland Fire & Rescue staff person among the stations and BEECN sites, assisting with radio issues.
Several Rovers are also helping the NET program as trainers to begin the new NET ARO standards and certification program. Based largely on the MCARES ARRO certification program, the new standards will require AROs to demonstrate proficiency in a number of areas of operations. In addition to most of the MCARES ARRO Task List items, NET ARO candidates must demonstrate proficiency with fire station VHF and UHF (BEECN) radio go-kits, explain the ICS205 form, pass the FEMA IS 800 and IS 802 courses, and – in lieu of formal message handling – demonstrate competence with an abbreviated form called tactical message handling.
The Rover Team currently has 11 members. The Team members do not have a MCARES served agency but are instead committed to some other activity or agency in the event of a disaster. All of the members currently are NET members and have their respective NETs as their obligation in an emergency.
As we near the end of another successful year, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of the members that make Multnomah County ARES possible. Currently there are in excess of 70 active members in Multnomah County ARES. It takes us all to be a well operating unit.
This past year we have seen our operating skills and abilities grow by leaps and bounds. Thanks to the efforts of our membership, the trailer project has gone from a dream to being deployed on multiple training and operating occasions. This new tool will allow us to perform control and relay functions free from the shortcomings of our brick and mortar operating locations. In October, during the Disaster Relief Trials, we operated both a voice net and three different digital modes (video/still imagery/Winlink) from the field simultaneously. This included over six field stations and two mobile operating trailers coordinating the efforts of our radio operators. I was so impressed by your abilities during that event that I am ecstatic for the future.
Regarding our path forward, I have met with the Multnomah County Emergency Management Director, Chris Voss, and the Operations Manager, Alice Busch, and our directions are clear. We are to grow our ranks so that we can operate as many field deployable digital teams as possible. This will require a renewed recruitment and training effort. The leadership team has created the training outline for next year, and I’ll share details at the January meeting.
On the recruitment side of the house, we need to spread the word about our organization and mission. If you know anyone that would be a good fit with us, please encourage their participation. We are one small part of the massive task that is preparing Multnomah County for disaster, but I am confident in both the vision of our Emergency Management team and in our abilities as operators, and I will seek to provide the trained operators that the County Emergency Management team has asked for. Here’s to a great new year of growth and development!
First, thanks to James Bryant KD7WZI for his years of service to Oregon ARES and especially District 1.
Within recent weeks there have been lot of changes in Oregon ARES/RACES leadership. Bruce Bjerke K7BHB in Florence has been appointed to the top state position as Oregon Section Emergency Coordinator. One of his top priorities is to resurrect the District Emergency Coordinator structure within the state as most of these positions have been vacant for some time. As SEC, he has appointed me to the DEC-1 position. For the past several years, I have been in an Assistant SEC position organizing SETs.
Steve Taylor N7BEF has replaced Lynn Burrell KE7WME as Washington County EC. Lynn is now EC for the OEM Amateur Radio Unit in Salem.
I have been in ARES for many years in various positions and have been licensed for 45 years. I enjoy HF radio contesting as well. Thanks to all for your service.