St. Louis County ARES® Minutes of the March 13, 2006 meeting

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Minutes of the March 13, 2006 Meeting

Steve Wooten, KC0QMU, the Emergency Coordinator, presided at the monthly meeting of the St. Louis County ARES^® group on March 13, 2006.

Steve mentioned the upcoming Spirit of St. Louis Marathon. There was a discussion about communications at the event and the need for amateur radio operators.

Steve said that St. Louis County ARES^® routinely attended four hamfests in the area: Winterfest in January, the AMC Hamfest in Washington MO in July, the St. Charles ARC Hamfest in August, and the Halloween Hamfest in October. He said that ARES^® was now setting up an additional table at each hamfest to sell donated items.

Craig Klimczak, K4LSU, the Training Coordinator said that he was still looking for people to give short presentations on emergency communications or simple radio concepts at upcoming meetings. He has people lined up through the May meeting but needs more. He has a list of possible topics from which potential speakers can choose.

Gary Hoffman, KB0H, the Assistant Emergency Coordinator - Operations gave a brief summary of the Aftershock exercise held in February. He explained that the exercise had been deliberately designed to suffer from a communications overload, and that he was pleased with how the participants responded. He thanked the participants and handed out thank-you certificates.

Eric Bueneman, N0UIH, gave a short talk on propagation and showed/played examples of broadcasts he had received over long distances.

Gary and Craig Hirsh, K0CMH held a debriefing for the Aftershock exercise. (An analysis of the exercise will appear on this Web site at a later date.) Although many things went wrong during the exercise, most of the participants felt that it was worthwhile and that it should be repeated at a future date.

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