Roane County Amateur Radio Club

*** BULLETIN: ARES NET Time Changes EFFECTIVE NOW ***

During our last ARES meeting, Tue 17 Mar, the unanimous and enthusiastic recommendation of all ARES members attending was that changing the net time back to its normal 2100hrs local time would likely result in more folks being able to attend the net. Therefore, taking this advice - which came from a majority of ARES members - I am announcing the following:

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY ARES Net time is 2100hrs local time, every Tuesday except for the 3rd Tuesday of each month. Net frequency is 147.330mhz, PL tone 82.5hz. Alternate frequency is 442.875mhz, PL tone 136.5hz.

I also want to thank the membership for an EXCELLENT turnout of 14, all but one visitor being ARES members!

Field Day - June 28~29

Place: Kingston City Park (by the Gravel Pit)

Time: Start set-up Saturday morning. OnTheAir at 2pm. Shut down 2pm Sunday.

Food: K4ZRP is again our Grill Sargent. Please direct your food desires and donations to him.

Rigs: KD4GT will put a 6m, 2m & 70cm station up. We need HF ops, antennas and rigs

New (to us) Tower

We now have a replacement for our tower that was stolen. It is another Rohn BX series and will fit on the existing base. However, it is used and does have some areas of surface rust which should be cleaned and repainted before it gets erected. Opinions on how to proceed can be voiced at the next meeting of RCARC on June 12th. Maybe we even want to select a color scheme - say Vol Orange & White??? Somehow, I really don’t think a big T on top would work well due to wind loading.

For NOW: New Primary ARES Net Frequency

Although improvement is on the way , the ineffectiveness of the KE4RX repeater is such that it is not adequate to call it a primary method of emergency communications. Therefore, until repairs are made, the EC makes the following executive decision:

The PRIMARY frequency for Roane County ARES Nets, is by the KIND permission of Dave Rogers KC4WGH, 147.330mhz. That repeater, the WD4ORB repeater, in Morgan County, has a PL tone of 82.5hz.

When any Roane County ARES Net is in session, the NCS should:

• assign an operator to monitor both frequencies and advise any station heard on KE4RX of the frequency of the ARES Net, or
• assign an operator to stand “watch” on the KE4RX frequency to direct operators who may be looking for the net to the correct frequency.
• in either case, whoever is on the KE4RX frequency should occasionally make the announcement for any seeking operator of what the net frequency for Roane County ARES is.

The SECONDARY frequency for Roane County ARES remains the UHF repeater at 442.875mhz, PL tone of 136.5.

Both repeaters may be used in net situations where greater bandwidth is desired, such as when there is enough traffic that there needs to be one net to handle the traffic and another net to congregate, receive assignments and coordination, etc. That decision is the prerogative and responsibility of the NCS.

I hope this clears up any confusion. We’ll all be glad when the KE4RX repeater is fixed. And we all appreciate all the hard work Cliff, Keith, and others in the RCARC are putting in to get the repeater fixed. We simply have to have access to more reliable communications than that for ARES to function as it should. Thanks to all for your cooperation and understanding during this process of growth and improvement!

Emergency Email Alerts

We have added a new ARES section to the website. The new section features a red alert box that will appear at the top of every page on www.ke4rx.org during an emergency or when another message needs to be displayed.

This new section also allows you to subscribe to emergency email alerts. All you have to do is put in your email address, name, and subscription preferences. You can join categories to only receive emails about certain things.

If you would like to join the list, please go to: http://www.ke4rx.org/emergency/

Your email address will be kept completely secure and you can opt out of the emails at any time if you would like by going to that same page.

Note on 29 Apr 2008: I have manually added all ARES members to this list using the emails provided for ARES membership. There is a category to send these only to ARES folks. There is also a category to send notices to people for weather alerts. This may include people who are NOT ARES members, but it DOES include all ARES members as well. We send to a few people who have requested to receive weather alerts who are not active ARES members. This is in line with our mission in the Roane County Emergency Plan as ESF2 (Communications): we have a responsibility regarding WARNING issues as well as emergency operations. This is also consistent with Roane County’s designation by the National Weather Service as a “Storm Ready Community.” 73 DE KI4FZT, EC - Roane County