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

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Minutes of the July 13, 2009 Meeting

Gary Hoffman, KB0H, the Assistant Emergency Coordinator - Operations presided over the monthly meeting of the St. Louis County ARES^® group on July 13, 2009. The Meeting was held at Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital.

Gary welcomed vistors and had everyone introduce themselves. He said that Steve Wooten, the Emergency Coordinator, apologized for not being able to make the meeting.

Gary said that St. Louis County ARES^® currently had 92 members.

Gary noted that the next local hamfest would take place in Washington, Missouri on July 18, 2009. He said that St. Louis County ARES^® would not have a table at the Washington hamfest, but would be represented at the St. Charles hamfest on August 16, 2009. He noted that the St. Charles hamfest would be held in O'Fallon, Missouri this year and passed around a map showing the new location.

Gary reminded everyone that St. Louis County ARES^® would be holding its annual Field Station Demonstration and Simulated Emergency Test on October 10, 2009 at Queeny Park. He passed around a flyer for the event.

Gary said that there was a special exercise coming up later this summer, a reprise of last year's Simplex Zone Exercise. He explained the original purpose of the exercise, and said that the reason we were going to try it again was because the VHF television stations were now off the air and the radio interference in south county had diminished. Tentatively scheduled for August 22nd, the exercise will require four net control operators to handle four simplex frequencies. Gary asked for volunteers. Eric Bueneman, N0UIH, and Chuck Wehking, N0EIS, said they would help. Mile Bien, KB0PDL, noted that there was another major ham radio event on that same date.

Gary thanked the St. Louis & Suburban Radio Club for inviting St. Louis County ARES^® to participate at its Field Day site. He said that the Emergency Coordinator would like to set up a small committee to plan next year's ARES^® activities.

Craig Klimczak, K4LSU, gave a presentation on Learning Unit 5 of the ARECC Level 1 course.¹

After the presentation Gary asked if anyone had questions, comments, or concerns they'd like to voice.

There was a brief discussion about the various phonetic alphabets in use, prompted by the mention of phonetic alphabets in Craig's presentation.

Mark Biernacki, KB5YZY, said that St. Louis & Suburban Radio Club would be holding a fox hunt and emergency communications event at Stacy Park on September 19, 2009.

There was general discussion about CERT teams, upcoming CERT classes and CERT exercises. Rob Robinson, KC0VPL, noted that Chesterfield PD & Monarch FPD would be holding CERT classes this coming fall.

Badge holders and lanyards were made available to the attendees, as well as a limited number of Missouri highway maps. Eric brought a cake, which everyone appreciated.

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