June is the meteorological start of summer and radio activity turns to outside, warmer weather. June is the month for the VHF Contest and the granddaddy of them all, Field Day. Hopefully your Field Day plans are in preparation and I hope we have great weather. Field Day is an exercise in communications and setup of radio gear in a remote area instead of your comfortable home. Be sure to invite your newer or young members to your Filed Day site and if you have a GOTA station, teach them HF radio operation. With the extremely dry weather in Missouri so far this year, be careful with the generator exhaust and your cooking fires. We don’t to make the news with a field fire, but make the news on how we can communicate in emergency type radio setup. Good luck to all participants and don’t forget to send a Field Day message to Cecil Higgins, our section manager, or myself for 100 bonus points.
District News & Comments:
District A: Richard Fretwell, W0KRF, DEC
- Benton Co. – BC ARES Members participated in the following nets: MTN, MESN, ARES, Region A Healthcare, and various club nets.
- Cass Co.- Cass County ARES is applying for a 501c3 and tax exempt status. ARES meeting in May consisted of training on communication capabilities for members. HF, 2m simplex including APRS and Fldigi and communication voice. Will have a training exercise for deployment in the east side of Cass county on June 10th, 2023. This exercise will test communications on 2 meters simplex and repeater capabilities. If members have Fldigi 2m digital capability on 145.75 simplex, that will be tested as well. NOAA propagation transmissions will start in June using Fldigi 2m digital on 145.75 simplex as they are received from the mars message center periodically within the hours of 1500z to 1600z, 1900z to 2000z and 0300z. A URL webpage is being developed and Cass county Missouri ARES has a Facebook page and communicate with members on single.
- Clay/Platte Cos. – NL ARES Digital Training Net – Update Sunday 8:00 PM 147.330 Rptr (pl 151.4)NBEMS programs FLdigi, FLamp, & FLmsg are utilized to share information related to current digital communications activities. Six Meter Band 50/54 Mhz for Digital Data has been a focus during May. FM mode Simplex utilizing Vertical polarization. SSB-USB mode Simplex utilizing Horizontal polarization. Seven stations within 20 miles of the NCS are participating in the 6M testing.
- MAY 2023 “MODES” “Missouri Digital Emergency Service” MODES 3.598 MHz Thursday 10:00 am CST. FOUR sessions QNI 48 QTC 4 33 hours. Additional testing on 7.090 Mhz during Daylight hours provided communications info for future net operations for Primary/Secondary frequencies. ZOOM Mtg concurrently for Technical Discussion. NCS utilizes FSQcall triggers to expedite responses from participating stations.
- Jackson Co. – Thirteen members participated in a Mini-SET exercise on May 13th following our quarterly F2F meeting at the KCMO EOC. Operating from outside their QTH on emergency power completed communications in voice and digital using repeater and simplex frequencies.
- Johnson Co. – Johnson county is now running the Rural Region A Health care net. Net time has been changed to 9AM on the 3rd Wednesday of every month on the 146.88 repeater.
District B: Dale Bagley, K0KY, DEC
- Significant hail event in Macon County. Sent report to NWS in Pleasant Hill, MO and 2 photographs of hail.
District C: Bill Grimsbo, N0PNP, DEC
- Franklin Co. – Rewriting EOPs
- Jefferson Co. – Good month – team doing well
- St. Charles Co. – Finished update of EOP
District F: J.D. Simmons, WA0BER, DEC
- Camden Co. – SAR Exercise with Camden County EMA and Fire Department. CCEMA Facebook page has details. I can’t read it since not a Facebook subscriber.
- Callaway Co. – ARES participated in Callaway Emergency Expo with 15 ham operators, station setuip, ham radio demos. Expo featured Callaway’s emergency response capabilities for the community with static equipment displays, etc.
District H:
- Grundy Co. – ARES net activated EF0 tornado, Trenton.
- Livingston Co. – SkyWARN for tornado warnings Liv/Grundy/Linn. Meeting: Damage Assessment.
The following are the statistics reported by the Section for the month of May. 40 Counties and 7 DECs reported the activity information:
73,
Jeff KB3HF
Missouri SEC