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
Let’s face this head on.
When we schedule ham radio drills, we have yet to come up with the “perfect” schedule. Usually all of our ham radio drills occur for a few hours on a Saturday morning at 0900. If we participate in an exercise sponsored by a local government, it often occurs on a weekday (Tu-We-Th).
During these pleasant weather months starting in April, there is a great competition for our time every weekend.
As “luck” would have it, the drill we activated for May 11th was a HOT one.
A SOLUTION
If you missed the drill today (May 11th), there is a way you can still train. Basically, on your own scheduled time, you pack up your gear and travel all the way to . . . your own backyard! Or a local park.
What? What good does that do?
Detailed Participant Instructions
FIELD_EXERCISE_2024MAY_instructions_V2
WHEN: Saturday 11 May 2024. 9 AM to 1 PM
WHERE: Participants’ choice, with VHF coverage of Washington County
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.
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
