Gary Hoffman, KB0H, the Assistant Emergency Coordinator - Operations,
presided at the monthly meeting of the
St. Louis County ARES® group on
August 14, 2006.
Gary said that the group currently had 59 members.
Gary mentioned that St. Louis County ARES®
would have a table at the St. Charles hamfest on August 20, 2006.
Gary described the function of the group's Planning Committee. He said
that anyone interested in joining the Committee was welcome to do so.
Gary gave the group's Web site address and gave a brief description of
the "Team Members" page. He recommended that all
ARES® members regularly check this page.
He also explained the purpose of the "resources" page and said that we
are actively soliciting for information to put on it.
Gary outlined the purpose of the Survey Team as examining propagation
characteristics throughout the county. He said that anyone wishing
to be part of this team should contact the Emergency Coordinator directly.
Gary detailed how ARES® groups work
and defined the term "served agency". He said that the St. Louis County
ARES® group had reached the stage
where it was almost ready to seek served agencies. He said that coincidentally,
the St. Louis VA Medical Center sought out the group to discuss a possible
relationship. He said that the VA is enthusiastic, but that it has to go
through an approval process before it can formalize an association with us.
Craig Hirsh, K0CMH, the Assistant Emergency Coordinator - Planning and
Development, said that St. Louis County
ARES® would be holding a message
handling exercise on August 27, 2006. It will take place on the 146.850
repeater starting at 2:00 PM local time. He described the exercise
(see the "You Write the Messages" page)
in detail and said that everyone was welcome to participate. He urged
those people who were unsure of their message handling abilities to
contact him so that he could pair them with more experienced operators.
Message forms were made available during the meeting. (The forms can
be downloaded from the American Radio Relay League (Adobe Acrobat format)1)
Craig also talked very briefly about the ARRL Simulated Emergency Test
in October and the group's possible role in it.
Chuck Wehking, KC0QKS, said that he had attended a preliminary meeting of
the St. Louis area COAD (Community Organizations Active in Disasters) group
and found that there was a great deal of interest in
ARES® among the other attendees.
Ed Harris, KC0UKR, was the featured speaker. He talked about building
your own field station. He showed several stations, which varied in
complexity. He focus of his talk was that putting together your own
field station is should not be a difficult task, and that most amateur
radio operators already have all or nearly all of the necessary components.
Ed heads up a new "Field Station Team" for St. Louis County
ARES®. The purpose of the Team is
to help members put together their own field stations.
After Ed's presentation Gary opened the floor to general discussion,
questions, complaints, or announcements. Jim Conley, N0OBG, stated that
the MS-150 bike tour in September was still in need of volunteer
amateur radio operators.
1 - Please see the
Software
section of the Resources page if you do not
have software necessary to read these files.
© 2010 St. Louis County ARES®
00701
