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EASTON AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY, INC
FEBRUARY 2004 NEWSLETTER
www.k3emd.com

Hello all EARS members.  Our next meeting will be Tuesday, 7PM on 2-17-04 at the Talbot 911 Center in Easton.  Our guest speaker will be one of our newest members, Owen, K6LEW.  Owen is going to give a power point presentation on K8GP and VHF/UHF contesting.  K8GP is one of the most active contest groups in this area and it will be interesting to see their operation on top of the mountain.

Our last meeting on 1-20-04 was the best attended we’ve ever had… Most all of the new students who are taking the Technician class came to the meeting, and it was really nice to see all the interest.  Our President, Bill , KB3HSJ, had everyone stand up and introduce themselves at the beginning of the meeting.  We presently have about 14 people taking the EARS Technician classes each Thursday evening, and 2-3 people taking the General classes.  Bob, W9GE held an open house at his fabulous ham shack on 1-31-04 and had about 12 of the new prospective hams attend as well as several of our club members.  This was a wonderful opportunity for everyone to see what real HF ham radio is all about.

Our testing for both General and Technician will be held on March 18, 2004.

Owen, K6LEW gave a very interesting presentation on his equipment that would cover all the way from 903 Mhz to 10 Ghz.  He had this all mounted in one easy to carry box.

We had two new members join at our January meeting, George Macey ,WA3JAX and Owen Wormser, K6LEW-  welcome aboard !  We now have a total of 39 paid members.

Peter and Nancy, K3PKC and KB3HYW, are sunning themselves in Marathon, Florida.

Gene, K3SVA, wants everyone to know that his UHF repeater at Wye Mills is back on the air on 442.950+  PL 156.7, so get on and try it out!

Bob, W9GE, and Ray, W3BFC would like to welcome everyone to join them in Easton on Saturday morning 2-21-04 at the Bagel Bakery (in the Easton Plaza Shopping Center) at 9:30AM .  They would like to see a group of us get together once a month for coffee/ doughnuts. This would be especially nice for the hams who are just down here on the weekends and can’t make our club meeting during the week.

73  Tinsley K3RUQ
EARS Secretary
tinsley@towerleasing.biz
Phone: (410) 228 8888

RACES News
February 11, 2004  

Hi everyone! Here's an overview of what's happening with Talbot County RACES, with an introduction for new HAMs:  

The Talbot County Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) is a volunteer organization reporting to the Director of Talbot County Emergency Management. In the event of a communications outage during an emergency, we provide radio communications throughout the county between inter-county agencies and the Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) as directed by the Director to supplement existing communications systems as needed. Additionally, we are the primary communications link between shelters and the county Emergency Operations Center (EOC) when cell phones are overloaded or not functioning. Often in a county wide emergency, cell phone systems become immediately overloaded, power is lost to the towers, or the towers are knocked down, making RACES radio operators a critical component in the county emergency response system.  

In order to be prepared to accurately pass message traffic between sites during an emergency, RACES organizations throughout the state participate in a state-wide Emergency Communications Exercise (COMMEX) on the second Tuesday of each month from 7:30 to 8:30 PM . In Talbot County we usually have radio operators at various locations throughout the county to practice passing messages between each other and the EOC on a local county net. We also have an additional operator at the EOC passing messages between Talbot County , MEMA and other counties in the state via the Central Region Net (CRN) using the Davidsonville repeater.  

Last year, we held 5 or 6 training classes on our deployment RACES Plan and learning to pass message traffic between sites within the county, and we participated in as many state-wide drills. I am happy with the progress we made. For the past few months, we have been conducting training for RACES Members in proper procedures for passing traffic on the CRN. After each drill, a report is written and distributed to all county emergency managers, RACES Officers and MEMA officials critiquing our performance, so we also have spent time the past few months discussing the results of the report and honing our skills. Starting in March, other members will take turns as our radio operator checking into and passing message traffic on the CRN. The goal is to provide everyone with the skills they need to perform this function so we have flexibility in manning different positions during an emergency. Many of these same procedures will be used on our local net so it is important everyone take this additional training.  

Also next month, we will be conducting simplex radio coverage tests between each of the shelters we were deployed to during Hurricane Isabel (St. Micheals HS, Easton HS, Tilghman ES and the EOC). On Sunday March 7 at 2:00 PM we will meet at the office of Talbot County Emergency Management, distribute equipment and deploy to those locations. At each of the shelters, we will attach the antenna we already purchased for that site to a mast, hold the mast against the building at the location we expect it to be mounted, and test radio coverage to all other locations to ensure the locations and antenna are adequate prior to installation. Dr. John Hawkinson will be responsible for the testing of St. Michaels HS shelter, Tinsley Meekins will be responsbile for the Easton HS shelter, Chris Patrick and Spanky will be responsible for Tilghman ES shelter, and I will man the EOC. We need additional volunteers to join those being deployed to the shelters. I believe we have all the equipment we need, but if you have a VX-150 please bring it with you. If you are interested in participating, please contact me at 410-745-0079. You don’t need to be a current RACES Member in order to participate. This exercise will probably take at least an hour, but will be completed in less than 2 hours.  

After March, we will only have 2 more drills (April and May) before we break for the summer. If you haven't been to a drill yet this year to learn procedures for the CRN, please plan to attend one or two before summer.  

Thanks again for all the great support, and I'll see you on the air!  

Brett Hammond - KB3HGP

Talbot County RACES Officer