The Multnomah County Amateur Radio Service, in partnership with the Portland Amateur Radio Club (PARC) has kicked off a two month fundraising campaign to build a communications trailer to be used for neighborhood-level communications in the event of a major regional incident.
Please visit the fundraiser website to learn more about the project and see how you can help!
Greetings Fellow ARES Members,
I hope you are all staying warm in this recent cold snap. Our weather here in the Pacific Northwest can be challenging at times. Thanks to those of you who have volunteered to help staff the warming shelters being set up throughout the city.
The Portland Amateur Radio Club has elected new officers and I would like to congratulate Aaron KD7VDG, President; John KD7BCY, Vice President; Pete W7PR, Treasurer; and Adam KF7LJH, Recording Secretary. It is really great to see some of our ARES members becoming involved in other aspects of ham radio beyond emergency communications. Way to go, guys!
The state-wide ARES AshEX SET is next Saturday and the leadership team has been working fast and furious to organize our county participation. The exercise simulates a Mt. St. Helens eruption with ashfall disrupting transportation, communication, and power. Winlink digital messaging is emphasized and we will be learning the processing of digital traffic to and from served agencies. All participants need to attend the briefing at our November 20 meeting. See you there!
Watch your email for a survey we would like all members to fill out. We need and value your thoughts on how we can improve MCARES, as well as what training topics you want, and any other suggestions for how we can make 2015 truly awesome. Please get it back to us no later than December 13 so we can incorporate your ideas into our 2015 planning. Have a safe and warm Thanksgiving!
Hello. My name is Bruce Harris and I am the Web Manager and Public Information Officer for Multnomah County ARES.
I have lived in Portland for 36 years. I live with my wife and daughter in NE Portland with our pup, Beau. We are all avid Timbers Fans and I like to ski, hike, travel and cook. I am a life long Buddhist. I own my own business in graphic arts and it has kept me very busy. In the last year I have had to reduce my volunteer activities.
It looks like I will be able to start to resume my ARES activities in the next month and I am looking forward to that very much. I come from a family of volunteers. I have been a volunteer Firefighter and EMT and eight members of my family are now or have been involved with volunteer first response for 35 years.
I started my ECOMM path back in 2003 when I took the City of Portland Neighborhood Emergency Team training. After taking the training I worked with my neighborhood team and another neighborhood team on using FRS/GMRS radios within our neighborhoods. It become apparent that we needed a way to communicate outside of neighborhoods.
At about that time I was involved in CERT-NET Rodeo (skills drill) sponsored by Washington County. During the drills all of the communications were going through Washington County ARES volunteer radio operators and I approached them and asked how to get involved. They said the first thing I needed to do was get my Amateur Radio license. So I went to Powell’s and bought the Technician study book and in 3 weeks of self study I was ready to take the test for my license.
About a month after that I found out about Multnomah County ARES and attended my first meeting. During the first year I received my General license. We were a pretty small group of people, then about six years ago the group really started to grow with the hard work of our leadership. My main interest in ARES is field work. I like to be outside using my radio. I also am very interested in the use of digital over radio communications applied to tactical uses. I have volunteered in pretty much every local event from the Portland Marathon to Hood to Coast. In that first year, I took the FEMA Public Information Officer class. At the time only 12 ARES County Public Information Officers in the country had taken the training. I also have taken the ARRL Public Information Officer Training. The Public Information Officer for any ARES group has two main responsibilities. The first, to convey any and all necessary information to the Public in a concise, accurate and timely manner so that the EC, leadership, and volunteers can spend their time fulfilling their duties. And second, to promote awareness of ARES in the community and its mission of citizen emergency communicators helping our served agencies fulfilling their response in any event.
Welcome to our newest member, Doug KG7MJJ.
As some of you may have noticed, Julie KF7TAU is now Julie W7OW. Julie reports that Lewis and Clark now has their HF Pactor station up and running, thanks to the technical assistance of Adam KF7LJH.
In December, I will be sending out a new membership form to all members. These must be filled out annually to be sure our records are accurate.
Wow! We now have 41 ARRO certified members! Of those, 13 are also NCFO certified and 8 are HFO certified. At least five more are very close to completion of their ARRO certification. I sincerely appreciate the effort and dedication you have all shown is getting this done!
The ARRO certificate is required of all active members and is a prerequisite for the optional NCFO (Net Control and Field Operator), HFO (High Frequency Operator) and the soon to be launched DRO (Digital Radio Operator) certifications. You can find the check sheets on the website under the DOCS tab. Be sure to let me know if you are working on an optional certificate so we can be sure to assign you for drills and events to get you the experience you need.
Greetings Fellow ARES Members,
The Fall statewide ARES SET is scheduled for November 22 and looks to be a great exercise for all of our served agencies. We will get to practice operating Winlink and voice in a reenactment of the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. Stay tuned for details coming soon and mark your calendars for an all-county exercise on that date.
There was a failure of the PARC repeater for one of our weekly nets in September. The procedure for failure of the repeater is to move the net to MC-2. Fortunately the repeater problem was quickly fixed by a team from PARC, so the down time was pretty short.
Our November monthly meeting will move to the 3rd Thursday, November 20, to avoid conflict with the Thanksgiving holiday.
There will be no December general meeting. Instead the leadership team will have an all-day workshop to set the course for the coming year. We will be emailing all of you a survey to get your ideas, wants, and suggestions for training, drills, recruitment activities, and other facets of Multnomah County ARES. 2014 has been an awesome year for MCARES. Let’s make 2015 even more awesome! See you at the October 23 meeting.
As part of a Geology class at PSU, I finally had the pleasure of making the trip to the north side of Mount St. Helens to study the effects of the 1980 eruption. As a geology “hobbyist” and a member of ARES/RACES, my interest in the eruption is two-fold: how did the eruption occur and how did nearby communities deal with the event? As our luxurious tour bus meandered through the small town of Castle Rock, Washington, I had a moment of foreshadowing: an abandoned cinderblock shack, being overgrown by trees and blackberries with the words “REACT, CH 9″ painted in bright blue.
Our first stop of the day was the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center at Silver Lake, where our visit started off with a 15 minute video of the eruption which focused on 3 of the lives lost in the event: David Johnston, geologist; Harry Truman, resident; and Gerry Martin, ARES radio operator. Although I was exhausted from the early morning adventure, I was jolted awake.
Gerry Martin W6TQF was an amateur radio operator with ARES/RACES, volunteering for the Washington Department of Emergency Services. While geologist David Johnston was monitoring the activity from a ridge six miles to the north of Mount St. Helens on what is now Johnston Ridge, Gerry Martin was on the next ridge two miles to the north using the tactical callsign “Coldwater 2”.
“Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!”
While David Johnston uttered those words which were never heard by the USGS office before his station went silent, Gerry Martin was able to provide a detailed report of the eruption and landslide to the WDES and stated, “The camper and the car just over to the south of me are covered, it’s going to get me too”. Then silence.
There was a second ham radio operator nearby, Reid Blackburn KA7AMF, who was also a photographer for the Vancouver Columbian, stationed on a ridge even closer to Mount St. Helens. He was never able to get a transmission out.
Throughout the eruption on May 18, a total of 300 Washington ARES volunteers passed over 3,000 messages including both health and welfare traffic and situational information as the lahar decimated the Toutle and Cowlitz river valleys.
I was very glad to see that the story of these volunteers is not forgotten and is still being told at the St. Helens Visitor Center. It also gave me an opportunity to introduce ham radio and ARES to a few classmates.
The Mount St. Helens Visitor Center is located 5 miles off I-5 on Highway 504. They are open seven days a week from 10 AM to 5 PM, and admission is $5.
Greetings Fellow ARES Members,
It definitely feels like Fall is in the air. As Summer winds down, the last of the public service events looks like the Portland Marathon in October. My thanks to all of you who have helped with the many Spring and Summer events; it is really a great way to build your operating skills and gain experience with your radios.
The Swift tracking project was a lot of fun and thanks to all who helped listen for those birds with transmitters. I think they left Yakima and skipped Portland as they were not detected here but were heard in Eugene and Roseburg. It was still a fun project and a great way to view the huge flocks of swifts during their migration south.
Greg NF7H has resigned his position as team leader for the County ECC. His life has turned very busy and paring down his volunteer commitments is needed. Thanks Greg for all you have done for Multnomah County ARES! We will miss you! We are making good progress with our ARRO certifications with a majority of our members completing the basic and many moving on to the other paths of their choice. A big thanks to Robert WX5TEX for launching the HF certification and to Adam KF7LJH for his soon to be released Digital certification. I really appreciate their time and expertise in this endeavor.
Hope to see you at the September 25 meeting.
Huge thanks to Robert for developing the HF Certification and his HF Check-off workshop coming up before the next meeting, and to Adam for his work on creating the Digital Operator Certification and his presentation at this month’s meeting.
We are making good progress toward our goal of having all team members basic ARRO certified by the end of the year. There are several folks who just need to send a 213 and an NTS message to finish their certification. You will each be contacted to arrange to get this done. You are so close!