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)

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

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

Warning Coordination Meteorologist Tony Edwards, KJ4FYM, (L) and ASEC 4 John Farler, K4AVX, (R) receiving reports at WX4JKL, at the Jackson Nws Office.

The annual ARRL Simulated Emergency Test was held in Region 4 on Sunday afternoon, November 11th.  More than 50 amateurs in the following counties participated:  Lawrence, Carter, Elliott, Johnson, Floyd, Pike, Breathitt, Knott, Harlan, Letcher, and Perry.

The scenario for the test was a blizzard and luckily, the weather was nice that day, unlike a week or so before when some areas of the Region did have large snowfalls.  The central agency for the test was the National Weather Service office, near Jackson, in Breathitt Co. Warning Coordination Meteorologist Tony Edwards (KJ4FYM) operated the office station, WX4JKL.  The station contacted the individual repeater groups in each area which had taken local reports and  received simulated snowfall reports and conditions that participants had given to each NCS.

NCS Stations included KC4FNV,  Steve Tolliver, in Harlan; KK4WH, Tim Webb,
Letcher Co. EC; WB4CLW, Bill Callihan, AEC in Floyd Co.; KJ4GRJ, Ross
Leedy, EC in Lawrence Co.; and KC4CZO, Gary Oliver, EC in Perry Co.

Individual repeaters involved included Harlan, Whitesburg, Hazard, Jackson and Louisa.  The linked system was used by the other sites, including Paintsville, Pikeville,  Prestonsburg, Inez, Phelps, Grayson, and Saylersville. To finish up the exercise, all in the Eastern KY Linked System  including Hazard and Whitesburg,linked up to culminate the exercise.

The Jackson NWS is at a high elevation for the type of terrain around it, so they can access a large number of repeaters from their site.

Besides the NWS in Jackson, 16 local agencies were served and information was sent to NWS-JKL.  These came from 16 localities
from Louisa to Harlan, and some were from local Eoc’s in the communities.

In addition, the Jackson NWS Office had a story on their daily news link that can be seen in the archives below.

Click here for link.

A pre-test press release was also sent to the Hazard TV Station, WYMT, for use in one of their evening weather reports.

John Farler
K4AVX
ASEC, Region 4

Region 4 ARES will conduct a Simulated Emergency Test on Sunday November 11th starting at 3 PM.  All Net Control Operators are encourged to drop their Repeaters out of the East Kentucky Link System and call up a net locally with EC’s reporting their activity to their local District EC and at approx 4:15pm the repeaters will be linked back up and a roll call will be done again and DEC’s will Radiogram their reports to ASEC.  The Jackson Weather Service will be on radio during this Event!  This Event is aimed at training and to see if and where there may be a weakness in our ARES Network of Volunteers.  The words TEST or DRILL will be continuously being inserted into radio traffic so as not to confuse the scanner public.  Encouragement of local first responders is requested as you might even want to go to a local fire or rescue or ambulance or red cross facility or EOC and broadcast you are there and help show some of their first responders what we can do to help them during an emergency.  Amateur Operators outside Region 4 are also welcome to check in on the nets and contact via any other means is ok 6 through 160 HF and portable power should be called in when reporting or if You have any first responder present or are calling in from a first responder location or EOC let Net Control know all details.   PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE LISTEN to what Net Control announces and follow their instructions as they may be calling up by Counties, Districts, or outside Region 4 area in attempt to narrow the possibility of doubles during checkins and if Net Control Cannot make out what the call in station is saying they will move on to next one. This will be very good training and hope to hear everyone on the nets this coming Sunday.

The following repeaters should be accessed by NWS Jackson in the order
shown, since the antenna is directional, and we will work them in a sweep:

NE QUAD
JACKSON  K4TDO   147.270  T100
GRAYSON  KD4DZE  145.410-   T107.2*
LOUISA      N8QCW  147.39+     T127.3*
SALYERSVILLE  KB4SQI  145.190-  T127.3*
PAINTSVILLE   KI4IOP   147.225+   T127.3*
INEZ   N4KJU   145.270-    T127.3*
PRESTONSBURG  KC4KZT  145.310  T127.3

SE QUADRANT:
PIKEVILLE   KY4BP  145.150-   T127.3*
PHELPS  N4WMA   147.090+    T100*
BLACK MOUNTAIN 147.210+   T103.5
HAZARD  KY4MT  146.670-  T103.5*
HARLAN       KK4KCQ 145.105+  T103.5
WHITESBURG  KK4WH  145.350-  T186.2*

SW QUADRANT:
BUCKHORN   K4XYZ   147.375+   T103.5

NW QUADRANT:
MT. STERLING  KI4CAZ  147.330+   T103.5
FLEMINGSBURG    KF4BRO   146.955   T107.2
MOREHEAD   KJ4VF     145.130-   T100

WX4JKL, the Jackson NWS station can access
other repeaters, but these are the ones in region
4, as far as I know.  Please send any corrections
or updates to the ones shown.

An asterisk means the repeater is part of the linked
system and will be reconnected around 4:15 for reports
from DEC’s and others from the local nets.  If you have
additional checkins after WX4JKL takes your reports
from the local repeater, you can send them at this time.

Please follow the directions of Net Control.  This is the
first time we’ve had such a drill, and I hope everyone
will take a  few minutes between 3  and 4:30 to send
in a simulated snowfall, temperature, and conditions.
Please don’t make it too big!  A foot or two at most…

Skedule again:
3 O’clock – unlinked local net with reports taken, and
a checkin by WX4JKL to get reports from NCS’s.
WX4JKL will try to access all repeaters shown above
before 4:15.  If no net is running, will make a short
explanation and ask for some simulated reports.

@4:15 PM – system is linked up and EC’s and NCS’s
send reports like the sample to DEC’s and Me.

It’s possible in future we may expand to repeaters outside
of Reg. 10 that WX4JKL can access.  I also realize not
all areas of Reg. 10 are covered here, and that some
counties report to Huntington….Something to work on
in the future.

Also, any stations that check in with info from out of the
Region are most welcome.  Jackson NWS covers a lot
more area, and can use the info.

We had almost 20 attendees at the Skywarn class.  A reporter from WYMT covered the event.  Click HERE to see the story.

Special thanks to National Weather Service Meteorologist Tony Edwards, KJ4FYM, for bringing the class to Perry County.

Due to vacations we usually do not have a July Club Meeting but we will try to have one this Friday 0900 at My Place Resturant which seems to gather more operators than a regular club meeting…spread the word.

Johnnie, KY4JLB

MOST POPULAR GUY AT FD

THE MOST POPULAR GUY AT FD

Once again this year, the Letcher, Harlan, and Perry Co. Amateur Radio Clubs held Field Day activities on US 119 near Whitesburg. The setup again was at the parking lot at the junction of the Pine Mtn. hiking trail and The Little Shepherd Trail, a hiking/vehicular trail.
Many new gadgets were in evidence, including new masts, a solar-powered station, and other improvements to portable operation. Even though band conditions weren’t good, the group had a great time and some good food.

To see a gallery of all the Field Day photos, CLICK HERE.

Don’t forget the next club meeting will be held on Monday, May 14 at 6pm at the East Kentucky Veterans Center. We will be filling out volunteer applications regarding the MOU in place with the veterans center. We will also be discussing the upcoming Field Day activities.