[CALV-AUXCOMM] Fwd: MDC Section News

[Shawn Donley]

All,


Info below contains some relevant AUXCOMM events and training.   Edited from the ARRL MDC section news.


Shawn

N3AE

>     MDC Section News
>     Vol. 13, No. 04
>     April 19, 2018
>     ************************
> 
> 
>     ==>NWS BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON D.C., SKYWARN® TRAINING
> 
>     Upcoming - National Weather Service Baltimore/Washington, SKYWARN
> 
>     Click this link for more details and information: [ http://www.weather.gov/lwx/skywarn ]
> 
>     Basics - April 11th, 6:00 PM - Saint Mary's
>     Basics - April 21st, 2:00 PM - Princes George's
>     Floods - May 22nd, 6:00 PM - Washington, DC
>     Floods - May 24th, 6:30 PM - Princes George's
> 
> 
>     ==>TRAINING OPPORTUNITY -- ICS 300 AND ICS 400
> 
>     ICS 300 and ICS 400 provide training and resources for personnel who require advanced application of the Incident Command System (ICS). This course is open to all CERT members but is not mandatory. Anne Arundel County and City of Annapolis OEMs have suggested that CERT management would benefit from the course.
> 
>     ICS 300 -- This course expands upon information covered in the ICS-100 and ICS-200 courses.
>     The course objectives are as follows:
>     - Describe how the National Incident Management System (NIMS)Command and Management component supports the management of expanding incidents. - Describe the incident/event management process for supervisors and expanding incidents as prescribed by the Incident Command System (ICS). - Implement the incident management process on a simulated Type 3 incident. - Develop an Incident Action Plan (IAP) for a simulated incident.
> 
>     ICS 400 -- This course expands upon information covered in ICS-100 through ICS-300 courses. These earlier courses are prerequisites for ICS-400. The course objectives are as follows:
>     - Explain how major incidents engender special Management challenges. - Describe the circumstances in which an Area Command is established. - Describe the circumstances in which multiagency coordination systems are established.
> 
>     The courses are being conducted at the Fire Department Headquarters in Millersville. ICS-300 is a 20-hour course from 8:00am-4:00pm on Monday, April 16 and 17, and from 8:00am-12:00pm on April 18. ICS-400 is a 12-hour course from 12:00pm-4:00pm on Wednesday, April 18 and from 8:00am-4:00pm on Thursday, April 19.
> 
>     Keeping in mind the pre-requisites, you can take 1 course or both.
> 
>     You can sign up on MEMA's website: [ https://memamaryland.csod.com ]
> 
>     You must have a user ID and password (you can register for one at the website).  To find the course, click on April 16 on the displayed calendar.
> 

>     There is no cost for these courses.
> 
>     Questions can be directed to Jim Tully at Anne Arundel County Office of Emergency Management. His email address is: .
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>     ==> MDC SECTION ARES REPORT
> 
>     2018 March MDC SEC Narrative Report
> 
>     EmComm Events and Comments from around the Section de Section Emergency Coordinator WB3KAS:
> 
>     Reporting
> 
>     Four of the 18 appointed ECs submitted their monthly ARES County reports this month, or 22%.
> 
>     Some are STILL sending in the old form or text or doc. Way too much work to redo and get in to the new format I have to send to the League. See next paragraph and make yours and my life a little easier each month. Also, the file name should be of the form 2018-04 <4-ltr cnty code> EC Report.pdf
> 
>     The new ARRL's fillable pdf reporting system makes it soooooo easy for me. You can get the "new and improved" correct form at:
> 
>     [ http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Public%20Service/2017%20Forms/Monthly_DEC-EC_Report.pdf ]
> 
>     It's extremely important that your constituents hear what is going on relative to EmComm in their community. If nothing more, tell us what meetings you hold, when, where and what repeaters you can be found on. I'd like to hear from the rest of you.
> 
>     All MDC DEC positions (Western, Central and Eastern) are now filled. Make sure you put them on email copy for all that you put up to others in performance of your EC duty.
> 
>     There are seven counties that do not having an Emergency Coordinator. They are ALLE, CARO, DORC, KENT, QACO, SOME and WORC. As you can see 6 out of the 7 are on the Eastern Shore and is a grave concern from a weather perspective. I say this every month because this is gravely important this time of year. If you live in any of these counties, please consider getting involved with emergency communications and sign up to assist the hospitals in your area. Contact me for more information at wb3kas at arrl.net.
> 
>     SEC Presentations
> 
>     Wanda, KA3AHI, and I continue to schedule visit to as many ARES and club groups as possible. We have two presentations I think would be worth your while to hear. One on Section Interoperability and the other is the Section Health Care EmComm Program. If you have interest in this, and have room on your meeting agenda for us, please contact me.
> 
>     MDC Section Reflectors
> 
>     We introduced a new MDC Section reflector, ARRL MDC Section
>     Winlink Training Group for P2P and Hybrid networks, or MDCQRV
>     for short. Please make use of this tool to sharpen skills and
>     fine tune your configuration files.
>     Located at: [ https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MDCQRV/info ].
> 
>     The new ARRLMDCSection Yahoo Reflector is now available. If you are not a member. . .you should be!! We now have 93 members this month, up three from last month. I encourage you to use this to stay informed or keep in touch with the rest of your fellow ARES members. With the wide distribution of this newsletter coming out only once a month, this Yahoo Site will keep you up to date with late breaking news, including a possible disaster call up. There is very little traffic to clog your in box.
> 
>     I don't know if all the DECs and ECs are members. If you are not, please do. This is going to be be the quickest way possible to inform MDC Section ARES of current incidents and impending disasters. Please do it now.
> 
>     You can join at: [ https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ARRLMDCSECTION/info ].
>     ======================
> 
>     Meetings
> 
>     Mar 6: Attended a Region Mass Feed Plan at BACI Red Cross center. Discussions centered around providing communications for an actual event. The venue would be a small local site encompassing unloading docks, feed trucks, tents, etc. Seems they may be relying on the 800MHz systems. Suggested they use Amatuer Radio to keep the 800MHz for tactical comms.
> 
>     Mar 12: Attended another Region V Hospital Coalition Meeting concerning the announced Region V hopsital exercise scheduled for May 3, 2018. As of this writing it is billed as a "mass surge" event resulting from unrest in the five counties. Details keep changing at every meeting. This will encompass the five counties in this Region; CALV, CHAR, MONT, PRGE and STMA. More on that when we attend additional planning sessions. As of this writing, only CALV, CHAR, MONT and PRGE will have ham radio support.
> 
>     Mar 14: Visited Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Salisbury, MD at the request of the Center's Safety Coordinator and Emergency Management, Steve Schweikert, KB3WVC. "Wish to set up emergency contacts locally to work via amateur radio in an emergency." They have and ICOM 746PRO HF rig and a Yaesu FT 8800 2m/70cm rig with associated antennas on the roof. They currently work with HEART out of Virginia for EmComm support. They would like to get a local group established at PRMC and work with a local emergency net to link up and establish a better network. Steve received our information from Laurie at Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin where held our 2017 MDC SET Exercise. Imagine that!
> 
>     ======================
> 
>     Future Events:
> 
>     May 3: MD Region V Hospital Coalition 'Mass Surge' Exercise
> 
>     ======================
>     Section Reports Received:
> 
>     de CECI County KB3LJB
> 
>     March 2018 ARES activities in Cecil County consisted mostly of participation in the weekly Sunday evening ARES Nets held on the CBRA 146.850 repeater in Port Deposit, MD. The 4 Nets this month averaged 1/2 hour duration and 8 operators checking in for a total of 16 person hours. The Peach Bottom drill occurring in March was essentially a non-event for the CECI ARES. There was some activity at the CECI EOC but nothing that required involvement by ARES volunteers. As EC, I did check in to the exercise as requested in February but it involved no further interaction on my part.
> 
>     CBRA monthly meetings are held at Mason-Dixon American Legion Post 194 in Rising Sun on the third Tuesday each month at 7:30 pm. All are welcome to attend.
> 
>     The WA3SFJ-R Echolink Node 585690 is up and available for traffic to and from the Cecil ARES Group. As a test, one of my Net Control Ops ran the Net from Alabama with great success. Audio was clear both ways and all participants were patient through the required delays to transfer from Transmit to Receive.
> 
>     ======================
>     de FRED County K3DO
> 
>     We had our first training with the Western Maryland K (Search And Rescue). We have a few of our ARES members that are participating. We will be starting to work regularly with this group. I have reached out to the Washington County ARES and the Cumberland Valley Amateur Radio Club to invite them to work with this group because many of their engagements are in Western Maryland, West Virginia and southern Pennsylvania.
> 
>     Our ARES nets are on W3ICF (164.73) in Frederick every Monday
>     except the 3rd Monday at 7:30 pm.
> 
>     ======================
>     de PRGE County WB3KAS:
> 
>     PRGE ARES Web Page: [ http://www.pgares.org>
> 
>     Nets: Regularly scheduled monthly training VHF nets on the K3ERA Repeater, 145.23MHz pl 110.9 on Tuesdays at 1930L. The monthly HF Hospital Net is held the Wednesday following the third Monday of the month on 3820kHz at 1900L. NOTE TIME CHANGE!! NCS is KA3AHI.
> 
>     Meetings: Monthly meeting held the 3rd Monday of the month at the Fire Services Building, 6820 Webster St, Landover Hills, MD at 1930.
> 
>     440 Freq coord through TMARC still on hold pending an alternate freq pair. . .but close folks!
> 
>     K3ERA Repeater EchoLink is now on the air via KA3POX-L Node 896210. As Mikey would say, "Try it, you'll like it!"
> 
>     Winlink Packet Nodes: Last month I reported on the plans to include a TriNode Packet System on 144, 220 and 440 (9600). All the boxes have been assembled and the system is perking just fine. Freqs are 145.75, 223.75 and 440.75(9600) It is located in Lanham, MD under the call sign KC3DSO-10. Extended testing will be done during the April Hospital Drill scheduled for April 5. Stay tuned.
>     ======================
>     de WASH County NI2W
> 
>     Planning continues for two public events for this summer. One is in June and the other in August. The June event will support Hagerstown Area religious Council hike along the C&O Canal. In August the Antietam Radio Association will support a triathlon at the old Ft Ritchie site.
> 
>     Net - 2. One digital (fusion) and one analog (FM)
>     =====================
> 
>     de KA3AHI MDC Section ASM for the Health Care EmComm Program:
> 
>     HF Hospital Net are conducted on 3820kHz ± at 1900L. NOTE THE NEW TIME, so give us a hollar! If you hear us look down stream 5-8 kHz. The February Net was a bust again due to propagation anomalies. However wea did have 11 checkins from around the area.
> 
>     As we move out of the winter months we will encounter static storm noise. Should be interesting. I'd like to hear more checkins from our MDC Section.
> 
>     Next HF Hospital Net is March21. . .same time, same station!
>     ======================
> 
>     Signature: Jim Montgomery
>     Call sign: WB3KAS
>     Maryland-DC SEC
>     Email: wb3kas at arrl.net mailto:wb3kas at arrl.net
> 
>     ===============
> 
>     MDC VOICE TRAFFIC HANDLING TRAINING - APRIL 28
> 
>     A basic voice traffic handling class is scheduled for Saturday, April 28, 2018, 0900L, on the WB3GXW-L EchoLink conference bridge (backup *WASH_DC*). The session should last 2 to 3 hours with breaks and will include interactive practice. Participants may wish to have at least two Radiogram blanks available, but plain paper will suffice. The reference document for the session will be the Basic Traffic Handling-Voice tutorial found under General Information on the MDC web page: .
> 
>     MEPN, BTN, MDD, MSN, and DE operators are welcome to participate in learning about formatting the Radiogram, voicing messages on the air, and the essentials of operating on directed traffic nets. This is a set of skills all amateurs, new and old, should learn well to be prepared to provide communications during emergencies.
> 
> 
>     BTN LOCAL NTS TRAFFIC AND TRAINING NET
>     The BTN continues to meet on 145.33/R (no tone) daily at 6:30PM local time and continues to welcome new amateurs. The availability of an active directed traffic net of the NTS on VHF is exactly why the BTN was established, providing a welcoming place for newcomers to the Amateur Service. Thanks to all the BTN stations checking into the MEPN via Echolink.
> 
> 
>     MSN CW TRAINING
>     Remember that the MSN provides CW training daily for newcomers to the mode, or those wishing to refresh their skills, daily at 7:30 PM on 3563 kHz. Each trainee works with an assigned instructor off the net frequency to receive radiograms containing training information. Instructors work with each student at their own desired speed and check-in schedule. All are encouraged to master the art of CW via this net or personal training in order to support and join the ranks of our MDD Section CW net. Robin, AA3SB, MDD NM, and the veteran staff, will be glad to help you advance to the evening CW full Cycle 4 of the NTS.
>     ---
> 
> 
>