Category: News

Come one, come all to Field Day 2019!

Join us at Willamette Park Saturday, June 22 from 11:00 AM until Sunday, June 23 11:00 AM for fun and fellowship at picnic area A. Three portable HF stations will be making contacts near and far. If you have not tried HF yet now is your chance, no special license class needed. The GOTA (Get on the AIR) station does not even require a ham license so bring a friend who may be interested. See our field antennas high in the trees and watch our portable stations make and log contacts with the thousands of hams on the air across the country and the world. No RSVP is needed so just stop by.

Congratulations and welcome to our two new assistant emergency coordinators (AECs). Carrie K7CAC and John KI7LYP have agreed to take on these important roles.

The annual ARES raffle will begin at the June 27 meeting. Take a look at all the goodies we have for you and bring a little cash to purchase tickets for the items you would like to have. The raffle money supports our ARES trailer and BBQ items for both Field Day and the Go-Kit parking lot show and tell. The drawing will be at our August meeting and tickets are $5 each.

Our THANKS to Multnomah County Emergency Management, who had a little money in their year-end budget, for purchasing propane generators for each of our teams. The Team Leaders will now have generator power to charge their team’s batteries, laptops and everything else needed for extended field operations. This is a giant step forward and much appreciated by all of us at MCARES.

Join me in welcoming our newest members. Kim K7IMA will join the Delta Team and Dave KI7WXK has joined the Charlie team. This brings our active member count to 108. I recently saw the official State ARES roster and Multnomah County ARES continues to have the largest membership in the state!

Thanks to all our members for a great turnout for the Spring Statewide ARES SET! We are working on correcting the technical issues we had for the SET but overall we did receive a good number of Damage Assessment forms via Winlink and the portable digipeater really helped with the process. Ralph AF7FE and the Alpha team had their hands full at the County EOC. They were able to complete all the state required tasks. Way to Go Alpha Team! We had an amazing 48 simplex net checkins on Friday and 36 operators on Saturday.

The Walk MS event was held at the Oregon Zoo this year and was quite a change from the past. Brian KE7QPV did an amazing job organizing and adjusting to the new needs of the event organizers. There were over 2000 walkers this year and our 23 ARES operators were flawless in keeping the flow of communications on track and providing eyes and ears for safety for the walkers. The Walk MS organizers expressed a deep appreciation for the service that we provided.

The group photo above was taken after some of our “Shadow” operators were dispatched so Carrie, Rochelle, and Matthew are not in the photo. Also missing is sweep operator Robert, and net control Neil. Adam, our Communications Leader, was the photographer. Great job everyone!

Now we look forward to SeaPac on May 31 and June 1 where the MCARES trailer will be on display. Please let leadership know if you would like to sign up for a shift at the outreach table next to the trailer.

June 22 and 23 is Field Day at Willamette Park. We hope you will be visiting and operating with us this summer. More details will be coming soon along with an opportunity to sign up to work a station or bring a dish to the Saturday pot luck.

Join me in welcoming our newest member, Todd K7EMI. Todd is a Legacy Good Sam Hospital responder and will be placed on our Supporting Members list.

Join me in welcoming our newest members. Todd KJ7DLZ and Matt KJ7DMW both join the Delta team. Paul K7PKC joins as a supporting member as he works for the City of Portland and is a PBEM ECC responder.

Yay! I think spring is finally happening. It has been a very interesting winter and I am looking forward to a little warmth and sunshine.

The last of this winter’s exercises from home is happening on March 30. We hope you all have a chance to participate in the SSTV drill. We start our outdoor activities on April 26 and 27 with the Spring Statewide ARES SET.

Walk MS will be May 11 and this year the event will be happening at the Oregon Zoo. Watch for an email from Brian KE7QPV for sign up details.

We have planned this year to keep everyone busy with many opportunities to keep their operating skills sharp and several Saturday workshops. The recent J­-pole build workshop was well attended. 15 members and one non­-member went home with new antennas. Our sincere thanks to John KI7LYP for making these workshops possible.