Saturday, August 13, 2011, 09:00am The Annual MARE drill will be held at Offutt AFB. Douglas County ARES will support OMMRS by staffing hospitals and other sites participating in the drill. Please fill out the SIGN UP FORM For details about OMMRS and what is expected please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Turn Off Yaesu “Wires”!
by Madeline Lombaerde, KD6JTU
So, you bought yourself one of those nifty new Yaesu radios. With excitement you prepare to check in to a net using your new HT. What? Net Control just said “Nothing Heard”! Or, “Relay, did you get anything?”. “Nothing, but it sounds like the station has ‘Wires’ turned on. Station trying to check in, turn off wires and try again.” Again, you key up, give your call sign and ... What???? They still can’t hear me?
Some of the newer Yaesu HTs have a feature commonly known as “Wires” ... the manual may explain it under the heading of “Internet Connection Feature”. In this article, the Yaesu VX-7R and FT-60R HTs are discussed. You may have a different model, but hopefully this will help you finally turn off that blankity-blank wires feature.
Read the entire Article at:
For those of you unfamiliar with NIMS, the acronym stands for "National Incident Management System". The reason such training is important is that we (amateur radio operators) often participate in emergency communications exercises and actual emergency communications during real incidents. Without the knowledge of how the command structure works and what the procedures are, an amateur radio operator is more likely to get in the way of efficient communications rather than be part of an efficient, organized communications system that works across multiple agencies. In other words, you are expected to go above and beyond simply getting your license if you expect to participate fully in amateur radio emergency communications. We will need to be trained on the structure of the incident command system and learn how the pieces fit together and what procedures will apply in different situations. These are things that you did not learn while studying for your amateur radio licenses.
The following FEMA courses are recommended for all ARES members in the Omaha Metro Area. At some point in time, our served agencies may require that participants need to have these certifications. The courses are free and don't take days or weeks to complete.
You registered with ARES now what? To be a valuable resource you need to do
1. Make A commitment - to be the best operator you can be
2. Learn to operate your equipment - if you don't know how to operate your equipment, you value in a disaster is limited
3. Voice & Digital - know how to operate more than one mode. Voice is obvious, but packet and D-Star are good tools to know.
4. ARRL – Emcomm Level I - this is a great course, and should be a part of your training as an ARES volunteer. Yes, it costs money, but most things worth having do!
5. Practice -- check in to the nets as often as you can. Just the act of listening to a NCS will help you during a disaster, but suggest that the net do more than just take check-ins
6. ITU Phonetics - know these as well as you know the alphabet. The will be used in emergency and disaster communications
7. Participate - take part in drills, community service events, training opporturnites. If you are too busy to find the time to do this, then perhaps you are too busy for ARES.
8. Go-Kit -- build one. There are great sites to give you ideas.
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