July 20, 2008
July WCARES Meeting Notes
First I'd like to welcome our two new members, Jim Hullinger, KD8FNA and Duane Ashbacher, K8NEA. Great having you as a part of Wood County ARES and we look forward to working with both of you.
We had good attendance at yesterday's WC ARES meeting especially since we were competing with the Thresher Event and vacations. Present were the following:
Duane, K8NEA
Don, K8OVO,
Chuck, WD8CIP
Bob, K8SCL
Ed, K8ZCS
Ken, KD8DWO
Jim, KD8FNA
Steve, N8XSF
Ester, N8QMV
Hoot, WB8VUL
Bob, W8NYY
Discussion Points
Red Cross/Boy Scouts of America - When - Aug 9th Where - OCC CEP W8NYY reviewed the outcome of the Red Cross/Boy Scouts of America event preparation meeting he attended this past Thursday evening. Sounds like it's going to be a great event. The date is August 9th and the location is the Owens Community College Center for Emergency Preparedness on Tracy Rd. Set up will be 8AM and W8NYY will be bringing the WCARES trailer. The plan is to set up both an HF station on 20 meters to run a quasi special event station to demonstrate HF for the scouts that will be attending. We'll also be setting up a VHF/UHF station to demonstrate emergency traffic handling which will be done in partnership with Lucas County ARES who will also be in attendance. Whil it's an all day event, WCARES volunteers can plan on being there for as short a period or they wish or all day if they wish. W8NYY plans on being there all day or at least until we pull up stakes. Anyone interested in helping, please let W8NYY know. Also provide the time you might expect to be able to help.
Ohio National Guard FOC Drill - When - August 14th Where - OCC CEP - W8NYY reviewed the outcome of the Ohio National Guard (ONG) training drill preparation meeting that he attended Tuesday afternoon. This looks to be a very exciting opportunity for WCARES. It's expected that while the drill is a full week long event, the climax of the drill is expected to be Thursday, August 14th. It was decided at the preparation meeting that this would be the best day for WCARES participation. It is expected that there will be 200+ National Guardsmen involved in this drill and on Thursday, being a major media event for NW Ohio, it is expected that in addition to the media there will be many state and national dignataries in attendance. I believe it's an honor that we were invited to participate and hope we can get some volunteers to plan on being there. Like the Boy Scout event, the level of particpation in the drill will be dependent upon how many of us will be there. A briefing at the start of the day will confirm the scenario for the day and just how we will be deployed. My discussion with the Major leading this event is that he would like to see us set up an HF station as well as MARCS and VHF/UHF and if we have enough operators on hand have an operator set up remotely at Camp Perry. The details of how these stations would be utilized will be decided during the morning briefing. If you would like to be a part of this event, please let me know so I can put your name on the list. Security will be tight and your name will need to be on the list to gain access to the facility. Again, you can participate for just part of the day or all of the day. Just let m eknow your wishes.
The Future of WCARES and working with WCARC - We had a very good discussion on this topic and several very good points were made. I tried to capture the list and will include them here. We're still looking for additional input but there was very good progress made on the intitial topics. W8NYY tried also to include the view points of those not in attendance who provided feedback prior to the meeting. I'll do my best to summarize these topics here:
Weekly WCARES Nets - The general consensus was that there is support to once again have a weekly WCARES net, but with a change in format. It's requested that like in the past the net be on Tuesdays prior to the Wood County ARC weekly net. The time was a point of discussion.
The consensus of those attending was the net should just be a "Roll Call" net with short announcemnts relative to WCARES.
The Net Control should work from a script.
The Net Control duties should rotate.
There was a bit of a divsion on timing of this Roll Call net. There were some requesting the net be earlier than 9PM because of the need to get up early for work the next day. This is the same reason why these parties do not participate in the WCARC net. Suggested times were: 7:30, 7:45, 8:00, 8:15 or 8:30. We'd like feedback from the remaining members as to which times work best. Please send W8NYY your preference. During the summer, W8NYY has dificulty with Tuesday nights du to Special Olympics Golf he volunteers for but W8NYY will go along with whatever time the group agrees to. Due to summer months and day light saving time, maybe it's possible to have Summer net time and then after 9/01 switch to an earlier time. Just a thought.
WCARES Participation and Membership - It was agreed that WCARES needs to do something about attracting new members. There was discussion about the upcoming tech license class and publisizing our existance to new Hams that go through the class. W8NYY also pointed out the the FCC database is a good source for locating new members and would put together a mailing that could be sent out to those newly licensed. There wasn't a lot of support for combining the WCARC meeting with the WCARES meeting by having a portion of the WCARC meeting devoted to an ARES discussion. At least by the members in attendance. There was some feedback that not all members of WCARES are members of WCARC and visa versa. Unless there is strong feedback from the remaining members otherwise the current consensus is to leave the meetings as scheduled. There is certainly nothing worng thos with members of WCARES looking into joining WCARC (or visa versa) and W8NYY point out that he recently joined WCARC and thoroughly enjoyed the few meetings he was able to attend.
Possibility of Linking 146.790 with 147.180 - There was some discussion on this possibility but no conclusion or consensus was gained. W8NYY pointed out that thee were some mebers of WCARC not able to participate in Skywarn because curently the PL is programmed into the repeater and not the controller. N8XSF is going to look into making that change so the PL can be turned off during Skyarrn. W8NYY voiced th econcerns voiced in emails from others that there didn't seem to be a benefit to doing this due to the repeaters havig similar footprints. More discussion is needed on this and we can continue the discussion in future meetings or send your input to W8NYY.
Wood County Fairgrounds Station- This in the past has been a particularly sensitive issue as it was "ground zero" for the split of ARES and WCARC and caused concerns that still linger. It was the consensus of thse in attendance that we do need to put this behind us. Many mebers of WCARES aren't familiar with the events that caused the problem but, none the less, W8NYY voiced that since Wood County and the Commissioners have now ownership rights to the Fairgrounds or the buildings at the Fairgrounds, Wood County ARES has no interest in pursuing getting access to the old station established there. WCARES though would support the Wood County ARC's efforts to gain access to their old station if they are successful with thewir discussions with the Wood County Fairgrounds Commission, who manages the Fairgrounds on behalf of the owner, The Wood Couty Extension unit of the Ohio State University Extension office. W8NYY updated the group on his current discussion with EMA Director Brad Gilbert of their plan to include a WCARES station at the Wood County EMA EOC at the Wood County Courthouse. The EOC is going to be renovation and the plan is to include space for a WCARES station and antennas at the Courthouse. More on that later.
Future Updates and the WCARES webpage - There was feedback at the WCARES meeting about bring life back to the Wood County ARES webpage. W8NYY voiced that the current page allowed him to make blog entries and to be able to include photos but since the blog, domain and software to update the page was owned by previous member Paul KG4RWS, it was becoming increasingly more difficult to keep it current. Some updates such as scheules and Net Control listings listed in a side pane had to be update by KG4RWS. Steve N8XSF, said he was going to look into the software being used now by Lucas County. He was going to learn the software and bring that knowledge back to WCARES. More discussion on that later but in the meantime W8NYY will send out meeting notes and updates on a more timely basis in the future.
Recognition and Thanks - Bob, W8NYY recognized Phil, W8PSK and Steve, K8BBK, for their work to add the battery back up system to the 146.790 repeater. They did a highly professional job and we all owe Phil and Steve out sincere thanks. Thanks guys! You make us proud.
I am sorry for the length of these notes but I felt obligated to share with your the outcome of this very important meeting. For those of you who attended, if you think I missed anythign important please let me know and I'll send an update. I do not expect future meeting notes to be as verbose as these. Hihi.
Thanks again to all of you and 73,
Bob Schumann, W8NYY
Wood County ARES
PS - I've learned that Steve Strickland is out of the hospital but have nothing more on his condition. If anyone knows, please pass on an update. Thanks.