- Mark your calendars: October 5th, 2019 is our next big ARES exercise event – the ARRL Simulated Emergency Test (SET). The scenario will likely focus on passing “resource requests” from the Rainier EOC to the Thurston County ECC and State EOC. Details and training sessions to follow in the next few weeks.
- The training topic at the next District #5 ARES General Meeting on Sept 19th, 2019 will be “Net Control Operations”. Be sure you bring a fully-charged handheld (dual-band, 2m/70cm) radio with rubber duck antenna that is easily field programmed to a new frequency and can operated at low power. The meeting is held in the Pierce County Emergency Management building starting at 7 pm.
- District #5 will have sew-on patches available for a minimum $7 donation at their upcoming meetings starting in September or October.
- The ETC ARES team has adopted a new format for our weekly Sunday night (7pm) net. We start with check-ins on our 2m simplex frequency of 146.550 MHz, PL Tone 100.0 Hz, and then move to the YARG repeater for the announcements and discussion portion of our net. Everyone is invited to check-in to the weekly ETC ARES Team net even if you aren’t a member of the ETC ARES Team. We’ve been averaging 6+ check-ins every week.
- Our weekly Pacific Northwest DMR-mode Check-in Net on Sunday evenings at 6:30 pm has grown to an average of 27-28 check-ins every week from all over Washington and Oregon. Everyone with DMR-mode capable equipment is invited to check into this net as well.