delara news
Delaware Amateur Radio Association, Delaware OH VOL 36 NUMBER 3
ARES News
Donn Rooks, K8AOK
Delaware County Emergency
Coordinator
They Want to do What?
One of the advantages (disadvantages?) of being an EC is the
flow of information from the SEC and ARRL about what other
ARES groups have done or will be doing and what the
League is planning. It seems the Leagues paid staff spends a
lot of time justifying their salaries by sending emails. Usually
I scan through them looking for something interesting or
something we can do or use locally. Or they tell us about
what Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) they are
negotiating or have renewed. A recent email discussion item
really caught my attention, but we'll get to that in a minute.
If you've bothered to read an MOU, say the agreement the
League has with the Red Cross, it covers a lot of area.
Responsibilities are outlined for both parties, limitations are
clearly stated and legal elements are included to prevent
lawsuits from one of the signatories overstepping their
bounds. An MOU is an important document and provides
direction in our relationships with those agencies we serve.
Some is plain language and some is legalese even a lawyer
probably could argue, after all that's what lawyers do, argue.
Two of the most significant MOU's we operate under are
with FEMA, read that Homeland Security and read that
further as the EMA right here in our county. And the other is
with the Red Cross. There are others, but those two are the
heart and soul of ARES and DELARES.
The League also supports CERTS and RACES. Just so you'll
know, there are no active CERTS locally so we're not involved
with that function. And technically we're not involved with
RACES as we have no active RACES organization in the area.
And that last one is just fine with me as RACES gives
authorization for local authorities to take over any of our
radio stations, not just the EOC or Red Cross building
equipment, in the event of a major emergency, disaster or
catastrophe. Yes, they could take control of your station as a
RACES member. Other than that RACES and ARES are a lot
alike, both serving the community and our emergency
agencies.
Now here's the rub, with me at least. from a recent article. It
seems there are certain parties who have been putting forth
the idea of combining ARES and RACES under a single
blanket since they are so similar. On the surface that seems
reasonable but there is that pesky item allowing some power
hungry politician or bureaucrat having a fit of overzealous
authority over the masses, simply ordering the taking of our
stations for their own use. Isn't in interesting how that single
point would give someone total control over both the public
and private communcations in a region or even the whole
county. Good bye First Amendment. One has to consider
how that would light up the Second Amendment resulting in
a standoff the likes of which I don't want to imagine.
So what can we do to stop the combination of those two
programs and maintain ownership and control of our
stations?
We must join together and respond by reminding ourselves
it's April First.
(A real report)
We need a volunteer to take charge of one of our mesh radio
GO boxes. These are suitcases that contain mesh radios,
telephones, cameras, laptop, power supplies, antennas, etc.
They are used when we do public service events.
We can train you how to set up and operate them. Please
volunteer for this. Thanks!
Bob W8ERD
Reminder: Statewide tornado drill April 5
Ohio ARES
Stan Broadway, N8BHL
Ohio Section Emergency Coordinator
The Reinvention of ARES
It has finally come to this: the age of the average ARES member has
increased to the point that the ARRL has decided to bring this service to an
end.
First steps to dismantling the Amateur Radio Emergency Service came with
articles published in QST disavowing ARES connections with actual
emergency radio, instead limiting the scope of the league to Spandex-filled
public service activities. While at first this seemed to show the League
abandoning ARES, it was in reality a subtle maneuver to increase the
average heart rate of the vastly older crowd of volunteers in an effort to get
them moving and productive. Unfortunately, the move was not successful,
based on the average size and structure of today’s Spandex wearers. Thus,
the experiment failed, leaving the typical amateur operator to lean on his
antenna-equipped walker.
Additional steps came with the introduction of those inexpensive, Chinese
handheld radios. The League’s technical section colluded with
manufacturers to introduce very small program windows on these radios
making their displays very hard to read without several layers of corrective
lenses. More effective was the effort to completely obfuscate the process of
actually programming one of these little satanic devices, leaving many
operators to wonder where the thumbwheels were to dial in frequencies.
This, unfortunately, was very successful!
Yet another dastardly effort prompted by retired computer programmers
with nothing productive to do: the concept of digital radio. Following the
example of AM Stereo (which failed because no one could agree on a
standard) proponents produced not two but ~three~ different digital
formats, none talking to each other, in an effort to completely confuse the
hapless enthusiast.
But these are only the external attacks on our cherished service. The
primary assault comes not from external sources, but internal: the vast
population of ARES volunteers have begun to spawn various medical issues
such that they are no longer interested in being active. For some, this has
been brought about by the lack of accessories which would permit the
mounting of flashing yellow lights and multiple antennas on walkers, canes,
and Hoverounds. And without these blinkie lights, after all, what fun is any
of this?
And so, it is with sadness that the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, ARES,
is being revamped and re-molded into the AROS: the Amateur Radio
Octogenarian System. Members will be required to fill out a complete
medical history so that lengthy descriptions of previous medical events may
be shortened to the number designator on their list. For example operator
1 might get the entire net sidetracked with a lengthy recounting of his hiatal
hernia surgery and recovery. Instead, when memory triggers, he merely
keys and say, “Item 3”. And the rest of the net can quickly acknowledge then
continue. Another operator, having his own memory triggered, may
counter with “Item 3 raised by my item 4.” Much like the NTS, relatively
meaningless messages can thus be shortened not so much for efficiency as
to accommodate our aging much shorter memory. Items 1 through 3 are
uniformly configured to complete, “Now where in hell did I leave my ___?”
We will petition radio programmers to respond to voice command, such as:
“Put me somewhere on 80 meters!” thus directing the radio to find an
empty spot on the band. A simpler shortcut, particularly in the case of 80,
would cause the radio to tune to your own, named and owned, frequency
on the band. This could be achieved by merely saying, “80 meters!” The
radio would take it from there, with no need to scrutinize the microscopic
frequency display.
It is hoped that the AROS will be a catalyst to keep us all active and on the
air. The program should be completed by April 1, 2018.
© DELARA News, the official monthly newsletter of the Delaware Amateur Radio Association, Delaware, OH