Washington County Amateur Radio Emergency Services(ARES) exists for the purpose of providing backup emergency communications to many served agencies in Washington County, Oregon. Those served agencies include incorporated cities, special service districts (fire districts, utilities, schools, etc.), and hospitals. Other non governmental agencies may also be served upon request, as allowed by available staffing and training
The presentation for 4-16-24 was Where Am I by Larry Ossowski, AE7TM. It is on Basic Coordination Awareness. Used by permission.
The April second Saturday training is approaching, and we hope that as many of you as possible will participate. The morning of April 13th is part training and part exercise with multiple stations and operators exchanging digital messages via the Winlink FM Peer to Peer mode. That may sound intimidating to those of you who do not operate in digital modes, but this is a great opportunity to learn and participate with no cost to you. Several participating agency stations will be open to all members, and we invite you to go to one of those locations and learn/participate from there. Each station will have friendly knowledgeable operators to answer any questions you have and guide you through sending and receiving digital messages.
There are times when knowing location is important. For ham radio operators if Winlink Express (WLE) is involved the basic describer of location is the Maidenhead grid square. See boondockecho.com for a very good/friendly explanation.
The “grid square” defines a patch of ground. The square is fully described by six characters, two letters, two numbers, two letters. For example: Four character “CN85” describes a location within about 100 kilometers. Six character “CN85mm” describes a location within about 5 kilometers. That includes our Washington County EOC and Hillsboro Medical Center. The article listed above gives more specifics on location such as how close does a 5 character (or 6 character) GPS location come to your precise location.
When first setting up WLE, at minimum you are required to enter your grid square. Your grid square can be located by accessing web site “Amateur Radio Ham Radio Maidenhead Grid Square Locator Map”.
*** I encourage readers to record this information now for when you need it. ***
Figure 1 (above) I downloaded this image from levinecentral.com (link above).
It is MaidenHead Grid Square CN85mm. This shows how much ground is included in a 6 character grid square. It added the red balloon based on the location I entered. I “eyeballed” the center and added the dark “X” to indicate center (compare to WLE derived center below)
For the RATPAC WINLINK 2023 Web Page click HERE
The WCARES 96 Hour Bag has been placed in the Training Folder and you may access it on the right under Member Resources/Training/WCARES 96 HR. BAG
There is 1 RMS Post Office Stations Online now.
KC7PMU-10 – on 145.55 mHz
Use RMS Express and send a normal Packet WL2K message addressed to the station you want to send it to.
It will be held on the station until the station it’s addressed to connects to the Post Office station.
