a field organization of the National Association for Amateur Radio®
Please see the following ARES Web site link regarding a couple of North Shore Public Service Events in late August/early September where volunteers have been requested.
MARS will be holding an exercise starting Sunday (7/23/17) at 11:00 a.m. through 8:00 p.m. on Thursday (7/27/17).
ARES and general amateur radio operators should expect that at some point during this period, MARS members may be tasked to obtain information from the Amateur Radio operators in our areas. Most likely, this will be the same type of infrastructure reporting we have done in the past and is done on the Sunday morning WMA HF net. We will only be looking for real, actual conditions; nothing simulated.
MARS communicators might try to obtain this infromation duing various scheduled nets including NTS messages nets, club nets, etc. They may also try to obtain information via the various SKYWARN and ARES/RACES partnered repeaters.
In addition to infrastructure reports, MARS is often interested in relayed reports from the avaiation automated weather systems (ASOS). Report weather information from airport ATIS/ASOS stations that you can directly receive via radio. These stations broadcast continuously in the 120.000 – 138.000 MHz frequency range using amplitude modulation. Information from the ATIS should include airport, time, temperature, altimeter (barometer), wind, precipitation, and visibility.
A list of stations with their frequencies and a map can be found at: https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/weather/asos/?state=MA
A brief introduction to ATIS can be found at: https://www.ivao.aero/training/documentation/books/PP_ADC_ATIS.pdf
A more detailed introduction to ATIS/ASOS can be found at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/brochures/ASOS-book.pdf [ALT LINK]socidoc.com_ppadcatis.
Marek Kozubal, KB1NCG
EMA ARES SEC
http://www.mmra.org/repeaters/
As part of our relationship with MARS and our own situational awareness gathering we will be asking for any known infrastructure issues that you are aware of. The information must either be personally observed, or obtained “over the air” via amateur radio. Items considered to be infrastructure include but are not limited to: electrical power, water, medical facilities, sanitation, communications, and transportation. Examples of failure would be: small or large area power failure, water main breaks, hospitals’ ER closed, sewage issues, TV/radio station off the air (including public safety), interstate highway or major road closed. No known issues are just as important as reporting failures.
Additionally we are interested in relay of any weather information from airport ATIS/ASOS stations that you can directly receive via radio. These stations broadcast continuously in the 120.000 – 138.000 MHz frequency range using amplitude modulation. Information from the ATIS should include airport, temperature, altimeter (barometer), wind, precipitation, and visibility.
A list of stations with their frequencies and a map can be found at: https://www.faa.gov/air_tr
We will have several interesting announcements for the net that evening and we look forward to everyone’s participation. Updates will be posted via email and on the Eastern Massachusetts ARES Web Site at http://ares.ema.arrl.org
Thanks for your continued support of ARES!
Marek Kozubal, KB1NCG
EMA Section Emergency Coordinator