Author Archives: Gilbert Hayes

Section Manager Report November 2020

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Hello everyone, it’s been kind of quiet out there lately, even the crickets aren’t saying much. The only thing that has been happening is some of our staff has resigned their post’s for various reasons. Some of it is that there has been little progress in plans and activities, etc. in the ARES department. Remember, we have been building our ARES group from ASHES- nothing! Bob, K1YO has been working many hours on many facets along with getting the staff together and along with some on board who have been contributing to put the program to functionality. Without volunteers who are willing to participate to get the movement moving better, it will be slow as snails. I have been continuously seeking people to help and I hear the deafening silence all the time. Keep in mind, we could get a blizzard this year of epic proportions with huge power outages and people seeking shelters and stranded in their homes. Ask yourselves this, Are we ready? The help wanted sign is out. To those who have been working hard with our group, again, many thanks for your efforts.

Earlier, I posted a member Ken, WB8PKK is putting together a venue where we will have tech classes and VE sessions during the months of January and February. The Masonic hall in Gardner has provided their dining hall with a new air filtration system to conduct the sessions. We have a number of people signed up for the sessions and am looking for volunteers to assist in teaching or conducting the testing. Give Ken a email at backhoeken@yahoo.com for more information. Additionally, the Boston chapter is expressing interest as well in getting something together and have invited the Eastern Mass section partners as well.

These sessions have become a controversial subject not just here but across the country. There are those that hold a very traditional approach to teaching and testing and expresses their opinion loudly of that. I, myself do like to embrace the traditional methods but understand there is also a need to adapt with the times. Remote testing and learning and other forms are getting to be the “norm” to get people taught and licensed. My take on this is to look at the other traditional method of making active hams. That’s Elmering! This was also embraced in times past and has since gone away. The way I see it, regardless of how we get people interested and licensed under the FCC guidelines, Elmering and Mentoring those to become grounded in the hobby will be the key in the success in the hobby. Those who participate in this can actually teach those traditional methods they embrace so tightly.

That was a mouthful this month. I really hope you give things a thought and see about doing something which can get a lot of positives and growth in this great hobby for all!

I hope you all have a safe, healthy Thanksgiving in the best way you can.

73,
Ray KB1LRL

WMA ARES Section Upcoming Activities

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WMA ARES

There is a substantial amount of work underway in the WMA Section for activities upcoming in the near future. I’m certain most of you are unaware of these since they are still in the planning stage, but I wanted to give you a quick update.

I’m planning for a local Section Emergency Test (SET) to be conducted soon … likely in the mid to late December timeframe. What we’d like to do with this is (of course) exercise our voice net capabilities to give us a bit of needed practice in handling and forwarding messages to / from agencies that would likely require the same in the event of a disaster. …. But additionally, to come up to par with what ARES sections are doing across the nation, we need to also develop the capacity to handle messages digitally – and by that I mean via WinLink and NBEMS / FLDigi. Updates will appear here as things progress.

There has been a LOT of activity in this vein across ARES nationally in the past month or two. WinLink training videos (along with many other excellent and useful topics) are now available for free via Vimeo (video) to be viewed at users’ convenience. Also, you’ve all seen the offerings going on right now from the New Hampshire Training Academy … which have produced some great feedback!

But while training is great, PRACTICE is the key determinant of our abilities. To this end, our plan is to setup additional nets for practice handling digital messaging, and some additional exercises (beyond just check – ins) for voice nets.  To do this we need participants … which we have a good share of for our HF voice nets, but to a lesser extent for UHF / VHF repeater and simplex nets. MUCH testing has been done recently to determine our capacity for cross – county communications on HF, and VHF digital operations (digital VARA FM via 6 meter repeater, for ex.) and for simplex on VHF. Work will continue in these areas. The VHF / UHF repeater capacity should be back to its original capabilities in the near future also, so hopefully the VHF/UHF net participation will increase.

If you have digital capability already ( HF and / or VHF ) and would like to become part of the proposed digital messaging networks, please let me know (k1yo@arrl.net) . If you don’t have the experience but would like to get involved, that’s great !   We have some pretty good startup documents to help you and will offer short Zoom classes to finalize your capabilities …. even one on one if needed !

Anyone with solid digital messaging experience would be welcome to help train others to come on board!  Those with traffic handling expertise are also needed to get users up to speed on how messages should be passed to existing NTS traffic nets as that would be a probable conduit in a large scale disaster.

Simply, there has recently  been much work done  towards reviving the ARES capabilities of WMA. I believe we are now ready to start moving forward – simply at first – but engaging additional capabilities and technologies as we ready ourselves to meet the needs of our healthcare partners, agencies, and communities

The only thing missing is you !

Vy 73
Bob – K1YO
SEC WMA ARES

P.S. .  Several Worcester area stations have already volunteered for helping with additional testing … my apologies but due to an email error I have lost the specifics on  those of you who already contacted me!  Please resend – thanks.

Calling all VE’s and Teachers

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Hello, the Western Mass section needs your help! As you know COVID has squashed most of the classes and testing sessions this year. I have been informed by Ken Burstall WB8PKK that the Masonic Hall in Gardner has a new air filtration system and is allowing us the use of their dining hall to host a Tech-in-a-day course and an open and walk in VE session. We need volunteer teacher’s and VE’s to assist in conducting the testing and teachings. There are also 25 Boafeng radio’s preprogrammed for those that have passed.

This will be in compliance with the guidelines of the Board of Health and testing materials will be sterilized using UV-C process and heat-sealed bags. Ken has provided the materials for sterilization and has provided the means to get this off the ground. 
Session dates are open and can be either a Saturday or Sunday in January or February. We need to know who can participate to do what and when in order to secure the date to advertise. Please contact Ken at backhoeken@yahoo.com. This invitation will also be open to our EMA neighbors as well.

Thank you, Ken, for your generous effort and donation. Please pass this along to anyone interested. And please let’s not let this opportunity pass by.

Thank you,
Ray KB1LRL

WMA ARES HF Emergency Net Signal Reports

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Hello to all stations that checked into the WMA ARES HF Emergency Net on Sunday October 11.

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve requested your power levels to be reported also … this is to assist in studying some of the 75m ionospherics at play during our net relative to the time and your location. I’ve attached a table of your received signal strengths at my station here in Southwick MA for your information. Receive antenna is a multi band Off Center Fed Dipole (OCFD) at about 70 feet into a Yaesu FT-1000MP. Results are interesting especially at low and QRP power levels.

While I have not calibrated the meter at this point, I believe the readings vs power levels vs distance from the station will give us a better idea of what could be the case in a large scale emergency where 100 watts might be the maximum power a station could produce – especially if deployed. Near Vertical Incident Skywave (NVIS) signals are the defacto mode of communication for our nets due to the typical heights of our antennas. This is usually a good medium for reliable communications out to 300 miles or so. However, there has been information published that describes a ‘donut hole’ of about 100 miles that may pop up depending on the condition of the ionosphere with time…most likely the D and E Layer absorption growing as the sun heats things up.

Certainly other layers and factors affect our efforts and I’m trying to get a handle on all this by collecting reports and trying to relate things to ionosphere level  readings taken at the same time as our net from the nearby ionosonde site at Millstone Hill in MA. I will keep you advised of any findings as I study the voluminous data on ionograms and their translations on the web. I am pretty new to this and the data available is primarily at research science levels so if any of you are well – versed or have a potential contact that might be, I’d appreciate your inputs <grin>!

I’m going to try to collect and refine readings going forward and will make these available as I collect them … at a location to be determined – possibly posted here for the time being.

Thanks to all of you for your net participation and your willingness to serve your communities in disaster situations.

Vy 73,
Bob – K1YO
Section Emergency Coordinator – Western Massachusetts Section

Department of Defense Exercise With Amateur Radio Participation, October 2020

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As written by Tom Kinahan N1CPE and posted on the NE Division website:

For almost the whole month of October, (now through October 26) the Department of Defense is conducting a series of exercises that will train the connection of MARS members to the Amateur Radio Service.

There are opportunities for hams to participate in this exercise.

1) Every day at noon local time, there will be a net on 60 meters channel 1 (5.3305 MHz USB) to have checkins from hams. The NCS will ask for your callsign, city and state. As the month moves on, there may be other unplanned requests.

2) Familiarize yourself with the METAR which is transmitted on VHF AM from all major and some less major airports as weather information for pilots. See if you can transcribe the weather information. They speak fast, and usually in mumbles. This is valuable information to the DoD in times of communication outage. Contact me for additional details.

3) There will be ICS-213 messages originating in MARS for certain ARRL and other local ham radio leaders refiled into the NTS system for delivery. NTS nets may carry these messages. Be ready to copy these messages and deliver them, by checking in to your local NTS net.

If you have any questions, please let me know!

 

[Tom Kinahan is the Army MARS Region 1 Executive Officer. He can be contacted at: tom.kinahan@verizon.net]

New Amateur Licensees September 2020

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Congratulations to the latest new hams of Western Massachusetts:

Samuel A Bell, KC1NUK
470 Memorial Dr
Apt 351
Chicopee, MA 01020-5051

Michael P Siekiewicz, KC1NUL
556 Main St
Hampden, MA 01036-9679

Patrick J Lennon, KC1NXI
91 Pineridge Dr
Westfield, MA 01085-4544

David J Moriarty, KC1NSZ
76 Campechi St
Springfield, MA 01104-2921

Paul M Bigos, KC1NUJ
95 Mountain Dale Cir
691
Becket, MA 01223

Aaron Taylor, KC1NWC
41 Hill Province Rd
Williamstown, MA 01267-2030

David W Eckler, KC1NWI
10 Briarcliff Ln
Spencer, MA 01562-3111

ARES Potential Deployment Capabilities Survey

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The ARES Western Massachusetts Section is in the process of updating information about its members. We are beginning a redesign of our Registration Form and accessibility to the data you have provided in the past.  Look for more information on our WMA ARES website as we progress through these tasks.

Initially I’d like to ask each of our current members to take a very quick and simple (10 questions) survey to give us an idea of who might be available for deployment in the event of an emergency.

Aaron, KF1G, has developed the survey input as part of his regular website. You can get to the form by going to https://www.kf1g.net/survey/

Please take a minute to respond so that we can have a current picture of our resources, capabilities, and desired level (if any) of deployment should the need arise.
Thanks in advance for helping us provide our communities needed communications assistance.

Very Best Regards,
Bob – K1YO
Section Emergency Coordinator – Western MA ARES

HamXposition / New England ARES Academy Schedule

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From ema.arrl.org:

The first-ever New England Division ARES Academy, originally scheduled for the Division Convention in November, will instead be held over a period of several weeks in October via Zoom. There are five Basic Track classes for those just getting started, and more advanced classes and workshops for those who already have the basics. One-hour classes will be held on weeknights from 7:30 to 8:30, and two-hour workshop sessions will be held Saturday mornings from 9:00 to 11:00.

A big benefit of the on-line schedule is the opportunity to take every single class and workshop instead of having to pick and choose. Weeknight class participants will be able to ask questions and interact with the instructor via chat. The two-hour Saturday workshops are designed to be even more interactive. Academy Instructors are all recognized experts in their subject area.

The NE-ARES Academy is an outgrowth of the successful NH-ARES Academy program that ran at the NH State Fire Academy for eight years. The program’s goal is to offer both basic and advanced skills training based in ARRL ARES training standards.

We plan to continue this program at the Convention once the pandemic is over, in hopes that building a standardized base of training across New England will enhance our ability to provide better local emergency communications, and an effective ARESMAT (ARES Mutual Assistance Team) response across the region, and beyond.

NE-ARES-Academy-Schedule

Academy coordinator Dave Colter, WA1ZCN, was the original editor and principal author of ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Course series in the early 2000s, and creator of the original NH-ARES Academy. He is currently ASEC-Training for NH-ARES.

Section Manager Report October 2020

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Hello fellow practitioners of the ether! I’m starting to hear rumors that Santa is only giving sanitizing supplies this year! Makes you wonder don’t it?

If you haven’t found out yet we now have a NE Division Vice Director and that is Phil Temples, K9HI. You may have seen him around or talked to him at the former Boxboro convention. Usually when I see him, he is either running around like a nut, resolving an issue, or talking to lots of people. Currently he is trying to put some kind of virtual replacement to our Hamvention in place. I don’t know about you, but I miss those events. I really hope they come back next year.

One thing that Phil has done is launch the NE Div. website! You can see it at https://nediv.arrl.org/. This is for ALL of New England. Take a moment to have a look. A great start to the new appointment. Welcome Phil!

The Eastern section and myself have had some inquiries about Ham Callsign vanity plates from the MA. RMV Apparently new requests have been stalled due to an upgrade in the system back in 2019-ish. I do not know if it applies to other forms of vanity plates. I am curious how many out there have had this issue going on. Please let me know. The section leaders, and the ARRL really have no influence in getting this resolved and Covid likely have pushed this on a low priority as it is supported by third party software. (Unconfirmed sources, FYI) If you are having difficulty with this, best thing is to contact the Registrar of Motor Vehicles.

As you may be aware October and November will be fairly busy as ARES and MARS will be conducting Section Emergency Test (SET). MARS will be including Amateur Operators for their test. Stay tuned to this site and others for information. Anyone is welcome to participate. You can email Bob, K1YO about our SET and if you wish to join in.

I hope everyone is doing good out there and being safe. Radio is certainly a cure for loneliness and boredom if you are stuck at home. I know some of you still had vacations and hope you had a great time. Playing radio outside of your norm allows checking out new antennas, new modes etc. Hope it was worked into your plans.

I hope everyone has a great month!

73,
Ray KB1LRL