Tuesday, August 19, 2014

SEC's Monthly Report - July 2014


Your MonsterMail form has been completed, following are the results:

Field
Value
subject
ARES Form FSD-96
State
Ohio
Month
July
Year
2014
Number_of_ARES_Members
1670
Change_In_Numbers
5
Number_of_DECs_EC_reporting_this_month
10
Number_of_ARES_nets_active
248
Number_of_nets_with_NTS_Liaison
10
DEC_EC_callsigns
(1)WD8PNZ (2)W8UY (3)KC8WHK (4)N8TFD (5)KC8PD (6)W8MLL (7)KA8RLC (8)N8SUZ (9)W8FHF (10)N8AUC
Number_of_drills_tests_and_training_this_month
383
Person_Hours_for_drill_tests_training
2411.2
Number_of_Public_Service_events
94
Person_Hours_for_public_service_events
1837.3
Number_of_emergency_operations_this_month
20
Person_Hours_for_emergency_operations
193.2
Number_of_ARES_RACES_Events_this_month
745
Total_Person_Hours
4441.7
Comment
(See attached)
Signature
Stan Broadway
mailfrom


July 2014 ARES Ohio Report

Hi everyone! Thanks to all who got your reports in this month! Your reports are vital to show Washington, Columbus, and your own county officials that we in amateur radio continually serve our neighbors! ARES is alive and well in Ohio!

The Ohio Section has 1,670 members, a decrease of 5 during the month of July. One county did some significant membership cleanup which is a good thing- when’s the last time you went through your roles?  In today’s emergency response society, it’s no longer good enough to think, “I don’t need this stuff- but if you really need me call.”  We must all become familiar with our served agencies, train to basic levels to meet their requirements (C’mon- the FEMA online training won’t make smoke come out of your ears!) and most important, participate so we know and can work with each other!

Incidentally, there are 26,881 active amateur radio licenses in the state of Ohio. Now, some of those are probably deceased, and I’m guessing at least half are inactive- so let’s take a sample of 13,000 as active or still-interested hams. There are 6000 ARRL members in the section. (That’s excellent! Also the largest in the US!) Membership in ARES involves 12% of the active amateur population in Ohio, and it too is a large organization nationwide, perhaps the largest. So we together are a tremendous resource for safety and service in the State of Ohio!

Two new EC’s were appointed in July: in Perry County, Brad Swinehart, AK8H and Brown County, Bobby Revis, KD8TPU. Welcome to the service, gentlemen! Your time and dedication are so much appreciated!

We also accepted one resignation, from Jim Buck, WD8LWE in Crawford County. Many thanks to Jim for his time and dedication…well done!

We had 383 drills or training sessions, involving 2411 volunteer hours. There were 94 public service events which used 1837 volunteer hours. ARES was activated 20 times in July using 193 ARES volunteer hours. The majority of the activations were weather related. There were 229 net sessions reported, plus 19 digital net sessions.  Overall ARES provided 4441 hours of service just in July!

Here are the breakdowns:

---District 1 (Lucas, Ottawa, Erie, Wood, Sandusky, Huron, Hancock Counties)
Totals include figures from the Northwest Ohio Traffic and Training Net and District 1 Skywarn.

---District 2 (Williams, Fulton, Defiance, Henry, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, Allen, Mercer, Auglaze Counties)

Williams Co. trained one new net manager, AC attended ARES training track at ARRL Centennial Convention, Held one emergency net for Severe T-Storm for Williams Co.; damage and storm reports to NOAA, and participated in setting up an emergency transmitter and Command center for field day at County Fairgrounds.

Defiance Co. executed phase one upgrade to 2-meter/440 repeater adding battery back-up and coax interconnects, phase two will be Tower hardline and Antenna upgrades.

---District 3 (Shelby, Darke, Miami, Champaign,. Clark, Preble, Montgomery, Greene Counties)

(CLARK) Good net participation this month and two days in support of the Pan Ohio Hope Ride.

(GREENE) five (5) GCARES Nets on 7-1, 7-8, 7-15, 7-22 and 7-29 for 16.1 MH. Four (4) GCARES Digital Nets on 7-1, 7-15, 7- 22, 7-29 for 7.3 MH. Because of declining participation during recent summer weeks, GCARES reverted from  its 1900L start time to 2100L start time. Digital net follows voice net of Tuesday evenings. 2100L actually is a better year round time because it will allow GCARES net participant to also check into the 1900L Tuesday ARES HF Net and OHDEN at 2000L.

|---| One (1) public service event to support the Pan Ohio Hope Ride on Sunday 27 July. GCARES supported this event within Greene County and the first two points within Warren County with 21 local operators (this in addition to the SAGCOMM personnel from Northern Ohio). Excellent communications coverage within southern Clark County, Greene County and northern Warren County on the XWARN 147.165 repeater with the Bellbrook ARC 147.045 repeater and GCARES 146.91 repeater as backups. A big thank you to GCARES Deputy EC--Operations for coordinating GCARES support for this event.

****NOTE, THIS REPORT DOES NOT INCLUDE CAMPAIGN COUNTY. (MIAMI)MCES ARES/RACES VOICE NET 145.23-: 07-06,13,27. PIQUA ARC NET 147.21+: 07-14-14 RACES TRAINING 07-14-14 MCARC  ARES/RACES MEETING/TRAINING 07-28-14

---District 4 (Butler, Warren, Clinton, Hamilton, Clermont, Brown, Adams, Highland Counties)

Emergency operations hours were to support the National Weather Service at Wilmington. The DEC had an enjoyable trip to Ireland and thus was not around for one-third of this reporting period. District 4 is enjoying the unusually cool weather. In the last couple days, I've gotten 3 requests to re-engage ham radio operators in "new" or "old" events. Still sorting these out and lining up resources -- one event spans two districts! Be safe and thanks for supporting those bike rides and runs and tris throughout the summer.

---District 5 (Summit, Portage, Trumbull, Mahoning, Columbiana, Carroll, Tuscarawas,  Stark Counties)

Summit County: This month we provided communications for the Akron Race for the Cure 2014 event held in Akron.

Stark County: Stark County completed 5 public service training nets for July that totaled 173 check-ins. We assisted with two major public service events during the month. The Challenger Baseball Ohio Tournament was held in N. Canton on Sunday, July 20th that involved 8 operators totaling 52 community service hours. We provided safety & support communications for this event. On Sunday, July 27th we assisted with the opening Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Festival Community Parade. Nine volunteers provided 27 community service hours for this event. We provided safety & support communications for this event that included the use of packet radio to provide a data link between unit staging and the TV production van. This link assists the Program Producer to ensure the correct line-up is in place. This year the potential for severe weather caused great concern for parade officials with a severe weather net being established during the! event. A constant watch of weather radar was needed as a Tornado Watch was established by the Cleveland NWS while the parade was in progress. Fortunately, we experienced only light rain during the parade and the severe weather plan for evacuation of the parade units was not needed. Officials were very grateful for this additional service during the parade. Complete details of both events are listed on the Stark County ARES website at  http://www.wd8aye.net.

---District 6 (Wyandot, Crawford, Richland, Ashland, Wayne, Marion, Morrow, Know, Holmes Counties)

Crawford: No report filed – no comment Knox: Report filed – no comment

Marion: July proved to be a quiet month. ARES meeting very informative with guest speaker Mike Fogle, KB8USB, former Chief of Marion Township Fire Department, reviewing ICS and NIMS training and typing of response teams.

Medina: The emergency operations were for Skywarn. The Two Public Service Operations were the "Twin Sizzler" bike race on July 4th and the "POHR" in Medina County.

Richland: Richland County ARES had 5 weekly Nets

Wayne: Enjoyed assisting with the Pan Ohio Hope Ride as they traveled through the county. Our busy public event time is over until next May.

Wyandot: The Wyandot County Hams helped with the Upper Sandusky Heritage Bicycle Tour by providing  route and safety communications. We also met at the Wyandot Memorial Hospital for our monthly meeting. "73"

---District 7 (Hardin, Logan, Union, Delaware, Licking, Madison, Franklin, Pickaway, Fayette, Fairfield Counties)

Delaware Delaware continues to be excited about MESH. After being featured in the EMA summer newsletter, the Sheriff Department approached us about using MESH as the backbone to combine their cameras and ours for the county fair. Our partnership will help keep things safe. Several members are installing MESH nodes at the top of their towers to begin making MESH permanently available. We provided communications for the Sunbury July 4th parade and participated in the Pan Ohio Ride.

Fairfield NO COMMENTS Fayette - NO EC

Franklin NO REPORT Hardin - NO EC

Licking July in Licking County presented some threatening weather conditions, but fortunately none became serious. We provided support for the Pan Ohio Hope Ride as the riders came through the northwest corner of Licking County. A group of us continues to work with Licking County CERT to purchase and install communications equipment for the response trailer. It will equipped with three VHF/UHF radios and one HF radio, along with antennas and support for digital modes. Another group has been involved in the planning stages for installing a ham radio station for the Boy Scouts at Camp Falling Rock. The equipment for this  station was donated by Dr. Henry Hook, KD8QA (SK). In addition, the EC is helping with a review of the Licking County EMA HazMat Emergency Operations Plan.

Logan - NO EC

Madison We assisted with Day 3 communications in the Pan Ohio Hope Ride. Everything went well and at least for our portion of the ride nothing major really happened. A few new hams stepped up and impressed us with how they talked on the air.

Perry, Perry County ARES conducted a VHF simplex operation in southern PERRY County to determine if the local repeater was out of service during a disaster where station would need to located to make simplex contact out lying fire halls, evacuation centers to the PERRY County EOC

Pickaway NO COMMENTS

Union All components of our new water tower antenna are complete. Working on sorting out the voter on our repeater.

---District 8 (Perry, Ross, Hocking, Athens, Vinton, Pike, Jackson, Meigs, Gallia, Lawrence, Scioto Counties)

Counties Reporting: Athens, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Scioto EC Comments:

Scioto: Scioto County ARES held their first SUCCESSFUL ARES meeting at the New Boston Branch Library. We had a total of 12 in attendance. These meetings are going to be held the 2nd Monday of each month to convey ideas and share information needed to make everyone involved with ARES aware of upcoming events and to get familiar with working together as a team. Sunday, July 27 6 operators kept in contact as we monitored a line of storms moving through the area making sure to report to the EMA office what was being observed in different parts of the county.

---District 9 (Jefferson, Harrison, Coshocton, Muskingum, Guernsey, Belmont, Morgan Noble, Monroe, Washington Counties)

MUSKINGUM CO...While on vacation, EC met with counterparts in Lee County, FL. EC Larry Zimmer, W4LWZ and Mariposa County, CA. EC Dave Swickard, KR6DY and discussed Digital Communications plans, etc over lunch. Also, practiced with a couple of Kenwood TH F6-A Tri-band HTs in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Grand Canyon rim to canyon floor, etc. Cell phones vs HTs in those areas, HTs worked, cell phones did not. Kathleen Frederico Call_Sign kb3rdr......

NOBLE CO.... Meeting with 911/LEPC/Homeland Security/Healthcare Coalition Noble County. 2 men 1.5=3.0 Hours. We are board members. Signature Larry Mason Call_Sign N8RAF......

GUERNSEY CO... The county EC met with the EMA director to discuss EOC operations and plan ARES training. Signature Richard W. Wayt  Call_Sign WD8SDH......

MONROE CO... It has been a pretty quiet month for my county last month. We did have one Event we ! worked for Woodsfield it was the Bicentennial Parade. We were asked to take part of another event in October and we accepted I am awaiting details on it. Signature Jeremey Taylor Call_Sign KD8MTK......

JEFFERSON CO....No Comments......

COSHOCTON CO.... No comments......

BELMONT CO has activities but refuses to send monthly reports.....

No ARES operations in HARRISON CO, MONROE CO, and WASHINGTON CO.

---District 10 (Loraine, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Ashtabula Counties)

Ashtabula County: July was a nice low key month. With the severe weather we had towards the end we kept our nets up and running as well as monitoring simplex frequencies. Our dedicated members thought nothing of this and considered it normal operations- good to see that a little of Mother Nature's tantrums won't stand in our way! Our group picnic went well and it was great to meet up with quite a few of our less mobile members and make a few eyeball Q's. Looking forward to all the fun that the end of summer and fall will bring us! ***

Cuyahoga County: Revised submittal 8/5/14 Public Service participation by CC-ARES members included: Medina Twin Sizzler, Pan Ohio Hope Ride and Cleveland Triathlon ***

Geauga County: Pan Ohio Hope Ride with 6 members helping. ***

Lake County: Public Service for the month was the Fairport Harbor Mardi Gras Parade! . Seven volunteers were on hand for this event. 20 operators checked into the tornado warning weather net for

Lake County. No tornado was sighted or major damage reported. ***

Lorain County: 4 drill nets were conducted. Due to a conflict with a local Hamfest and members on vacation, our monthly meeting scheduled for July 19th was cancelled.