Old News:
June 2003
July 2003
August 2003
APRIL 2003 NEWSLETTER
www.k3emd.com
At our March meeting, Marty, W3YOZ gave an excellent talk about his experiences with their RACES drill in western PA. Members attending the meeting were K3OLE, KB3HSJ, N3TAF, N3UIF, W3PAW, KB3HGP, KB9MEJ, and W3YOZ. This meeting was the smallest we have had in some time, as several members could not come for many different reasons. Subjects covered included the Easton hamfest plans, the need for an information person to give club details to the media, the need for an autopatch on our repeater, and our new club web site.
Our E.A.R.S. hamfest will be held this Sunday April 13th and as of today the extended weather forecast calls for sun and 60 degree temperatures. There has been extensive advertising done this year in the ham radio magazines, on the ARRL web site, on our web site, and almost every radio station, TV station and newspaper in our area this week. Paul, W3PAW has made a large HAMFEST/ COMPUTER FEST sign and has put it in front of the Community Center on Rt 50. We had a meeting at Denny’s on 4-7-03 that was attended by KB3HSJ, K3OLE, K3RUQ, KB3HYX, KB3HSM, K8JW and W3PAW. We have planned to meet at the Talbot County Community Center at 5PM Saturday 4-12-03 to set up the talk- in antenna trailer and set up as much as we can before the next morning. Sunday morning we will be starting at 5AM at the hamfest site to get everything set up, since many people come as early as 5-6 AM. This year we have decided not to run the food concession ourselves, but to let the ladies who run the kitchen at the Community Center take care of it. They will do all the work with the food, and receive all the proceeds. We will not make any profit on the food, but on the other hand, we will not have to do any work with it either. We will see how this pans out this year, and next year if we have more help for the hamfest, we may run the food concession ourselves, and make some extra profit for the club.
Our new E.A.R.S. www.k3emd.com website has had a facelift done by Wayne Robbins, KB3GSU from Vienna. Wayne has spent many hours making improvements to our site over the last couple weeks. He has added several new pictures, has made new buttons and graphics and colors, and has added many convenience features that are user friendly. Please take a couple minutes and look over each page of our site, and let me know your opinion of what we have done and please make any suggestions on things you feel we should change or add to it. After looking at many ham radio club websites on www.qsl.net, I can tell you that ours is definitely superior to most of them. Wayne is 15 years old and is the son of Jeff and Tina Robbins, K3KBK and KB3GGZ. He has recently been featured on CH 16 TV and in the Daily Banner because of his superior computer skills in website design. If any of the club members would like to hire Wayne to come to their home or office, he is very knowledgeable in designing websites or doing any type of computer hardware or software. He charges very reasonable rates. His phone number is 410 943 8424, and his email is wrobbins05@comcast.net. Below is a picture of Wayne at K3RUQ’s office/ham shack working on the web site.
Nancy and Peter, K3PKC and KB3HYW are now heading north on their sailboat and will be back in Oxford soon.
Some dates to put on your calendar:
May 6 - RACES meeting at 7:30 PM at the Talbot 911 Center. This will be a final review and training on the RACES plan. This will be a training meeting only, not a drill.
May 13 - RACES drill at 7:15 PM at the Talbot 911 Center
May 20 - E.A.R.S. Club meeting at 7PM at the Talbot 911 Center
73,
Tinsley Meekins Jr. K3RUQ
k3ruq@arrl.net
410 228 8888
RACES News:
The March RACES drill was a success with 7 people participating in a simulated biological terrorist attack. I am happy to report we are steadily improving our message handling skills, both on-air as well as written. There was a considerable improvement in the written Radiograms this month. Good job everyone!
The April RACES drill will take place on Tuesday April 8, 2003. All participants should arrive at the EOC Radio Room by 7:15 PM and please remember to bring your copy of the Plan and a pen or pencil to every drill. For this drill, I would like everyone to send and receive one message. The goal is to go very very slow, overcome nervousness, and take as much time as you need to ensure the message is passed correctly and all blanks are filled out on the Radiogram. Let's forget about speed for now, and just focus on perfecting message handling. Any word you cannot spell, ask the sending operator to spell it for you. Don't be shy. The most important thing is to get the message passed accurately. Oh, and don't forget to work on memorizing the phonetic alphabet. Also, take a few minutes to review the Key Phrases section of the Plan before the drill so you know what words to use.
What may be our final training session before fall will take place on Tuesday May 6 in the Emergency Management Agency meeting room from 7:30 to 9:00 PM. During this meeting, we will review an updated version of the Talbot County RACES Plan (the May drill is the following week). All RACES Members, as well as anyone that is interested in being appointed as a RACES Member before fall, should attend.
As soon as we have a class making homemade antennas for our HTs (I think Lucas might be working on this), we will start the process of getting inside buildings throughout the county and testing radio coverage using a variety of antenna. Hopefully, this will be before our summer break.
Ed has requested anyone that has not received a RACES appointment letter from him, please return their ID badge to me. He has asked me to hold it until you have completed training. It is very important that all RACES members be familiar with our Plan as well as message handling because we won't be able to train someone in proper procedures during an emergency. Only RACES Members (people with appointment letters from Ed) will be allowed to participate in a real emergency.
Several people have expressed interest in becoming new members. By attending our last training session this spring, and a few drills, you should be familiar enough with procedures to be able to help in a real emergency, and will receive your letter of appointment from Ed. I look forward to welcoming new members to our ranks.
During the recent Hamfest in Timonium, I had the opportunity to talk with several other RACES Officers who expressed concern of not having enough members to cover a terrorist attack near DC. They would like to be able to call on us to assist, once we construct our deployment kits (you should be working on this) and become proficient at message handling. Before we can be of any use to him, we must be able to consistently send and receive Radiograms without any errors.
One final thought: there is additional money being allocated by Congress for homeland security in a few weeks as part of the supplemental appropriations for war. I am in the process of putting together a proposal to add Radio Room equipment as well as install equipment at a few other sites in Talbot County, in the event any of that becomes available to us. Anyone with suggestions on equipment please give me a call. See you on the air!
Brett - KB3HGP
Talbot County RACES Officer
410-745-0079