[ILHam] Great Midwest Relay Comm Team update

[Jerry Martin]

Reminder to the Great Midwest Relay Communication Team- 

We still have several openings for additional communication team members.
Please talk it up with others. This is going to be a great event!
(http://www.races.org/gmrinfo.htm )

We have planned a "Net Control Operation" training session on Monday, April
4th. It will be held before the general membership meeting of the Lake
County RACES/ARES group. Due to the amount of information to be covered, the
session will start PROMPTLY at 7:30 PM. This session is designed to give
everyone experience to confidently function as a net control operator, for
"normal" scheduled nets. It will also expose you to some of the excitement
which occurs during "unscheduled" events.

The facilitators for the "Net Control Operation" training session include:

Bernie Moritz-K9BHM, 
Dave Hartnet-K9DRH, 
Dave Pritchard-W9QL, 
and John Rice-K9IJ

These are all seasoned veterans who have served as net control operators for
our weekly nets, the many scheduled events we help with, and the severe
weather nets as they occur. We can all learn a great deal from each of them.

The meetings are held at the Lake County Emergency Management Agency,
Emergency Operations Center (EOC). 
The EOC is located on Milwaukee Ave (Hwy21) in Libertyville, IL, half way
between Route 137 on the North and Route 176 on the South. West of I-94 and
east of Butterfield Road and Route 45. The entrance is off of Winchester Rd.
an 1/8th of a mile (2nd driveway) west of Milwaukee Ave. Follow the signs
that read "EMA Classroom" to the parking area and to the door. Repeater:
147.18 (+600 kHz) PL 3A (127.3)

Additional dates to consider:

For the many members of the GMR Communication Team who may be considering
joining the Lake County RACES/ARES group, the annual "New Member
Orientation" session will be held on Saturday, April 9th from 9 AM until
Noon. This meeting is held once a year and introduces all the new members to
every board function and committee head. This gives the new members an
opportunity to get involved right away. Please contact Judie Zacharias -
N9MA  ( sewandknit at aol.com ) if you are interested in joining this extremely
active organization, and to reserve a place for you at this important annual
meeting.

A system wide GMR communication test will be conducted on Saturday, April
30th, starting at 10:30 AM. Each county Emergency Coordinator from Madison,
WI to Chicago, IL will send vehicles to do a radio site survey of each
transfer area. This will disclose any "blind spots" which might need to
eventually use a higher power mobile radio instead of an HT. It will also
test the comm between all three "sections net control " stations. I think we
will also test the packet communication, and resolve any issues yet to be
determined. More information and position assignments will be sent to you as
the date approaches. 

Please keep me informed of your availability for both the system wide test
on April 30th, and the GMR event, June 10-11. I will schedule you based on
your availability.

Jerry Martin - KC9BDA
Public Information Officer
Lake County RACES/ARES ( www.races.org )
Libertyville, IL