Kentucky Mountains Amateur Radio Club

Below is an after-action report written by John Farler, K4AVX, regarding the ARES Eastern KY Healthcare Planning Coalition Drill that took place on April 24th.

Download (PDF, 204KB)

KMARC Members,

For those of you who weren’t at the last club meeting, we have decided to hold the next meeting at Carr Creek Lake at the shelter area near the Dam/Spillway in Sassafras. It will be held on Monday, May13th at 6pm. We will be cooking out and need to take a count of how many people will be coming so those of us bringing food will know how much to bring. Below is a list of people who have signed up to bring items to the cookout. If you would like to bring something, please send me an email at darianwilliams(at)gmail.com and I’ll keep the list updated so everyone can see who is bringing what. If you’re not able to bring something but plan to attend, drop me an email as well so we’ll know how many to cook for. If my memory serves me correctly, I think we agreed that everyone would be responsible for their own drinks. We’d like for everyone to reply by Wednesday, May 8th, that way we have plenty of time to get the food.

Rick King – Meat

Jim Osborne – Potato salad

John Farler – Chocolate cake

Jimmy Hatton – Baked beans and buns

Johnnie Brashear – Charcoal, foil, paper plates, and plastic utensils.

Darian Williams – Pasta salad

Gary Oliver- Chips

Wayne Hensley – Marinated Vegetables

Meeting Monday April 8th, 6 pm Perry County Public Library located on Black Gold Blvd in Hazard behind the Social Security office and J C Penney’s.  Tickets will be for sale on a Yaesu FT-2900R to be given away by the Kentucky Mountains Amateur Radio Club and a Kenwood TM-281A to be given away by the Letcher County Amateur Radio Club at  $5 each or 5 tickets for $20.  Both radios are to be given away at Field Day.  You do not have to be present at Field Day to win one or both of these 2 meter high power radios.  Field Day plans will be discussed along with a spring COOKOUT/TAILGATE PARTY for the next meeting date.

Johnnie Brashear, KY4JLB
KMARC President

Hello,

Effective 4/1/2013, all offices within the Central Region of the NWS, including NWS Jackson, KY, will begin issuing Tornado and Severe Thunderstorm warnings with enhanced wording and tag lines (see the two attached .pdf files for examples). A test of this concept was conducted in eastern Kansas and most of Missouri last year, and I believe the expansion of the test to Kentucky and Indiana will be beneficial for everyone here. Please take a look at the attached files, and if you have any questions or comments, you can either direct them to me or to Jim Keeney, the Central Region WCM, whose contact information is included in both files.

A few things to point out:

1. The “TORNADO…POSSIBLE” tag to be used in Severe Thunderstorm Warnings will be used primarily with squall lines, which can produce short-lived tornadoes like the ones that occurred during the January 30, 2013 event. These often show up on radar at nearly the same time that they occur on the ground, so it is believed that highlighting this fact in the Severe Thunderstorm Warnings that typically precede them will heighten the awareness and action of people in the storm’s path.

2. Most Tornado Warnings will continue to be issued based on radar, so will contain the “TORNADO…RADAR INDICATED” tag. When there is confirmation that a tornado has touched down, follow-up statements will then include the “TORNADO…OBSERVED” tag line.

3. The “TORNADO DAMAGE THREAT…” tag lines will be rarely used. Basically, these are reserved for confirmed supercell tornadoes (as opposed to the squall-line version) that we have reliable real-time visual confirmation for (e.g., live video, etc.) In other words, the West Liberty and Salyersville tornadoes of March 2nd last year would be the type of tornado in which this tag line would be included.

More in-depth information about the experiment can be found at http://www.crh.noaa.gov/crh/?n=2013_ibw_info.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Take care!

Tony Edwards – KJ4FYM
Warning Coordination Meteorologist
NOAA/National Weather Service

http://www.weather.gov/jacksonky

Impact_Based_Warning_info

IBW_One_Page_2013(2)

The Kentucky Mountains ARC recently provided a new Yaesu FT-2900 two meter transceiver for the National Weather Service at Jackson to use in place of its many years’ old Kenwood. The rig has more than twice as much power as the old one, and is already programed with Region 4 and other nearby repeaters that the Station can access from their mountain top location near Jackson.

Meteorologist Buddy Whorrall, KF4PQY (L), Meteorologist Tony Edwards, KJ4FYM (C), Station Manager Shawn Harley, KF4NIH.

It is also pretty easy to program, and club members have the data cable and software to easily put new frequencies in. One help in hectic times at the rig is the actual name or location in the transceiver readout, instead of having to remember the frequencies of each one, or look them up.

Tony Edwards, the Warning Meteorologist at Jackson sent the picture showing the station setup for WX4JKL, (l-r) Meterologist Buddy Whorrall (KF4PQY); Tony Edwards, KJ4FYM; and the Station manager Shawn Harley, KF4NIH.

The Station Tech, Tim Stanley, KF4ERJ, was home with a broken arm and couldn’t be in the photo.  Tony passed along the following, “I got our new 2m hooked up the other day and she works great! We really appreciate the radio and everything you all do during times of severe weather. Please pass along our gratitude to the club!”

Don’t forget the Skywarn training available from JKL NWS in your area. The schedule and much, much more can be found at the NWS JKL site http://www.weather.gov/jacksonky.

On March 5th after weather alert radios sounded in Eastern Kentucky a Skywarn net drill was activated with Johnnie Brashear, KY4JLB DEC District 10, as Net Control and Johnny Hager, N4KJU DEC District 9, as Alternate Net Control.  The net lasted from 1010 AM through 1040 AM.  Wayne Hensley, AF4YJ EC Harlan County, called up a net on the Harlan Repeater with Homer Fox, KI4GEW, as Alternate Net Control.  Alternate Net Control Operators were on standby in case of equipment failure, expecially in a linked repeater system or, in case, the Net Control Location was wiped out by adverse weather then the other Alternate Operator could take over.  Below are list of check-ins on the two nets:

Click this link for the latest briefing from NWS Jackson.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/jkl/webbriefing/webbriefing.swf

The next meeting of the KMARC will be February 11th, 6pm at the Perry County Public Library.

From our friends at the LCARC:

The next club meeting will be Monday, January 14th, 6 PM at the Perry County Library.  We will have tickets to hand out to sell for $5.00 each or 5 tickets for $20.00 for a Yaesu FT-2900R which will be given away at Field Day in June.  Our club funds are running low so we (each Member) need to try to sell some tickets or purchase some for yourself so we may continue to give radios away at Field Day and the Hazard Hamfest.  So please make an effort to sell some tickets.  We are also discussing donations for a small auction/tailgate party to raise money for the Club.  If you have anything to give away put it back and we will hold an auction/tailgate party in the near future.  Items don’t need to be big!  A PL-259, screwdriver, solder, coax, antenna, wire, microphone, etc.  Your junk is someone else’s treasure!

Johnnie KY4JLB
President
KY Mountain Amateur Radio Club