It’s happened or will happen to every amateur radio operator who’s been involved in public service or emergency communications for a while: you get to the drill or event site and your radio isn’t programmed correctly. You find out the repeater you’ll be using has a CTCSS tone to access it now, or you have the wrong offset, or you don’t even have that frequency in your radio. NOW WHAT???
With new feature rich radios many of us do not know how to program a radio without a laptop and programming cable, but in the field you may not always have access to those things. To help use be better able to communicate in those situations, SATERN will be hosting a “Hand Held Front Panel Programming” class. – You do not have to be registered with ARES or SATERN to attend.
The class will be held Saturday, February 9th at 1:00 pm at the Salvation Army EDS building at 10629 Burt Circle in Omaha. So that we are better prepared to assist you, you will need to bring your HT with a fully charged battery and the radio’s manual. We also ask that you register at this link and let us know that you will be coming :
https://tinyurl.com/y9he2etc
DO NOT BRING THE PROGRAMMING CABLE OR SOFTWARE! We will not be assisting with computer programming of the radio.
We will go over
- setting frequencies
- setting repeater offset and direction
- setting squelch tones
- writing to a memory
- selecting a memory
- locking and unlocking the radio
- adjusting volume and squelch
Because of special requirements for P25, DMR, D-Star, Fusion and other digital modes, we will only be covering standard analog FM programming for your radios for this session.
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED – All Seats are Spoken For!
Are you a SKYWARN spotter? Have you attended a spotter training class in 2017 or 2018? Then…
Douglas County ARES has arranged with Brian Smith, Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service to present an Advanced Weather Spotting class for trained spotters in the Omaha Metro Area. This training only happens every few years and covers more than the annual spotter training.
The Advanced Spotter training will be held on Thursday April 19th, 2018 at 7:00 pm at Salvation Army Emergency Disaster Services 10629 Burt Circle Omaha NE.
Attendees must have had in person spotter training in 2017 or 2018.
There is Limited Seating for this event. To ensure seating, attendees must sign up using the following link
https://tinyurl.com/advanced-spotter
The registration form will automatically close when the seating limit is reached.
SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) will take place this year on Saturday, December 2from 0000 until 2400 UTC (starts on the evening of Friday, December 1, in US time zones). During the SKYWARN Special Event, ham radio operators will set up stations at National Weather Service (NWS) offices and contact other radio amateurs around the world.
Participating Amateur Radio stations will exchange a brief description of their current weather with as many NWS-based stations as possible on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 6, and 2 meters plus 70 centimeters. Contacts via repeaters are permitted.
The event runs from 0:00 Zulu to 23:59 Zulu on December 2nd. Primary operations will start at about 9:00 am local time at the NWS Station is Valley NE. Stop by between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm on Saturday and join in the fun.
SRD was developed jointly in 1999 by the NWS and ARRL to celebrate the contributions SKYWARN volunteers make to the NWS mission — the protection of life and property. Amateur Radio operators, which comprise a large percentage of SKYWARN volunteers, also provide vital communication between the NWS and emergency managers, if normal communications become inoperative.