St. Louis County ARES® Minutes of the April 13, 2009 meeting

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Minutes of the April 13, 2009 Meeting

Steve Wooten, KC0QMU, the Emergency Coordinator presided over the monthly meeting of the St. Louis County ARES^® group on April 13, 2009. The Meeting was held at Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital.

Steve welcomed vistors and had everyone introduce themselves. He said that St. Louis County ARES^® now had 92 members. He urged everyone to continue to promote the group.

Steve described the group's Planning Committee and said that he is looking for more people to join. He said that there are presently eight people on the Committee.

Steve said that St. Louis County Amateur Radio Emergency Service, Inc now had 501(c)(3) not-for-profit tax status.

Steve said that the next ARES^® event will be a call-out and deployment exercise. It will take place on Saturday, May 2, 2009 at 11:00 AM. A call will be made on the 146.850 repeater for members to get their gear together for deployment and to report to a staging location that will be announced at that time. All other details will be disclosed at the staging location. The event will still take place if there is light rain, but will be postponed to Sunday, May 3, 2009 if there are thunderstorms.

Gary Hoffman, KB0H, noted that this was Steve's fifth anniversary as Emergency Coordinator of St. Louis County ARES^®.

Gary said that several agencies were now interested in becoming clients of ARES^®, and that the group needed many more members to sign up to be on the call-out list. He said that it was understood that not everyone could deploy, and that not everyone wants to deploy. He said that it was also understood that some members might like to deploy, but couldn't guarantee that they would be able to do so. He said that virtually no one was in a position to make such a guarantee, but that members who would like to deploy should talk to the EC or one of the AECs.

Steve listed upcoming activities of the St. Louis and Suburban Radio Club.

April 17, 2009: General meeting. Discussion about DXing.
April 18, 2009: New Ham Project Activity Day
Thursday nights: Slow CW net

Steve mentioned that the ARRL had re-issued a greatly expanded version of the ARES^® Field Resources Manual (PDF format)¹.

Bob Ernst, KC0NRK, gave a presentation on go-bags.
KC0NRK's Go-Bag presentation (Powerpoint format)¹
KC0NRK's Go-Bag presentation handout (Word format)¹

Mark Biernacki, KB5YZY, gave a presentation on his Field Day deployment equipment.

Ed Harris, KC0UKR, gave a presentation on carry boxes for field radios. He also discussed power issues.

Joseph Wozniak, KD0EFW, displayed his field battery and solar recharging equipment.

Steve asked what presentations the attendees would like to see at future meetings. Suggestions included -

Making wire antennas
Placing PL-259 connectors on coaxial cable
What is APRS and how can we use it
Signal propagation
Batteries and solar power

1 - Please see the Software section of the Resources page if you do not have software necessary to read this file.

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