[KYHAM] Kentucky ARES Annual Report - 2005

[Ron Dodson]

Kentucky ARES Annual Report - 2005

In January of 2000, I began a policy of reporting to the amateurs of the
Kentucky Section, our Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) program's
activity for the previous year.  There is no ARRL requirement that a
Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) do this. However I feel it is
important to our program and to amateur radio as a whole that you are
aware of just how valuable our service is to our communities and the
Commonwealth of Kentucky. 

Aside from this, our activity is our contribution to the national effort
to "pay the bills" and keep amateur radio in existence by justifying our
use of all of the bands which we enjoy daily. In the opening section of
Part 97 of the FCC Rules and Regulations, we see that amateur radio is a
"SERVICE" whose existence is for the public good and not merely our
private playground.
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/news/part97/ This is my
seventh year in making this report to give you a look at the big
picture.  Special thanks to our KYHAM webmaster, Pat, KD4PWL for his
assistance in the quantitative analysis of numbers of the previous years
and the insight they provide.


MEMBERSHIP: 
Starting with 711 members in the last month of 1998, we ended 2005 with
a membership roll of 1,061. While this is down from last year's ending
membership of 1,086 members, we need to realize that 62 amateurs either
left the program for whatever reason or were removed for inactivity.  On
the up side we gained 40 new members. Such events are common in any
program. 

TRAINING:
On November 16, 2003, Assistant SEC, Ron Goodpaster, AG4TY unveiled the
new, FREE, KY ARES Condensed Emergency Communications training course
http://www.kyham.net/emcomm/training/kytest.html . During the last two
years 100 KY amateurs have now completed all three levels of this free
course.  Others are in the process of doing so. The new National
Incident Management System also came to the forefront in 2005 with the
IS 700 Introduction to NIMS home study course
http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is700.asp and while we have no
concrete numbers on those completing it, from feedback I feel that a
good many took it upon themselves to do so.

The better trained we are, the more useful we will be to our local team
and to the served agencies in the field.  In the first seventy or so
years of public service, amateur radio mainly concerned itself with
natural and nuclear threats only.  Today, it is a new ballgame and we
must add the threats of terrorist attack and hazardous chemical
accidents to our repertoire.  Regardless of the mistaken opinion of a
few, there is no such thing as too much training!  In many parts of the
state, amateur radio operators are becoming involved in local CERT Team
developments and shows great promise to continue.  Many groups took part
in their community's exercises and drills in 2005, as well as the
Kentucky Severe Storms Drill in March and the annual June Field Day and
fall SET operations.  These are great training opportunities and I
encourage that this continue and grow in future years.

INTERNET RESOURCES:
KY ARES offers several online resources to amateur radio operators in
Kentucky.  These resources are centered around the KYHAM website located
at http://kyham.net/ .  The site offers local amateur radio listings,
emergency communications training, online reporting, a general-purpose
email list, links to the KY ARES Yahoo Group, as well as other
resources.

KY ARES ACTIVITY:
Each month, I collect reports of previous month activity from local
groups, ECs and DECs, which are compiled into the Section ARES Activity
Report. This section report is sent to ARRL HQ on or before the tenth of
the current month. It is then added to the reports from all other ARRL
sections and is then used by ARRL to justify the continued need for the
amateur radio service to the FCC, Congress and all of the commercial
interests who covet our frequency bands for private enterprise.  

Reporting was down for the most part in 2005 as we ended with the annual
average of 19.22 reports per month.  A few months did see as many as 22,
but some months such as December showed only 14 received. For 2006, I
ask that we try to be more persistent in our efforts to report any
activity of nets, public service and emergency operations, which involve
amateur radio. The more you report shows that your local group is active
and working toward fulfilling our Part 97 obligations.  I realize that
life gets hectic at times and it is easy to let the monthly report slide
by forgotten in the day-to-day world.  Report forms are automated on
line at the following URL: http://kyham.net/emcomm/reports.html

In 2005, we, the amateurs of the Kentucky Section, reported a total of
1,148 nets for 7,045.34 man hours.  We had 68 Public Service Events
totaling 1,729.95 man hours. These covered a variety of services from
communications at parades, community and charity events to Halloween
Overpass Watches in association with local authorities to community
disaster preparedness functions. The year 2005 was a quiet year with
only 29 Emergency Communications Responses totaling 1,717.05 man hours.
This adds up to 1,243 on the air operations for 2005 and 10,492.34 man
hours! The majority of communications emergencies were weather related
as usual. Many resulted from efforts related to the hurricanes, which
struck the Gulf Coast in what proved to be a record setting year. Many
of these operations utilizing amateur radio communications support
in-state ranged from disaster traffic in and out of the affected Gulf
areas to communications support for National Disaster Medical System
evacuees flown into Kentucky hospitals for treatment. Many man hours
were also involved in operations at temporary shelters set up for
evacuees being brought into various parts of our state. Though Kentucky
had a minimum of episodes of severe weather in 2005, those we had always
seemed to make up the difference! Spotter networks were fully activated
and provided important information to our NWS offices as tornadoes
ripped into several areas of the state in the last months of 2005.
Kentucky amateurs also responded for an oil spill into a waterway and
for disruption of telephone service to some northern Kentucky E-911
centers.

IN SUMMARY (The BIG Picture): 
Over the past seven years, Kentucky amateurs have been involved in 7,849
nets, public service events and emergency operations!  These total
176,824.82 man hours of efforts toward public service, preparedness and
response efforts for the citizens of Kentucky!  What is startling is the
realization that if only one person were capable of working 24 hours per
day, 7 days every week for 365 days each year, it would take him or her
20.1 years to equal this amount of labor!!!  This is even more startling
if you consider it likely that some UNREPORTED activity took place
during the period, which, if reported, would have made these totals even
higher!  If you think about this, you will come to realize just how
important that reporting your local activity can be no matter how large
or small an operation you had for the month.  Let's now take this one
step further.  add (in your mind) the cost burden this would have placed
on the tax payers of Kentucky to have had to PAY for these
communications support services in terms of both labor AND
communications equipment!  Once having done all this, you can now see
how the ARRL uses this data when this is figured on a nation-wide scale
to "balance the scales" in Washington and keep amateur radio alive for
us all!

My Assistant SEC's, Ron Goodpaster, Scott Thile and I wish to thank and
congratulate you all on this accomplishment. It has been a great honor
to serve you this past seven years as SEC. I hope that our efforts will
continue to grow in the future. 

73, 
Ron Dodson, KA4MAP
KY Section Emergency Coordinator
KY Amateur Radio Emergency Service (KYARES)