Public Demonstration of Emergency Communications June 26 – 27

Kingston, TN. at Fort Southwest Point Pavilion. Roane County’s “hams” will join with thousands of Amateur Radio operators who will be showing off their emergency capabilities this weekend. Over the past year, the news has been full of reports of ham radio operators providing critical communications during unexpected emergencies in towns across America including the California wildfires, winter storms, tornadoes and other events worldwide.

During Hurricane Katrina, Amateur Radio – often called “Ham Radio” – was often the ONLY way people could communicate, and hundreds of volunteer “hams” traveled south to save lives and property. When trouble is brewing, Amateur Radio’s people are often the first to provide rescuers with critical information and communications.

On the weekend of June 26 – 27, the public will have a chance to meet and talk with Roane County ham radio operators and see for themselves what the Amateur Radio Service is about. Showing the newest digital and satellite capabilities, voice communications and even historical Morse code, hams from across the USA will be holding public demonstrations of emergency communications abilities.

This annual event, called “Field Day” is the climax of the week long “Amateur Radio Week” sponsored by the ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio. Using only emergency power supplies, ham operators will construct emergency stations in parks, shopping malls, schools and backyards around the country. Their slogan, “When All Else Fails, Ham Radio Works” is more than just words to the hams as they prove they can send messages in many forms without the use of phone systems, internet or any other infrastructure that can be compromised in a crisis. More than 35,000 amateur radio operators across the country participated in last year’s event.

We hope that people will come and see for themselves, this is not your grandfather’s radio anymore,” said Allen Pitts, W1AGP, of the ARRL. “The communications that ham radio people can quickly create have saved many lives when other systems failed or were overloaded. And besides that – it’s fun!”

In the Roane County area, the Roane County Amateur Radio Club will be demonstrating Amateur Radio at Southwest Point in Kingston, TN on June 26th 12 noon until June 27th at 2:00 pm.. They invite the public to come and see ham radio’s capabilities and learn how to get their own FCC radio license before the next disaster strikes.

There are over 650,000 Amateur Radio licensees in the US, and more than 2.5 million around the world.

Through the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Services program, ham volunteers provide emergency communications for thousands of state and local emergency response agencies, all for free.

To learn more about Amateur Radio, go to www.emergency-radio.org.

The public is most cordially invited to come, meet and talk with the hams. See what modern Amateur Radio can do. They can even help you get on the air!

If you did not receive the information, please email me and I will send you all the details. We are not giving out the URL to the system to help prevent spam.

Thanks for all you do! You can email me with questions.

Cody, KI4FUV

If you need any help getting to the meeting, talk-in will be on 147.120 MHz (+, 82.5 pl).

Remember that a meteorologist from the National Weather Service office in Morristown will be at our club meeting, this Thursday to teach a SKYWARN Spotter class.

The meeting and class will be held at the Roane Co. Rescue Squad building in Midtown at 7:00pm (Eastern).

This meeting is open to anyone who would like to attend.

Talk-in will be on the 147.120 Repeater.

From ARRL website: Link

http://www.arrl.org/?artid=9398

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2010/01/13/11288/

On Tuesday, January 12 at 4:53 PM Haiti time (2153 UTC), a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit 10 miles (15 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, the island nation’s capital. Communications in and out of Haiti have been disrupted. No word has been received as of yet from any of Haitian Amateur Radio operators. The ARRL encourages US amateurs to be aware of the emergency operations on the following frequencies: 7.045 and 3.720 MHz (IARU Region 2 nets), 14.265, 7.265 and 3.977 MHz (SATERN nets), and 14.300 MHz (Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net); the International Radio Emergency Support Coalition (IRESC) is also active on EchoLink node 278173.

IARU Region 2 Area C Emergency Coordinator, Arnie Coro, CO2KK, is coordinating a multi-national response by hams. There are organized nets on 7.045 and 3.720 MHz; amateurs are asked to monitor the frequencies, but to also keep them clear of non-essential traffic. Amateur Radio operators should also be aware that emergency traffic pertaining to the Haitian earthquake is expected on the SATERN frequencies of 14.265 MHz, 7.265 MHz and 3977 MHz, according to SATERN’s leader, Major Pat McPherson. The Salvation Army is accepting health and welfare traffic requests on its Web site.

“As late as 9:45 PM local time (0245 UTC), we have not been able to contact any amateur or emergency services stations in Haiti,” Coro said in an e-mail. “Amateurs from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela are monitoring the 40 meter band frequency. We are still keeping watch on 7.045 MHz, hoping that someone in Haiti may have access to a transceiver and at least a car battery to run it,” but so far, no HH stations have checked in. Tuesday’s quake was felt in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and in Eastern Cuba, but no major damage was reported in either place.

The January 13 edition of The Daily DX reported that the Rev John Henault, HH6JH, made contact late Wednesday morning with the Intercontinental Assistance and Traffic Net (IATN) on 14.300 MHz; this is the IARU Global Center of Activity frequency for emergency communications. He said that he was safe, but had no power and no phone service. He was operating on battery power and hoping to get a generator running later in the day. The edition also noted that Pierre Petry, HH2/HB9AMO — who was in Cap Haitien (about 140 km north of Port-au-Prince) is “okay”; Petry is in Haiti working for the United Nations World Food Program. Later today, he will be traveling to the capital.

The UN’s 9000 peacekeepers in Haiti — many of whom are from Brazil — were distracted from aid efforts by their own tragedy: Many spent the night hunting for survivors in the ruins of their headquarters. “It would appear that everyone who was in the building, including my friend Hedi Annabi, the United Nations’ Secretary General’s special envoy, and everyone with him and around him, are dead,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday, speaking on French radio. UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy would not confirm that Annabi was dead, but said he was among more than 100 people missing in the rubble of its headquarters. He said only about 10 people had been pulled out, many of them badly injured. Fewer than five bodies had been pulled from the rubble, he said. The United Nations said the capital’s main airport was “fully operational” and that relief flights would begin on Wednesday, January 13.

The situation in Haiti is still chaotic. More information will be posted as soon as possible. Information is being validated and shared between many amateur groups and news sources as it unfolds.

• Map of Roane Co. Rescue Squad Building
• 375 Old Highway 70, Harriman, TN 37748

If you have any questions or comments, please email us. We look forward to serving you during 2010!

• President: Phil Newman, KE4LSH – president@ke4rx.org
• Vice President: Cody Anderson, KI4FUV – vicepresident@ke4rx.org
• Secretary: Jim White, K4APY – secretary@ke4rx.org
• Treasurer: Kati Segar – treasurer@ke4rx.org

2735 Roane State Hwy, Harriman, TN 37748

35.880104 N 84.562125 W

Join us on 147.015 for the Monday night net at 8:00pm and let us know how the repeater is working for you. For more information, email Cliff Segar kd4gt@ke4rx.org

It is our biggest annual event, held the 4th full weekend in June every year. It’s an emergency training event and has a contesting element thrown in. Groups all across the country will begin setting up their equipment “in the field”, or a location you normally wouldn’t find an amateur station, at 10am eastern time. They have 4 hours to finish and start operating at 2pm eastern time.

They operate for 24 hours straight. The emergency part is to see how quickly they can set up a working station in a not-normal location. The contest part is to see how many contacts can be made in the 24 hour period using this make shift station.

We welcome you to come by and see what we do. We will be setting up at Fort Southwest Point in Kingston. It’s June 27 and 28. Setup will be from 10am to 2pm on the 27th. Operations will be from 2pm on the 27th to 2pm on the 28th.

Hope to see you there!

AT FIRST THIS PAGE HAD INCORRECT DATES FOR FIELD DAY. IT IS ACTUALLY JUNE 27 AND JUNE 28.

Part of the merit badge requirement is for the scouts to have a conversation on the air.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Due to some technical errors (and I don’t know what they are) I can’t add the video we’d like to to this post.

To see it go here. http://www.ke4rx.org/wp-content/2009-field-day.wmv

We’ll show you how to use the program for everything you could need to do.

The network will be wireless but we will be able to handle up to 3 wired computers. If you need to connect by ethernet to the network, please bring your own peice. 25 foot or longer is reccomended.

Hope to see you there for a great meeting!

On Mondays, join us for the Roane County Amateur Radio Club net. It takes place on the KE4RX/r repeater at 8 pm eastern time. You don’t have to be a member of the club to check in and everyone is welcome.

On Tuesday nights, except for the 3rd Tuesday of the month, we have our ARES net. It’s also on the KE4RX/r repater at 9 pm. Everyone is welcome to check in, you don’t have to be a member of Roane ARES (or any ARES).

If you aren’t there, you’re likely to be assigned more to do! See ya Tuesday!

First, we have switched to a new server which should provide better service and will give us greater oppertunities to maintain and make our website more functional.

Second, our email service is back online and fully functioning. All @ke4rx.org email addresses are working so now you can send your emails directly to the correct person.

Since our email is back online, if you are a member of the Roane County Amateur Radio Club, you can email webmaster@ke4rx.org and have yourself an email forwarding account set up. This works like the ARRL email service does. You can get your_callsign@ke4rx.org so that it forwards to your actual personal email address.@ke4rx.org

Should you experience any problems with our website, email, or anything else related to either of these services, please email webmaster@ke4rx.org

Enjoy!

We have reserved our normal location at Fort Southwest Point in Kingston.

This new section also allows you to subscribe to emergency email alerts. All you have to do is put in your email address, name, and subscription preferences. You can join categories to only receive emails about certain things.

If you would like to join the list, please go to: http://www.ke4rx.org/emergency/

Your email address will be kept completely secure and you can opt out of the emails at any time if you would like by going to that same page.

Note on 29 Apr 2008: I have manually added all ARES members to this list using the emails provided for ARES membership. There is a category to send these only to ARES folks. There is also a category to send notices to people for weather alerts. This may include people who are NOT ARES members, but it DOES include all ARES members as well. We send to a few people who have requested to receive weather alerts who are not active ARES members. This is in line with our mission in the Roane County Emergency Plan as ESF2 (Communications): we have a responsibility regarding WARNING issues as well as emergency operations. This is also consistent with Roane County’s designation by the National Weather Service as a “Storm Ready Community.” 73 DE KI4FZT, EC – Roane County

You can also register for a free account on the website, which will allow you to post comments about the news items that get posted on the website. This is great if you have questions about something. Remember you can always contact us with your questions also.

- Cody Anderson, KI4FUV (webmaster@ke4rx.org)