Join me in welcoming our newest member, Alex KI7ZPC, who will join the Alpha team. This brings our total active membership to 104!
Category: News
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News from Around the County
Thanks to everyone who participated in the July 28 “Shelters in the Park’ exercise. In all we had 38 AROs operating outdoors from 11 local parks. The Mike team was net control from Westmoreland Park and the new portable UHF repeater was set up at Council Crest Park keeping us all connected. All of the teams sent Winlink messages to the County EOC and to our shelter coordinator at the ARES trailer. The County EOC team also coordinated and received SSTV images from the field. The focus of this exercise was to continue to train on the yellow digital go kits and to test the range of the portable UHF repeater from the Council Crest location.
We did learn a few things. As awesome as the elevation is at Council Crest, our Echo team was not able to make contact from Fairview City Park. They were successful from Gresham at Bella Vista Park which is located on top of a hill at 410 feet. The Delta team signal was pretty scratchy from St. Johns Park but was much improved when they moved east to Kenton Park. The Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Mike teams were very clear into the portable repeater from all of their parks. All of this testing really helps to expand our capabilities and evaluate the best location for the repeater. We will try several different locations in the future.
There was also great feedback from the field that this was a fun and worthy team building exercise. Our newer members got a lot of hands on experience and we had suggestions on needed improvements to the drill guide.
Be sure to attend the August 23 ARES meeting to learn more about the portable repeater and the 2 small cross-band/digipeater kits. Adam KF7LJH will be showing them to you and talking about their amazing capabilities.
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Wednesday Night Net Gems
My name is Pattie KB7GMM and I am the Gem Coordinator for the weekly ARES net. We have heard wonderful comments regarding how much our members like hearing about our little Gems. First off I want to thank those who have been a source of wonderful information. Without the assistance of our members we could not have the great Gems we have.
We would like to make sure we touch on the topics everyone could use. So what we are asking here is any topics that we could assist with. Keep it small; we have a 10 minute slot to use. We are also looking for members that might want to speak to these subjects. So everyone who wants to know a little more about something please speak up. And those who would like to deliver the message or have subject matter that the group wants to hear please let us know.
Thank you so much and we look forward to hearing your ideas. Email me at Kb7gmm [at] gmail [dot] com
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Membership News
Join me in welcoming our newest members. Donna AG7MO, Kim KI7RMK, William KI7YBK ,and Avi AE7ET will all be joining the Charlie Team. Jeff KI7TVE joins the Delta team, and Keith KI7VKM is a supporting member. Yay! We finally reached our 100 active members goal with a few extras bringing our membership to 103. Thanks to all our members for spreading the word! Our door is always open to new hams willing to help in an emergency. It is now time to set our sights on a new goal of 150 active members!
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News from Around the County
Summer has arrived with temperatures in the mid to upper 90s. I don’t know about you but I miss our more moderate temperatures and a little rain off and on just to keep us looking green. There is a serious fire danger again this summer as our spring rainfall was well below normal. Let’s hope we are fortunate and avoid any major forest fires.
In case you missed the last ARES meeting, we are holding our annual raffle with some great items. Tickets are $5 and support our trailer expense fund and also help pay for some of the food for our July 26 Go-Kit Show and Tell and parking lot BBQ. We will sell tickets at the event and the drawing will be later the same evening. Bring your appetite as Nate will be grilling up the beef and garden burgers, and hot dogs again this year. Feel free to bring something to share, but it is certainly not required.
We will all meet and set up in the fire station parking lot east of the usual spot. Bring your go-kits and set up your field station so we can all exchange ideas on radio go-boxes, power sources, portable antennas and masts, shelters, and more. If you don’t have a go kit, this a great way to see and hear about the different radio go-kits our very talented members have constructed, and to share ideas. The ARES trailer will be on site just in case you have not seen it yet. We will put up canopies for shade but you should bring a chair so you can sit and enjoy all the activities and food.
The custom briefcases and clipboards purchased for us by Multnomah County Emergency Management have arrived! If you missed last month’s meeting, you can get yours at the July meeting. If you are a new member and have not yet completed your training, we will save yours for you.
The July 28 Shelter in the Parks Drill is just around the corner. We know summer is a busy time for everyone and we appreciate those who have signed up to participate. We will be testing the new portable UHF repeater and continue our training with the digital go kits in the field.
Patti KB7GMM is doing a great job making sure we have some educational content on our weekly ARES net. She would love your suggestions. If you can think of a subject you would like to know more about, or one you would like to present, send her an email at KB7GMM [at] gmail [dot] com.
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Membership News
Join me in welcoming our newest members. Dave K7DTG and Jonathan KI7QNR both join the Alpha team, Ross K7AGA joins the Charlie team, and Scott KC7ZUH, Cindy KD7IXZ and Scott N7DOD all join the Echo team.
Good Bye and Good Luck to Bob Rosenbaum K7AAD who is moving to California to be closer to his family.
This brings our total active members to 99! We recently moved a couple of members to “inactive” as requested by team leaders, so that elusive 100 active members goal will need to wait a little longer, but not too long, I suspect.
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News from Around the County
Come one, come all to Field Day! For those of you unfamiliar with Field Day, from the ARRL:
Every June, more than 40,000 hams throughout North America set up temporary transmitting stations in public places to demonstrate ham radio’s science, skill and service to our communities and our nation. It combines public service, emergency preparedness, community outreach, and technical skills all in a single event. Field Day has been an annual event since 1933, and remains the most popular event in ham radio. This outing is the largest event for radio groups interested in field operations.
This will be the first year that Multnomah County ARES will be operating independently for this event. It’s a big deal for us, as it is pretty rare that we operate and perform outreach over an entire weekend.
Drop by Willamette Park at SW Macadam & SW Nebraska Street on Saturday June 23 from 11:00 AM until Sunday June 24 at 11:00 AM and experience the fun! The ARES trailer will be there with a GOTA (get on the air) station so you can give HF a try with an experienced control operator, no matter what your license class. You can visit two other on site field stations to see what HF modes they are operating and visit the outreach tent to see what they are up to. We also have the picnic shelter reserved so you can sit and enjoy a picnic and visit with other members. If you would like to join the potluck dinner, check your email for the signup sheet that was sent on May 31. We hope to see you there!
The MCARES raffle is back this year. Come to the June ARES meeting to see what we have for you. Tickets are $5 and all proceeds benefit our July “go-kit show and tell” BBQ and help purchase propane for the thirsty ARES trailer generators.
The custom briefcases and clipboards purchased for us by Multnomah County Emergency Management have arrived! We will be distributing them to our ARRO certified members at the June ARES meeting on June 28. If you are a new member and have not yet completed your training, we will save yours for you!
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Membership News
Please join me in welcoming our newest member Nancy KI7WWD. Nancy will join the Charlie Team. This brings our total count to 96 active members:
Alpha team – 21
Bravo team – 18
Charlie team – 23
Delta team – 15
Echo team – 15
Mike Team – 4In addition, we have 16 inactive members and 6 supporting members.
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Net News
The monthly Simplex Net has moved to the second Wednesday of every month. The Traffic Handling Training Net (THTN) will be once a month on the fourth Tuesday at 8:00 PM (147.180MHz, 103.5Hz tone).
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Membership News
Welcome to our newest members!
Alpha Team: Kenn KA7VQH
Bravo Team: Shawn AG7JZ and Roy KI7PKL
Charlie Team: Grant N0FFF
