Tag: ares

Digital Modes Are Coming!

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Ask ten amateur radio operators about digital modes, and you’ll get 11 different answers. Digital evokes some strong opinions from hams, good and bad. That’s okay! Hams are a diverse bunch, and we don’t have to like all the same things.

JCAR is soon going to send a digital data transmission as part of its weekly ARES Training Net. In an actual emergency, we will still have to pass data back and forth, and digital modes have significant advantages over phone modes for data transfer.

We’ll be using a mode called MT63-2000L, which works well on noisy repeaters and doesn’t require any special equipment to decode and send. If you’re interested in setting up a computer to decode our digital transmissions, see our guide here: https://jcar.us/digital-mode-decode-setup/.

Winter Field Day 2019

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Winter Field Day 2019 was a huge success! We had a large turnout and a lot of fun testing our equipment and setups. Using both portable antenna platforms we had a 40m dipole and VHF/UHF dual band omni on one and a 40m-10m G5RV Mini on the other, both at around 30’ high. Both antennas worked flawlessly through the entire event. Ray Young KM4YCO brought his Icom IC-7300 go-box out and operated on 20m most of the day while Brad Arnold K4NHA brought his Icom IC-7200 which was used on 40m. Richard Arnold KB4RMA setup a full VHF/UHF digital capable station using his go-box with multiple radios. We had over 900Ah of DC power available as this was the first chance to operate on the large DC power system KB4RMA and K4NHA have been building over the past several months.


The highlight of the day was when the kids got on the air. Danielle Fuller’s kids Deo and Alix made a contact with a contest station in South Carolina and Brad Ivey KK4UWF’s daughter Marley contacted the ARRL Headquarters W1AW in Connecticut for the second field day in a row. Rumor has it 7 year old Deo may be studying for his Technician License Exam soon!


With Winter Field Day in the books we’re now looking ahead to our next events which will be the K4R Special Event Station at Russell Cave National Monument in May and ARRL Field Day this June. Thank you to everyone that came out and made this Winter Field Day such a fun event and a great success!

March ARES Meeting (March 23, 2017)

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The agenda for our March ARES Meeting has changed due to new information from our state ARES Coordinator. Instead of the meeting being on Digital Modes we will now be discussing and planning for a state-wide exercise that will be held Saturday, April 15th, between 8:00-10:00am. We’ll discuss our group’s plans and how we can participate next Thursday night at the meeting. Digital Modes will be moved to the April meeting (April 27th).

Here’s the general info about the event:

April 15th   8:00 AM to 10:00AM

Spring 2017:  Rapid Response Saturday Drill

ARES ECs, DECs, Leadership,

A quick thumbnail of the spring exercise discussed at the most recent BirminghamFest.

Essentially the drill is a “Check In” event giving operators a chance to test their mobile and portable capabilities by operating remotely, or if they choose to simply check in with those remote operators to confirm coverage, signal strength, etc.  Each county EC is advised to set up a mobile Incident Command System (ICS) location and assign a Net Control Station (NCS).  The EC will dispatch other operators wishing to deploy may select locations that may have potential as a shelter location, remote ICS location, or other outdoor spot that can afford them the chance to test their equipment, skills and operating modes.

Many operators have “Go-kits” that include a complete portable station with emergency power supplies (batteries or generators, or both) radios, antennas, feed lines, etc. to operate away from home.  Operators are encouraged to use this drill to determine what they would put in their “Go-kits” for the next real world emergency.  There is no right answer to what should be included, every Go-Kit is a personal reflection of the operator(s) who put it together.

I suggested that ECs make the final determination for their locations.  We recommended an operating window of 8:00 to 10:00 AM.

VHF calling frequency 146.520 will be the primary frequency, and we encourage operators with HF equipment to also use the 3.965 and 7.243 frequencies to attempt contact with other stations outside their operating county.

I encourage you to work together, make it fun, and use this as a learning experience.  All feedback is welcomed and most of it will be read.

Brad, K4NHA

Jackson County Fair

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Jackson County ARES/RACES and Amateur Radio Club were present at the annual Jackson County Fair this year. The booth was fully operational each night with VHF, UHF, HF, Digital, and Satellite Tracking stations. Saturday evening was also the Boy Scouts of America annual workshop where our members demonstrated Amateur Radio to the Scouts and Scout Leaders including portable operation, Go-Boxes, and Digital Modes.

If you have any additional pictures to add please send them to K4NHA.

 

Click on an image to see a larger version.

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Jackson County ARES Meeting

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The first ARES group meeting was held on Thursday, June 25th at the Jackson County EOC. Pictured from left to right:

Wayne Reed (K4TTZ – Madison County AEC), Richard Shrader (W4RBS), Richard Arnold (KB4RMA), Brad Arnold (K4NHA), Bob Hayes (WD4CZV), Paul Smith (KK4VYI), and Brad Ivey (KK4UWF). Not pictured and behind the camera was Tim Holland (KK5H – Madison County EC).

Special thanks to Tim and Wayne from Huntsville/Madison County RACES for coming out to help us get ARES up and running in Jackson County!

The next meeting will be Thursday, July 23rd, 6:00pm – 7:00pm at the Jackson County EOC. All persons interested in ARES and serving a vital role in your community are invited to attend.

 

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