[W1SMH] Fwd: Reminder: MEMA Communications Test - Feb 5th, 2017

[RayCord]

Ray Cord
Deputy Director 
Norton EMA-CERT
508-726-1054 Cell

On Sunday, February 4, 2018, MEMA Region 2 RACES/ACS <wc1mab at gmail.com> wrote:

                                                                                                             
      

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       If you wish to be removed from future messages of this type. Please contact Mike (N1YLQ) at WC1MAB at gmail.com. 



Hello to all,

       I am writing to remind everyone that tomorrow, Monday February 5th, 2018 is the first non-holiday Monday of the month and, as such, is our monthly RACES/ACS drill night.  I would like to thank everyone who checked into Last month's nets and to those who acted as net control stations.  

        This month there is an opportunity for RACES and ARES stations to participate in an ARES communications exercise. The exercise is scheduled for Saturday February 10th and it will be centered on Cape Cod. While the prime focus will be Cape Cod, many other stations in the Eastern MA Section are welcomed to participate and Marek Kozubel (KB1NCG), the Eastern MA Section Emergency Coordinator is working on an expansion of the Cape drill to involve off Cape stations. This exercise is planned to involve both VHF and HF communications capabilities and it will be setting a standard for our exercises moving forward. I will be disseminating more information soon as the final exercise document and IC-205 are just being finalized this weekend. 

        The reports e-mails in by the Net Control Stations from last month were excellent. It is my goal in 2018 to be able to generate a monthly regionwide comms report based on these logs that I can share with all of you as well as our MEMA Regional and State level leadership. 

        While we are a separate entity from ARES, we often do have ARES operators check into our nets for training and awareness purposes. I would like to ask all Net Control Operators to please ask any ARES operators to identify themselves when checking in and annotate on the net log which stations did. I can pass this information along to their local EC's and DEC's to show them that their operators are indeed staying active and current which can be a challenge in the winter months. 

        As was discussed during our RACES Roundtable late last year, I am continuing to explore the use of APRS during monthly nets as one of many digital means. This weekend I have managed to get an APRS station operational using a signalink USB and the linux operating system. This is a major step closer to being able to use small, inexpensive, raspberry pi computers for APRS operation at EOCs. I will attempt to activate as WC1MAB-1 from Region #2 HQ tomorrow night and I invite operators who have APRS capabilities to send me a message during the communications test activities. 

        I have continued to be contacted by individuals who are very interested in getting RACES "on-line" in their communities. This is a fantastic thing! I am working with the MEMA Region #2 staff to try to get these operators connected with willing EMDs to continue growing our net community. 

The Region #2 and State Net Schedule for this evening is as follows:

Net
Frequency/Offset
Time
Sector 2A
147.00 /+0.60  PL
19:30 Local
Sector 2B
145.39/-0.60   PL 67.0
20:00 Local
Sector 2C
146.955/-0.60  PL 88.5
20:00 Local
Sector 2D
146.865/-0.60  PL 103.2
19:30 Local
6-Meter State Net
53.31 / - 1.0  PL 71.9
19:00 Local
MA RACES HF Net
3930 KHz LSB moving up to 3955 KHz until there is a clear frequency	18:45 Local

    For the Region 2 operators and Net Control team members, I would like to know who may be available to assist from the Region 2 bunker or who may be able to assist as a NCO from home. Any operators who would like to take a net, please respond and let me know if and how you might be participating. While we do try to keep a log at Region 2 Headquarters, it would be very helpful for Net Control Stations to please e-mail their net reports to me at WC1MAB at gmail.com in the days following the nets.

      As always, if anyone has been interested in participating as Net Control Stations, the call for operators is an open one. This is a great skill to practice and can be a big help for our region in the event that the State EOC is operating in lieu of the Region Office, but communications still need to happen. If any local RACES operators who have participated in nets recently are interested in acting as NCO please let me know and we will see how we can get you into the fray. As always, if anyone is receiving this note and does not wish to receive further messages of this kind, please reply and let me know. Also, if you know someone who would benefit from being on this list, please have them contact me at WC1MAB at gmail.com and I will add them to this distribution. Thank you all!

      If anyone has any questions or comments I can be reached by e-mail or cell phone. Thanks for being a part of our team and I look forward to hearing back on who can participate this month.

Sincerely,

Michael Leger (N1YLQ)
MEMA Region 2
Emergency Communications Officer
C: 386-566-7666