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

 

NEAR-Fest and the Road Ahead

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Dear Friends of NEAR-Fest:
 
Now that NEAR-Fest XXVII and XXVIII have been cancelled there are some important issues with which we must deal…..
 
First, this is going to be a major hit on our treasury because, notwithstanding the reason we are being canceled, we have contracts that need to be honored. 2019 was, as you may remember, was plagued with wet weather for both May and October. Attendance was down and so are our cash reserves. Consequently, the hard facts are that we need to raise some new capital starting this Fall if NEAR-Fest is to survive. 
 
In order to do this beginning soon we will be selling advance admission tickets for NEAR-Fest XXIX ($10.00) and inside parking passes ($10.00) either at Ham Radio Outlet in Salem NH and Ross Hochstrasser’s Clock Shop, 40 Walnut Street, Whitman MA as well as by mail to Michael Crestohl, W1RC, 316 Atlantic Avenue, Marblehead MA 01945 with a check or money order and a SASE. 
 
The exciting thing about the advance tickets are that all purchasers of advance tickets will be entered in a special prize drawing for either a Xiegu G90 HF SDR Transceiver (value $425.00) or a Yaesu FT-891 HF Mobile Transceiver (value $559.00). Winner does NOT have to be present to win. 
 
We are going to offer a special “VIP Pass” to NEAR-Fest for those who really want to see us through this difficult and trying time. It will be good for the person to whom it was issued for life, allow that person and the occupants of their vehicle (up to four people) and the vehicle to enter at 8:00 AM on Friday morning. Cost of this VIP Pass is $250.00 and is available by mail only.
 
Additionally, the cost of admission at the Fairgrounds will be increased to $15.00. This added $5.00 is to help alleviate the cost of not having NEAR-Fest XXVII but advance ticket buyers will be able to save this $5.00 per ticket surcharge.  I cannot tell you at this time if this $5.00 surcharge will be permanent. Once we are financially comfortable again we will decide whether or not to restore the cost to $10.00. 
 
In the event that the May 2021 event cannot be held any tickets or passes purchased will be valid and honored at the next NEAR-Fest so no one will lose.
 
We are asking our association and clubs if they can help us sell advance tickets to their members. The procedure will be simple and straightforward. Clubs would determine how many tickets and parking passes their members want, collect the money, send the list with this information along with a check payable to NEAR-Fest to us. We would take care of making sure that the prize draw stubs are properly filled in and put in the prize barrel for the drawing in July. After that takes place we would ensure they are kept safe so they can be put in the prize barrel at NEAR-Fest in May.  The tickets would be sent to the club for distribution to the members. Members should be informed that they are buying admission tickets for our fall event. They are not buying a raffle ticket. However there is no limit on the number of tickets anyone may purchase. Drawing will take place at NEAR-Fest XXIX in May 2021. 
 
Secondly, clubs who have already applied for the 2020 Association and Club Early Entry passes will not have to reapply again in January 2021. 
 
With your help we will survive this horrific nightmare.
 
73,
Mister Mike

Phil Temples, K9HI, Appointed as New England Division Vice Director

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ARRL President Rick Roderick, K5UR, has appointed Phil Temples, K9HI, of Watertown, Massachusetts, as New England Division Vice Director. He succeeds Mike Raisbeck, K1TWF, who was elected earlier this year as ARRL First Vice President. President Roderick made the appointment after consulting with New England Director Fred Hopengarten, K1VR, and the region’s Section Managers. 

“I want to thank all of those who forwarded their recommendations to Director Hopengarten,” Temples said. “Mike Raisbeck left some big shoes to fill. I look forward to working with Fred, and to advise and assist him with various tasks and board committee assignments. One task I’m especially eager to tackle is launching a New England Division website.”

An ARRL Life Member, Temples has been licensed for 50 years, initially as WN9EAY in Indiana. He has written articles for QST and contributed articles for the ARRL website. He also recently co-authored a chapter in the Amateur Radio Public Service Handbook.

Temples served three terms as Eastern Massachusetts Section Manager and now is an Assistant SM and an Assistant New England Division Director. He’s also held ARRL field appointments as Affiliated Club Coordinator and Public Information Officer and currently serves as program chair for the ARRL New England Division Convention.

Temples has been active in MARS, the National Traffic System, and as an Emergency Coordinator, and he enjoys CW. He holds a degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University.

Temples has actively promoted instruction and licensing and is a Volunteer Examiner under the ARRL, W5YI, and Greater Los Angeles ARG Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. He’s currently involved with New England Amateur Radio, Inc. in administering remote exam sessions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Temples is employed at Boston College as a computer systems administrator.

New Amateur Licensees June, July and August 2020

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Congratulations to the latest new hams of Western Massachusetts:

Dale A Winkler, KC1NCL
35 Tanglewood Dr
Milford, MA 01757-1060

Gail Parsloe, KC1NFF
382 Northampton Rd
Apt A
Amherst, MA 01002-2558

Jacob P Morin, KC1NHF
68 Monson Rd
Wales, MA 01081-9714

Alexander N Habermann, KC1NHG
1 Berkshire Sq
Apt 410
Adams, MA 01220-1304

James Javorsky, KC1NJJ
480 Teel Rd
Winchendon, MA 01475-2143

Joseph Quinn, KC1NHV
7 Bradish Farm Rd
Upton, MA 01568-1021

Shridhar Ambady, KC1NIX
16 Seward St
Worcester, MA 01604-2838

Robert Laird, KC1NHX
68 Vaughn Hill Rd
Bolton, MA 01740-1011

Paul Probst, KC1NDV
31 Woodland Rd
Southborough, MA 01772-1813

Reed G Probst, KC1NDW
31 Woodland Rd
Southborough, MA 01772-1813

Frederick J Probst, KC1NDZ
31 Woodland Rd
Southborough, MA 01772-1813

Manuel J Pino, KC1NMN
128 Channell Dr
Agawam, MA 01001-3508

Keen Sung, KC1NOI
608 S Pleasant St
Amherst, MA 01002-2544

Timothy Riley, KC1NOD
PO Box 1422
Easthampton, MA 01027-5422

Thomas A Boido, KC1NMC
3 Cheryl Ln
Southampton, MA 01073-9593

Keith A Korbut, KC1NJU
16 Saffron Cir
Springfield, MA 01129-1513

Chris N Whittier, KC1NNB
PO Box 453
Ashburnham, MA 01430-0453

Jeffrey A Roy, KC1NMZ
56 Hastings Rd
Ashburnham, MA 01430-1112

John W Hedly, KC1NMI
4 Whitman Bailey Dr
Auburn, MA 01501-3368

Korina Paliyannis, KC1NLJ
PO Box 418
Charlton, MA 01507-0418

Andrew T Detsikas, KC1NLT
30 Ross St
Clinton, MA 01510-1309

Tim Barnes, KC1NRP
235 E Pleasant St
Amherst, MA 01002-1557

George F Russell, KC1NSR
112 Worcester Providence Tpke
Millbury, MA 01527-2500

Richard M Chandler, KC1NQK
31 Valentine Rd
Northborough, MA 01532-1338

Stav Zeliger, KC1NRU
19 Eli Whitney St
Westborough, MA 01581-3536

Section Manager Report September 2020

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Hi Gang, we are now rounding the corner into September. I will admit it was a hot summer.

With the arrival of September comes the opening of some clubs starting up their meeting’s. I’m sure most, if not all will be virtual for now. Just as a reminder the WMA website now has resources to aid in various aspects of your club. The links are below:

For speakers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qLesHfit7-elLKXI-e8sQfpiKtNLCmyTirWFdALmRWE/edit#gid=1857305376

For new hams: 
https://wma.arrl.org/western-massachusetts-section-mentoring-program.html

Nets to try out: (let’s keep it up to date!)
https://wma.arrl.org/media/files/netlisting/WMA_Ham_Nets.pdf

Note: I do know the COVID Breakfast nets are now suspended. Hopefully they will no longer have to be used.

These are resources for you. Please keep them up to date and accurate please. Contact myself or the webmaster to get changes made.

The summer I have been busy setting up and learning some digital modes to support ARES. This is part to help Bob K1YO in testing capabilities and what works best in the area. The other is I am building a versatile EMCOMM station with a FT 991-a I just bought (nice rig by the way!). Things are moving along and what I am learning will hopefully provide someone interested in digital EMCOM technical assistance. Anyone is welcome to participate and encouraged to do so.

This month I am going to do a shoutout to the Mohawk Club in Gardner. They have spent the summer in getting their repeater groomed and set up with Fusion and DMR. They actually used part of it to do a demonstration on Zoom. It was quite informative. The other thing they are doing is one person has stepped up and will be doing a CW ops course aside from the usual one which fills up quickly. I will be participating in it to see if I can start using it on the air. This is a great example of a club that was struggling and with a committed group of members, is coming up with ideas to increase participation, activity, and add membership. I am looking forward to see the results from their efforts. Great job all!

When your club has their meetings, drop me an invite so I can pay a visit and say hi.
That’s all for this month. Like they said in the seventies..”Keep on Truckin'”!

Best 73,
Ray, KB1LRL

 

ARRL Hires Paul Z. Gilbert, KE5ZW, as Director of Emergency Management

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Originally posted on the ARRL HQ website:

As another step in ARRL’s increased focus on strengthening its emergency communications capabilities and long-standing working relationships with federal and state agencies and private emergency response organizations, ARRL has hired Paul Z. Gilbert, KE5ZW, of Cedar Park, Texas, as its first Director of Emergency Management.

Gilbert brings more than 30 years of experience in public service in both his professional and amateur radio endeavors. Beginning with his appointment as Emergency Coordinator in 1987, he has held multiple positions in the ARRL Field Organization. Currently in his second term as South Texas Section Manager, he has also served for more than a decade as the West Gulf Division’s Assistant Director for Public Service, acting as liaison between Division leadership and local, state, and federal emergency management organizations.

Professionally, Gilbert most recently was Radio Officer, HQ Staff, for the Texas State Guard, where for the past 6 years he has been responsible for planning and implementation of the organization’s communications capabilities. Previously he was a Public Safety Radio Coordinator for a Texas agency, charged with overseeing that organization’s large-scale disaster communications response and identifying and eliminating in-state interoperability issues.

Gilbert, who has an Amateur Extra-class license, is a member of Army MARS, and holds numerous DHS certifications, including COML, COMT, COMT Instructor, and AUXCOM Communicator. He is a member of the FEMA Regional Emergency Communications Coordination Working Group (RECCWG), a graduate of the FEMA Emergency Management Institute’s Exercise Design Course, and was a founding member of the Texas Division of Emergency Management Communications Coordination Group.

In his new role, Gilbert will manage a team responsible for supporting ARRL Emergency Communications (EmComm) programs and services, including the Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES®) and National Traffic System (NTS), as well as lead the continued modernization of those programs in consonance with the future emergency communications needs of the public and ARRL’s key partners.

HamXposition First Postponed, Now Going Virtual

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Hello All,

Large indoor gatherings such as our convention are currently prohibited by Massachusetts state law. This is highly unlikely to change by November.  Unfortunately, we will not be able to hold a physical convention this year.

However, we do plan some virtual activities, all free.  We are currently working on the details for these and will keep you posted as they develop:

We plan to the operate the W1A special event station over the weekend of October 31st – November 1st. To avoid a conflict with the November Sweepstakes, we moved this to one week earlier. W1A will be operated from the operator’s home stations.  Dennis, W1UE, is coordinating the schedule.  If you would like to be a W1A operator, please contact W1UE by email at w1ue@hamxposition.org.  For those who would like to work W1A, we will be posting the operating schedule once it is ready.  Note that this will give regular attendees the unique opportunity to work W1A (something which would have been more difficult for many to do operating portable from a hotel room).

We will also be hosting a Saturday evening virtual banquet on November 7th, featuring a guest speaker. There will be no charge for this event.  Order your favorite take-out or delivery, pull up a chair to your screen and join your friends for an interesting presentation.  After the talk, virtual break-out rooms will be available for you to converse with your “table”.

The Nashua Area Radio Club will be running an online version of the “Ham Boot Camp”. This is a multisession program for hams young and old to learn about the various activities they can do with their license.  Details to follow.

Eastern Mass ARES will be running online versions of their training sessions. Details to follow.

From the entire HamXposition committee, we wish you good health, be safe, and we look forward to seeing everyone in person at our 2021 convention on July 23-24-25, 2021.

73,
Bob – K1IW
Chairman, HamXposition 2020

Section Manager Report August 2020

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Hello, I am taking the day and finding “cool” things to do in different variations. Mostly to avoid turning into a well-done turkey! Hi-hi. Just remember, winter will be back!

One thing I wish to do is to keep in touch despite the fact we are pretty much confined and no meetings going on. Clubs, send me meeting invites so I can say hi and listen to the local gossip. The other thing I wish to gather is when clubs or people have VE sessions to let me know. I do get inquiries about who and when a session is coming up. If there is nothing going on, we ought to look at getting some testing done. Now that some things have loosened up Covid-wise there may be some options now available, even outdoors. Alaska and Hawaii have been doing remote testing for some time and other sections have looked at and adopted their own sessions which are VE and socially compliant. I am certainly open to ideas and comments. Remote VE may be the wave of the future way beyond this pandemic.

ARES has been plugging along. There is planning and training still going on and things may have bogged down a little bit. Understandable the times have been challenging as well as the heat now and who knows what is next. It’s like we are waiting for another shoe to drop. I have been using my time to set up WinLink and VARA on my base and portables to help Bob K1YO and learn this myself and have been tinkering with things to be better prepared “just in case”. Training and practice is the key and if anything else, it is expanding your knowledge in Ham Radio. I would encourage you consider helping us out in ARES and take part in the trainings and other activities. Share your skills and hobby to others. Foxhunting is not ARES but can be valuable in certain situations. Hiking to the top of a hill, making a quickie antenna and making contacts at 5 watts, again, has value. We need to get enthusiastic and active to inspire others to get exited about all that radio has to offer. Don’t be the one that says “nah, not me. Someone else will do it” Those someone elses are fading into silence!

That’s enough jibber-jabber for now. Enjoy the summer the best you can. Get On The AIR!

Best 73,
Ray, KB1LRL