Month: April 2013

Roland Daignault-N1JOY writes:

Hi All,

I hope you can join us on the air next weekend while Team HAMCOW is
operating W1ACT from the Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard. This
is our 20th annual trip to this location, and we will be on air for the
New England QSO Party, ARLHS, County Hunters (Dukes, MA), US Islands,
IOTA, NEQP, and 7QP, and just plain old fun and casual operating. We
will be on air Friday May 3rd until Sunday May 5th.

You can follow our activity throughout the weekend at: http://hamcow.net/

Even though we are operating portable and from a somewhat remote
location, we will have a dedicated broadband Internet connection
allowing us to do cool things such as real time online log checking
which also allows you to see what frequency & mode we are currently
operating, updating our web page regularly with cool photos, and even
hosting a high definition webcam so you can see the activity inside the
HAMCOW live as it happens! (Sorry – Internet Explorer is required to
view the webcam streaming video.)

The crew will be arriving on Martha’s Vineyard to set up Thursday
afternoon, and will be on air just a few hours later, and staying active
as long as possible until Sunday night. I hope you can follow our
antics throughout the weekend and help put a lot of points into our
contest logs.

Thanks!
Roland – N1JOY

Hello to all..

While this may be a bit off topic for some SKYWARN Spotters, Amateur Radio Operators and Red Cross volunteers, many of which are SKYWARN Spotters, will be involved in the Boston Marathon on Monday April 15th. To reach out to the highest level of Amateur Radio Operators involved in the event, this coordination message is being sent out to the SKYWARN email list and posted to the various Amateur Radio lists. We appreciate everyone’s patience with this message. This is likely to be the only coordination message on the Marathon unless a significant change in the weather forecast occurs. See information below:

Eastern Massachusetts ARES members not participating in the Boston Marathon should be in a heightened state of awareness for marathon activities on Monday April 15th from 7 AM-7 PM for any significant issues outside of the Boston Marathon that may require Amateur Radio Emergency Communications support and for any unexpected issues on the Boston Marathon route. With over 300 Amateur Radio Operators staffing the Boston Marathon route, the start line and the finish line, if an issue arises needing Amateur Radio support outside of the Marathon route or an unexpected issue arises in marathon operations, it is important that any ARES members not involved in the marathon can help with any response that is required. There will be two backup operation centers including the Eastern Massachusetts ARES Net Control Center at the town of Bridgewater EOC.

The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) UCC (Unified Command Center) at the SEOC (State Emergency Operations Center) will be active for the Boston Marathon. Amateur Radio Operators will be at the SEOC to support backup operations while many agencies will be there performing primary operations for the marathon.

The weather outlook for the Boston Marathon is one that should be favorable for volunteers and favorable to slightly warm for the runners. The Weather Forecast across the Boston Marathon is for partly to mostly sunny conditions throughout the day. There will be a 10-15 MPH breeze with isolated higher gusts. Temperatures will range in the upper 30s early in the morning warming to around 50 degrees by mid to late morning to the upper 50s to lower 60s by afternoon. This means that conditions for the runners should be reasonable with an ‘average’ amount of ambulance requests along the route versus some prior years where warmer weather conditions resulted in some of the highest amounts of ambulance requests since Amateur Radio Operators have handled the event. It is noted that conditions this year are much cooler than last year so ambulance requests should be lower than what occcurred last year.

For Amateur Radio, Red Cross and all other volunteers along the route, it is recommended that you dress in layers for this event so that you can put on or take off clothes as needed for comfort. Be sure to drink liquids and eat properly during the event and that you are self-sufficient so that you can be of full help to the function and not distract everyone from the main purpose of supporting the runners by having a health issue on your end that can be avoided. No rain is expected at this time so there should be no need for rain gear.

Barring a significant change in the weather forecast, this will be the only coordination message on the Boston Marathon. We appreciate everyone’s support in this event and hope those that volunteer enjoy themselves and feel the self-satisifcation of supporting this historic event and those that are monitoring the Marathon or events outside of the Marathon realize that the monitoring is an important function as well and is a testament to being able to scale other incidents beyond the marathon if required. Thanks to all for their support!

Respectfully Submitted,

Robert Macedo (KD1CY)
ARES SKYWARN Coordinator
Eastern Massachusetts ARES Section Emergency Coordinator        
Home Phone #: (508) 994-1875 (After 6 PM)
Home/Data #: (508) 997-4503 (After 6 PM)
Work Phone #: 508-346-2929 (8 AM-5 PM)
Email Address: rmacedo@rcn.com
http://ares.ema.arrl.org
http://www.wx1box.org