Category: Annoucements

Winter Field Day

Winter Field Day, sponsored by the Winter Field Day Association (WFDA) , and takes place the last full weekend in January.  For 2019 that will be Janurary  26th and 27th.   

“Don’t let those winter doldrums keep you locked up in the house,” the WFDA says. “Get out and play some radio!” The WFDA said it believes that maintaining operating skills should not be limited to fair-weather scenarios.   

There are three entry categories — indoor, outdoor, and home. The rule are similar to those for ARRL Field Day. Operation will take place on all HF bands except 12, 17, 30, and 60 meters, as well as on VHF, UHF, and satellite. The event runs 24 hours. Starting at 1:00 pm CDT on Saturday and running to 1:00 pm on Sunday.   US and Canadian stations exchange call sign, operating category, and ARRL or RAC section.

The Omaha Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN) will be participating in Winter Field Day from the local EDS building at 10629 Burt Circle and invites all interested amateur radio operators to participate with them.     At this point everything is still in the planning phase, but so far the plan is to operate as in the Indoor category with at least 2 HF stations one voice station and one digital stations.  The stations will run off of generator and battery power.      Hours of operation will depend on band conditions and the number of participants to work those late night hours.   

If you’d like to participate send an email to winterfd@aksarbenarc.org 
 

FM Hand Held Radio Front Panel Programming

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.

SKYWARN Recognition Day Update

Due to remodeling at the National Weather Service Office in Valley, Nebraska, they are unable to host this event.  This will be the first time that the Omaha/Valley office will not participate since the event began.     But they are looking forward to having us back out in 2019.

However, you can still get on the air and talk to many NWS stations around the country.

You can learn more about the event at:

https://www.weather.gov/crh/skywarnrecognition

If you are on Echolink:

SKYWARN Recognition Day (SRD) 2018 on the *WX_TALK* Echolink Conference Node: 7203/IRLP 9219 System – Saturday 12/1/18 0000-2400 UTC

Advanced Spotter Training

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)

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.