---------------------- OHIO ARES REPORT FOR
FEBRUARY, 2008 -------------------------------
Well, we have about one month to go in this winter season. It's been a crazy one, with tornadoes, thunderstorms, and heavy snows, all within days of each other. Let's hope things settle down soon, and Mother Earth decides on a season, and sticks with it!
------------------ Form FSD-96 for January 2008, as submitted to the league ------------
Total number of ARES members: Approx 2536 (As
compiled from all current reports)
# of DECs/ECs reporting this month: 11
Calls of DECs/ECs reporting: K8ARL/DEC (District 1); K8FRS/DEC (District 2); W8ILC/DEC
(District 3); N8TVU/DEC (District 4), KB8WPZ/DEC (District 5); KC8GNL/DEC (District 6);
N8WL/DEC (District 7); N8SUZ/DEC (District 8);
AA8BN/AEC (Coshocton – District 9); N8MGW/EC (Jefferson – District 9); KC8PWW/EC
(Harrison – District 9)
Number of drills, tests and training sessions this month: 567
Volunteer hours 5081
Number of public service events this month: 22
Volunteer hours 197
Number of emergency operations this month: 10
Volunteer hours 197
Total number of ARES operations this month: 599 Total Volunteer hours: 5475
REPORTS FROM DISTRICTS:
DISTRICT 1
Cuyahoga County - No EC / being selected
The DEC is registering ARES members and is also accepting applications or referrals for
the EC position. Send info to K8ARL@ARRL.NET
Erie County - Bob Heim K8HLH EC
January 29 - 2400 EST Skywarn net for a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Western Erie
County. Storm moved across the county at approximately 50 MPH. All Clear was on the radar
around midnight. Check-ins was from across the county.
Hancock County - Bill Davis N8PTJ EC
We had a good month for our Wednesday night nets. A lot of new call signs on the air. With
the new license classes for new and upgrades we should be getting some new members for
ARES, H.E.A.R.S, and Findlay Radio Club. This looks like it might be a better year.
Skywarn training coming up. EMA has some drills planned for this year. We have a lot of
activities planned -- triathlon, Walkathon, March of Dimes, etc.
Huron County - Steve Buss KG8BT EC
No report submitted.
Lorain county - Brian Hellinger N8VUB EC (Bob Parker KB8ZXB AEC reporting)
4 LCARA Sunday evening nets; 1 Lorain County Skywarn Net.
Lucas County - Bill Sido WN8RUG EC
Lucas County ARES has appointed Ron Hornbeck n8rlh as the new Hospital Coordinator for
Lucas County ARES. Ron will be working with the area hospitals security personal to
coordinate operations between ARES and the hospitals. A few events coming up that Lucas
County ARES will be participating in will be the Glass City Marathon April 13th,Ohio
Michigan Run July 20th, Sylvania Triathlon August 10th. Becky Eby KC8ZNX Lucas County
Skywarn Coordinator talked to scout pack 205 Monclova Ohio about the importance of Amateur
radio and Skywarn. Becky says about half of the boys were interested in getting their ham
ticket and the pack would like to attend the next Skywarn training. Good Job Beck! Lucas
County ARES will be participating in JOTA again this year and would also like to get the
Girl Scouts involved in ham radio.
Lucas County Skywarn training will be March 29 at St. Lukes Hospital Maumee Oh starting at
10:00 am. The NWS radio transmitter for Toledo has been replaced with new equipment and a
new frequency of 162.500 mhz. The Toledo mobile Radio Association will be holding this
years hamfest Sunday March 16 from 8:00 am - 2:00pm at the Lucas County Recreation Center
2901 Key Street Maumee Oh.
Ottawa County - Vincent Vasello KB8TEP EC (the EC position is in transition)
The DEC is accepting ARES EC and membership applications. Send information to K8ARL@ARRL.NET
Sandusky County - Dave Gierhart W8DAG EC
A second round of "summer like" storms for our area in January. We activated
Skywarn for a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, then Warning on Jan 29. Wind gust
over 60 mph blew railroad cars into the Sandusky Bay and took down some ham
antennas. We cannot wait for spring to get here. Check out our website
aressc.org.
Seneca County - Mike Klaiss KC8BUJ EC
3 FORMAL TRAFFIC PASSED ON OUR NETS
1 ADMIN NET
1 SIMPLEX NET
4 ARES WEEKLY NET
1 SKYWARN NET
1 CLASS ON LIGHTING & RF GROUNDING
1 MEETING WITH MARCS, BSA, & EMA ON INTEROP. COMMUNICATIONS
Wood County - Bob Schumann W8NYY EC
Met with Wood County Sheriff to review Tornado Siren activation procedures which are
changing in 2008. Going forward activation of the sirens will only happen with a confirmed
sighting and the activation can be instituted by either the Sheriff, the EMA Director, or
the Wood County EC. All calls to 911 regarding possible tornado sightings will be
transferred to Cleveland NWS by the dispatchers and if they instruct the sirens will be
activated. Because of my direct participation in this activity Sheriff Wasyslshyn has
sworn me in as a "Special Deputy" for liability and insurance purposes.
Planning is underway to provide support to the Wood County "Medical Reserve
Corp" which is directed under the Wood County Board of Health. It's expected that the
leader of that organization will attend the February WCARES meeting to provide overview
and training.
Northwest Ohio ARES Traffic & Training Net - 153.73 man-hours.
District 1 Comments - Karl Erbland K8ARL DEC
Everyone is getting their Skywarn training scheduled. Progress continues for filling two
EC positions. Planning for several unannounced district-wide spot drills for the first
quarter of 2008. Continued progress with served agency relationships, especially Northwest
Ohio Regional Medical Response System (NWO RMRS is district-wide). Installing new
district-wide notification system made possible through the NWO RMRS association. Work
continues on district-wide VHF, HF and VOIP radio service -- both Amateur Radio and
Commercial. Planning a district 1 Conference for ECs AECs and other ARES members. Several
on-the-air training classes are being planned with national leaders as presenters and
discussion panel members.
DISTRICT 2
Allen County - Jon Solomon W8TY EC
The Allen County EMA spoke to local hams concerning the formation of a RACES group in
Allen County, at the January meeting of the Northwest Ohio Amateur Radio Club. The
attendance was very encouraging and many questions were asked by all concerned. RACES
continues to progress and move forward.
Auglaize County - Mike Nagel WD8LLN EC
ARES was activated during the flooding, more will be reported later.
Defiance County
A search for an Emergency Coordinator is being conducted. The DEC is
taking A.R.E.S. applications directly during the search.
Fulton County- Bryan Patterson KB8ELG EC
Nothing to report
Henry County - Terry Huston W8FK EC
Nothing to report this month
Mercer County
A search for an Emergency Coordinator is being conducted. The DEC is
taking A.R.E.S. applications directly during the search.
Putnam County - Tom Gray N8PCO EC
No nets as hams are still recovering from last August floods.
DISTRICT 3
January was a quiet month. Several Public
events served.
Reports received from 7 of the 8 counties District 3.
Skywarn Training in Greene County
Contacts made with Health Depts. and Hospitals for upcoming Feb 5,12.19 Flu Drill.
DISTRICT 4
Regionally:
District 4 ARES DEC and Emergency Coordinators are continuing to meet with officials of
the Regional Medical Response System to assist with ways of tracking product and
individuals locations, provide communications into and out of the county health
departments, Volunteer Reception Centers (VRC), Points Of Disbursement,(POD), and
Emergency Operations Centers (EOC) via voice and data nets.
ARES is helping to develop a county by county plan for communications with Community
Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and the Tri-State Medical Reserve Corps (TMRC) to assist
with the deployment those two organizations.
The key ARES members within the district have undergone additional training, planning
sessions and have submitted to criminal background checks through the Bureau of Criminal
Investigation of Ohio and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The criminal background checks are becoming more common with agencies we serve for one
simple reason amateur radio has become part of our National Security.
Agencies have to be certain who they are trusting with vital and crucial information that
the common citizen (and in some cases your own family members) are not privileges to.
Agencies continue to ask ARES for communications assistance from every level of government
from local to federal level. It is important that we continue to support these agencies
and do as they ask to gain their trust and continue to build a solid working relationship.
PUBLIC SERVICE EVENTS:
The request for communications support for this season of public service events are
already hitting the email IN boxes throughout the district including everything from
triathlons to parades.
One huge event that occurs annually in Hamilton County is the Cincinnati Flying Pig
Marathon. Many ARES members have helped out in past years with this event.
This year Hamilton County ARPSC/ARES has signed up as a volunteer group to assist with
providing communications support for the event.
If you would like to sign up to help out go to the Flying Pigs website, look for the
Volunteer tab, click on Amateur Radio Net and fill out the form. In the comment section
make sure you put in there ARES to let them know your signing up with the Hamilton Co
ARPSC/ARES group. You may want to send Don an E-mail so he can keep track of the number of
ARES members that will be assisting at: n8lmj@cinci.rr.com.
Digital Network
Greg Zach WG8Z digital coordinator for Ohio ARES District 4 has been doing a great job of
organizing and helping individuals getting their packet stations on the air and working.
Our main net is on 145.010 with nine (9) Telpac nodes running 24/7 that are scattered
throughout the district and in some of the outlying regions.
This provides redundancy for the system in several ways mainly due to not everyone is
dependent on one provider server or one particular company. There are a variety of
internet providers within our system and in several different locations that provide some
shelter for a main outage in any small region.
There are 9 Telpacs and 27 digi’s on the air at this time most of them 24/7. There
has been a push by Greg to have ARES groups in each county setup no less than six (6)
portable stations that can be deployed at VRC’s, POD’s, temporary EOC’s,
hospitals, health departments etc. in the field as needed.
The digital system continues to grow and so do upgrades to voice repeaters in the
district.
We are looking forward to adding a D-Star system to Butler County’s available
communications tool box sometime this March. The system will have VHF-UHF-1.2 GHz voice
and 1.2 GHz data capability.
A $3,470.00 grant has been approved to cover the cost of commercial climbers that will
install the antenna support brackets, the antenna and hard line on a 300 foot commercial
tower.
Another grant is pending approval to cover the cost of internet access for a three year
time period. Internet access is required to allow the D-Star system to interconnect to
other D-Star repeaters.
DISTRICT 5
Counties Reporting: Ashtabula, Carroll, Lake,
Mahoning, Tuscarawas.
Notes
Lake: Winlink Demo, Update on Ares Trailer.
Mahoning: Monthly ARES Net
DISTRICT 6
Morrow County has their repeater up to full
power now. They still have a few minor bugs to work out but the repeater is back up to a
usable level. Gary N8EMR/EC also had a formal ARES meeting with a good turnout and
has added 3 new ARES members to his group.
Richland County had 2 Skywarn nets both in the early hours around midnight or 1AM!
Actually had good number of reporting stations
Wayne County had a public service with their Red Cross.
No reports from Ashland, Marion, or Knox counties and of course still any active ARES in
Holmes County.
DISTRICT 7
Franklin County
KC8RXL conducted IS-200 training session at the January meeting.
Madison County
Our local net has at times taken traffic messages and then passed them. Also some of our
members do check into other nets as their time permits.
Pickaway County
The equipment that was being ordered from the Homeland Security Grant is starting to come
in and ( hopefully ) within the next four to six weeks the EOC should be operational with
amateur radio equipment. After everything is set up, the EMA director wants to start
having activation drills for the EOC which will include the Pickaway ARES.
DISTRICT 8
Counties reporting: Hocking, Gallia, Ross,
Scioto, Athens
Gallia County is moving forth in effort to establish a mid-Ohio valley amateur radio
coordinating council, working with Gallia and Meigs in Ohio and Mason County in West
Virginia.
DISTRICT 9
Coshocton County (AA8BN/AEC)
Weekly ARES nets are conducted with one this month using our backup simplex freq of
146.49. That went well. Also held an ARES planning committee meeting.
Replaced a backup battery on the ARES Repeater and installed packet in the communications
Van. ARES also installed an antenna on a school in the county for the NOAA WX radio
install program. Over the last12 months ARES has been to 7 schools in the county.
In addition to monthly ARES briefings at the Coshocton Co. Amateur Radio Assoc. meetings
we have a link to ARES / Skywarn on the club web site: www.w8cca.org
END OF DISTRICT REPORTS
THANKS TO ALL THE ABOVE DEC’s,
EC. And AEC’s WHO SUBMITTED REPORTS FOR THE OHIO SECTION ARES!
ARRL BOARD OF DIRECTORS MAKE ASSISTANT SECTION/DISTRICT EMERGENCY COORDINATORS
OFFICIAL APPOINTMENTS
Last month it was announced by the ARRL that Assistant Section Emergency Coordinators
(ASEC) and Assistant District Emergency Coordinators (ADEC) will now be made official
appointments by the league. Section Manager Joe Phillips, K8QOE has delegated the task of
making the appointments to the SEC for Ohio. I am in the process of laying out
“ground rules” for these appointments, working with SEC’s of other section
who have unofficially used these positions for the past several years, as well as working
out details with Joe Phillips. I will be contacting our DEC’s shortly about their new
assistants, as well as posting information regarding Assistant SECs. Stay tuned!
ARES ACTIVATIONS DURING JANUARY AND EARLY FEBRUARY FLOODING
According to District 1 and 2, ARES groups in Auglaize, Hancock, Huron, Sandusky, and
Seneca counties were activated or on standby.
NATIONAL RESPONSE FRAMEWORK (NRF) TRAINING RELEASED
WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) today released the on-line IS-800.B National
Response Framework (NRF), An Introduction training course. The NRF, which
focuses on response and short-term recovery, articulates the doctrine,
principles and architecture by which our nation prepares for and responds to
all-hazard disasters across all levels of government and all sectors of
communities.
Course Information: The course introduces participants to the concepts and
principles of the NRF.
Course Completion: This course is available at
http://www.training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/IS800b.asp.
When individuals
complete the course, they should take the online test, fill out the student
information and submit the test for scoring. FEMA's Emergency Management
Institute's Independent Study office will notify individuals via email of
their successful completion of the course and a link will be included to
access and print a course certificate.
Questions: Individuals may contact the Independent Study office via email
Independent.Study@dhs.gov
or contact the call center at 301-447-1200 or toll
free at 1-800-238-3358, extension 1200. Independent Study Program office
hours are 7:30a.m.-7:30p.m. (EDT).
Pre-requisite: None
Course Length: The overall length of the course will vary for each
individual. IS800.B takes approximately 3 hours to complete.
RED CROSS – MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
Official worked from the ARRL is that there is no, nor will there be until further notice,
a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) with the National Red Cross and the ARRL. So, does
this mean we “walk off the job”? Hell no! If your ARES group is still working
well with your local Red Cross, please keep the relationship strong, and offer help when
needed and requested. Please understand that signing of any releases for background /
credit / Proprietary Information / Intellectual Property is up the individual volunteer,
and I will not give guidance one way or another on this topic, other than just be aware
what you are signing and agreeing to. Someday these two organizations will come to an
agreement, but until then I consider the matter closed with this last statement on the
subject.
SEVERE WEATHER CLASSES STARTING SOON
All the EMA’s will be holding severe weather training in just a few weeks. Be sure to
register and attend your session soon! A trained weather spotter, knowing what to report
and when to report will save more lives than a greenhorn who keeps reporting
“dangerous lightning” and “sunshine reports”.
SEC MAKES CONTACT WITH ALL EMA DIRECTORS
A few weeks ago, I sent a letter to all the EMA directors in the Ohio Section. This letter
was to “re-introduce” ARES to each of the directors, who we are, what we do, and
to direct them to the Ohio ARES website, as well as the Ohio Section and man ARRL
websites.
In the past few weeks, it was brought to my attention that a few EMA directors were not
aware of how the ARES was structured, or who their EC was in the county. Last year I asked
all DECs and ECs to make contact. That was not 100% successful, so I filled in the holes
with this letter.
OHIO ARES CONFERENCE ON MARCH 29th
Don’t forget that the Ohio ARES Conference will be held on March 29th in
Reynoldsburg. See the Ohio ARES Website (www.ohioares.org) for information.
ARES FORUM AT DAYTON HAMVENTION TO FEATURE DENNIS DURA, K2DCD
The ARES forum at the Dayton Hamvention will be held Saturday May 18th, 2008 at 10:15am. I
will be moderating the forum, and very excited to have Mr. Dennis Dura, K2DCD, who is the
new Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager for the ARRL. I am looking forward to what
Mr. Dura has to say in his new role, so please make a point to attend this forum during
Hamvention!
MY TRAVEL PLANS
First, I want to apologize for not making Mansfield last weekend. A bout of cold/flu/crud
hit me on late Friday night, and on late Saturday night, I called off the trip. I heard I
missed a great ARRL forum from my fellow colleagues in the Ohio Cabinet, as well as
DEC’s K8ARL and N8WL. Thanks to John Tipka, W8UL/STM who picked up the ARES portion
for me.
My travel plans are:
March 16, 2008: Toledo Mobile Radio Association Hamfest – Toledo
March 29, 2008 – Ohio ARES Section Conference - Reynoldsburg
April 27, 2008 – Athens Hamfest – Athens
May 16, 17, 18 – Dayton Hamvention – Trotwood
That's all for now!
73, Frank Piper KI8GW
Ohio SEC