This month’s report is a totally NEW report, and the
data displayed below came directly from ARES Connect. I’m sure you’ll agree; this is a very
informative report.
ARES Connect Monthly
Report – May 2019
Number of persons
registered per District
|
|
Registered
|
|
Registered
|
|
District 01 - WD8PNZ
|
142
|
District 02 - W8UY
|
10
|
|
District 03 - W8LLY
|
163
|
District 04 - N8TFD
|
117
|
|
District 05 - KC8SYF
|
105
|
District 06 - W8DLB
|
54
|
|
District 07 - KB8YMN
|
211
|
District 08 - N8SUZ
|
36
|
|
District 09 - W8FHF
|
60
|
District 10 - N8AUC
|
173
|
|
Total Registered
Users: 1072
|
|||
Number of hours
volunteered per District
|
|
Hours Volunteered
|
|
Hours Volunteered
|
|
District 01 - WD8PNZ
|
532.25
|
District 02 - W8UY
|
0
|
|
District 03 - W8LLY
|
751.62
|
District 04 - N8TFD
|
167.25
|
|
District 05 - KC8SYF
|
54.25
|
District 06 - W8DLB
|
538.50
|
|
District 07 - KB8YMN
|
507.35
|
District 08 - N8SUZ
|
4.00
|
|
District 09 - W8FHF
|
202.85
|
District 10 - N8AUC
|
965.85
|
|
Total Registered User Hours: 3,723.92
Total Anonymous Hours: 2,683.75
Total Hours: 6,407.67
|
|||
Breakdown by Event
Classification
|
# of Events
|
# of Persons
|
Hours Credited
|
|
|
Communications Emergency
|
4
|
59
|
369.75
|
|
Community Event
|
31
|
84
|
485.02
|
|
Exercise
|
5
|
13
|
36.00
|
|
Meeting
|
38
|
162
|
469.36
|
|
Net
|
298
|
756
|
814.43
|
|
Skywarn
|
31
|
232
|
204.00
|
|
Training
|
59
|
99
|
777.11
|
|
Miscellaneous
|
25
|
7
|
1212.00
|
|
Unclassified – All events
not listed above
|
158
|
636
|
2040.00
|
|
Total
|
649
|
2,048
|
6,407.67
|
Breakdown of training
levels
|
Level 1
|
504
|
|
Level 2
|
429
|
|
Level 3
|
139
|
|
Total: 1,072
|
|
Top 10 persons for
hours volunteered in May
|
Name
|
Events
|
Hours
|
|
Scott Yonally (N8SY)
|
50
|
447.00
|
|
Henry Ruminski (W8HJR)
|
36
|
153.65
|
|
Elizabeth Klinc (KE8FMJ)
|
48
|
131.50
|
|
Christopher Domenick
(KC8CAD)
|
26
|
126.60
|
|
John Westerkamp (W8LRJ)
|
49
|
119.58
|
|
Bret Stemen (KD8SCL)
|
38
|
108.50
|
|
Doug Braun (KB8TGT)
|
6
|
86.00
|
|
David Noeth (KD8ACO)
|
14
|
82.00
|
|
Mathew Nickoson (KC8NZJ)
|
13
|
78.25
|
|
Timothy Gray (KD8IZU)
|
6
|
72.00
|
Top 10 persons for events
volunteered in May
|
Name
|
Events
|
Hours
|
|
Dan Stahl (KC8PBU)
|
52
|
59.25
|
|
Scott Yonally (N8SY)
|
50
|
447.00
|
|
John Westerkamp (W8LRJ)
|
49
|
119.58
|
|
Elizabeth Klinc (KE8FMJ)
|
48
|
131.50
|
|
Bret Stemen (KD8SCL)
|
38
|
108.50
|
|
Henry Ruminski (W8HJR)
|
36
|
153.65
|
|
Michael Farkas (n8gbu)
|
34
|
39.50
|
|
Larry Caskey (K8LPC)
|
29
|
24.00
|
|
Steven Denniss (KC8IDM)
|
29
|
5.50
|
|
Colleen Roth (N8TNV)
|
29
|
14.00
|
Written Reports:
A Major New Step for ARES in Ohio; NVIS Day 2019 in the
Books
A Step Up
Amateur Radio and ARES have been strong partners with the
Ohio Homeland Security/Emergency Management Agency for a number of years. We have now been asked to step up our game as
a contributing partner to help keep the agency alerted to important developments
around the state. This means that ARES
operators will be used more frequently in “real” situations- either monitoring
potential weather conditions, the damaging results, or other important
conditions affecting the state. In other words, we’re being asked to put our
training into actual practice to do meaningful stuff.
The Ohio HS/EMA “Watch Desk” is staffed 24/7 and is the room
which has all the “red buttons” to activate the state’s EMA response. In Ohio as a home rule state (the county EMA
Director is in charge) the state must be requested to send aid, but gathering
accurate information about emergency conditions will help the Watch Desk to
gauge how much ramping up they need to do in order to be ready. For example, our recent tornado strike in Richland
County drew everyone’s attention. Computer reports from NWS and official
agencies were at least 30 minutes ~after~ amateur radio reports came in. And it was not reported that after midnight,
when the situation was ruled relatively safe, responders elected to wait until
daylight to begin cleanup and restoration of services. Amateur radio could have been a help to
resolve that kind of issue.
We want to work as partners to our county EMA agencies, and
obviously make this beneficial to them… it is the local EMA which must respond
and coordinate the level of help. We want to make sure this information goes to
them first- thus, it’s really important that your county either have a station
at the EOC or you are in constant contact with the agency to relay these
reports. In most cases, we actually expect the details to come from the EMA’s,
so it works out well either way.
Read this twice: ARES
is NOT even thinking about changing the way Skywarn nets operate in Ohio- the
system works, is not broken, and definitely doesn’t need “fixing.” We are not
even remotely interested in “taking over” the spotter system. What we are considering is asking local nets
to appoint a liaison station (or possibly use existing amateur stations at the
county EOC) to report just significant events to The Sarge. Under normal conditions that would probably
mean actual sightings or tornado strike, as an example. Most of the information
we would want actually follows the oncoming weather: we’re more interested in damage and situations
which might involve a request to the state.
Many counties can create an incident in WebEOC software, but in many
smaller operations, the Director might be found at the scene coordinating a
response so the overall information would be of value to him and the Watch
Desk.
I’m excited about this, it’s a big step upward in the
profile of amateur radio and ARES across our state. But it’s not without its
problems. Chief among them is how we’re
supposed to make all this stuff work!
How are we going to
do this?
Working backward in constructing a system, several in
leadership have logins to the WebEOC program. During “Snow Net” we were
uploading logs regularly to wide acclaim. It was an excellent and successful
test of the very situation we’ve been asked to create. We can enter reports
both at the Sarge and remotely. Several
also have logins to the “NWS Chat” system, which affords direct communication
with the weather offices. That would be
simple if only one weather office covered the state, but there are ~six~
forecast offices (Wilmington, Ft. Wayne, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburg and
Huntington) which cover counties in Ohio.
So, there’s no real direct route from NWS to State that’s simple and
concise.
The larger challenge is how are we going to listen/report
across the state in a fashion that everyone (hams and agencies) can benefit.
For example, a typical storm system moving west- while those western counties
will be active, counties in the east benefit by listening- they can gage their
response based on what they hear the system doing upstream. In the very rare
case of a derecho or Palm Sunday outbreak, a statewide network would be
invaluable and very active. But for most situations, we want to keep this all
low-key and not jump overboard. Most
important, where do we find a dependable statewide network?
We have a robust 80-meter system- both voice and digital
data. This system is a proven asset, and
we plan to make use of it. However, particularly with summer storms, the
resulting static crashes and noise present a formidable challenge to widespread
communication. Another situation to consider is that 55% of the licensed
amateurs in Ohio are Techs- without HF privileges. It would be great to include
them and have a system that would afford handheld coverage from disaster
scenes.
Our experiments have included DMR. Snow Net was carried out
on both HF and DMR Ohio talk group, with good success and overwhelming support
from operators around the state. This
was not out of the blue, as Section Manager Scott Yonally, N8SY, had received
enthusiastic support a couple years ago from DMR owners. That support continues. We researched the license trustees of all DMR
repeaters in the state and obtained email for all but about 5. We created a survey, and emailed the support
continues. We researched the license
trustees of all DMR repeaters in the state and obtained email for all but about
5. We created a survey and emailed the
50 trustees asking them to take part. 20 did.
The results were conclusive, with 19 of the 20 strongly supporting ARES
making occasional, low-traffic use of the Ohio talk group 3139.
Here’s how we see this working. In the typical “big-time
weather system moving this way from Indiana” scenario, we would notify hams by
email (EC email list and over 1000 in ARES Connect) that a situation was
developing. W8SGT would be ~MONITORING~ on the Ohio talk group and the HF
net. That’s it…we’d just listen. IF a
station or county began to really rock and roll, that EOC station or weather
liaison would merely call W8SGT, tells us what’s going on, and we’d go back to
listening. We would then file the report
into WebEOC. The worse it got, of
course, the busier we might be but it would take a major event to lead us to
actually calling a formal net. So we
want to keep it low-profile but functional.
Plans are NOT solid yet, we’re still researching, and we’re
open to your suggestions! More to come
on this major project!
Amateur radio saves
lives in Shelby, Ohio
This tornado was rates as an “EF-2” storm, but before you conclude it to be a small little funnel, consider it was on the ground for 17 miles, and reached a width of ½ mile! This developed into a classic wedge tornado. Check out TV video of the storm here: https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/watch-video-of-tornado-in-shelby-ohio_20190414225650/1925752092
And look at the aftermath here: https://www.wkyc.com/video/weather/pictures-tornado-rips-through-shelby-ohio/95-a9702b0d-3313-4f68-8766-f65fafc9fc2c
Immediately after receiving word of the strike, coordinating
through the county EMA, Danny and the rest of the crew headed immediately to
Shelby, where they met with the Police Department. SEC Stan Broadway N8BHL coordinated with
Danny on the 146.94 Mansfield repeater, where all tactical activity was taking
place. It was agreed we needed to find more help in order to have enough
manpower should dire reports of devastation prove lengthy. Since District 6 was
all activated, it was decided to activate two counties to the north and three
counties to the south of Richland- meaning District 2 (DEC in Toledo) and
District 7 (DEC in west Columbus) as well as Richard KD8PHG in Groveport
(southwest Columbus) who would stand by in case of state EOC activation. In order to coordinate resources across this
great area, we used DMR Ohio Talk Group 3139.
Five responded from
Marion County to assist, along with some CERT members from a
neighboring county.
The guidance “Do whatever we can to help” proved out here-
where no communication facilities suffered, our hams were assigned to walk
perimeter to watch for any looting or breech of security. By midnight, when all were accounted for, it
was determined to close operation until dawn’s light when power workers and
others could work more safely.
The takeaway from this? It hit hard and fast, and there was no time
to sit back and theorize about our reaction. We needed to act quickly, and
Danny did that masterfully. So – we
aren’t kidding when we tell you that you NEED to be active in your local
spotters net, keep your battery charged and ready! Ohio weather can turn on a dime- and amateur
radio spotters are the key to saving lives!
NVIS Report
NVIS 2019 is in the books, and with band conditions under
the “Yucky” category we really didn’t do badly. The Sarge had over 40 contacts
(all on 80, at least inside Ohio) and worked at least 24 different
counties. The band was up and down, but
in a real emergency we would have had communication! It wasn’t raining, that
was a plus. We heard from a number of you that there was a lot of fun to be
had- and that is what it’s all about. Thanks, and see you next year!!
Now Hiring
Folks, we have a deficiency at The Sarge- we need more
operators. We do not want to grab more from Franklin County ARES, we’re already
hitting them pretty hard. So we’re looking for operators within an hour’s drive
of the 270/315 area. We need at least a
general class licensee. You should be
familiar with fldigi and digital communication on HF and VHF. Experience in
emergency response is a plus. You must pass a background check. If you’re a seasoned operator - primarily a solid traffic handler or a
successful contester – who is comfortable working under moderate pressure, and
you’re able to take on a modest time commitment (at most one night a week under
a schedule with emergency activation always possible) please consider
contacting myself or Richard, KD8PHG to be considered!
Now…to get ready for Field Day!!