Members of the Caldwell, Livingston, and NWMO ARES Groups assisted with communications, shadowing during Missouri Days this year. KC0GP brought out his mobile APRS Digi and 2 APRS capable handhelds. KC0QLU brought a portable mobile APRS station to put in the command post so event officials could see a real time update of locations of staff.

4 posts were manned with operators throughout the day and 3 or 4 calls for assistance were relayed.
Several operators from the adjoining counties were there as well providing assistance.

The event went off without any major issues and we have been invited to help with next years event as well.

On Oct. 11th 2012 members of the Caldwell, Livingston and NWMO ARES groups participated in a region wide drill based on a possible Hoof and Mouth disease in the Chillicothe area. Messages were relayed on the Chillicothe repeater from the EOC to the MACC located at the Cameron EOC. All messages were sent over FM and were also sent via WINLINK using WINMOR on HF. The Chillicothe EOC was manned by KC0NOX and was a portable setup, the Cameron EOC is a fully operational EOC with HF, VHF, UHF capabilities.

Also on hand for the event was the Caldwell county Health Department manned by KG0CX and KC0GP. This station was also a portable setup and after a couple issues were resolved they were able to transfer emails via WINLINK using RMS Express.

Harrison County Community Hospital was on the air as well using the 440 link system. The hospital station was just recently put on line so training is the next step, but WK0Q and KD0IDK did a great job of being on the air and attempting to get RMS Express working.

Thanks again to all who participated and I look forward to making the necessary changes to each station done to make our response even more reliable.

Members of the NWMO ARES Group will be providing commuications for this event Oct. 6th in Liberty, MO 0630 – 1300. Over 100 walkers are expected. If you are available contact KC0QLU at nwmoares dot com. Items needed: Dual band handheld or portable setup, Reflective vest, warm clothing as it looks like temps will be in the 30’s. So far this event has raised over $5,000 and more walkers are expected to show up that morning. Hope to see you there!

CALDWELL COUNTY, MISSOURI

Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES)

On 9-11-2012, the Health Department, Caldwell County, Missouri, had their first annual Drive-Thru Flu Clinic in Polo, Missouri, at the Stagecoach Park. They provided breakfast, snacks and lunch, for the volunteers, in the Community Center at the park.

Neelie Churchill, MPH, Environmental Public Health Specialist, Public Health Preparedness Planner, asked our Caldwell County ARES Group to provide communications and traffic control for this incident. We were able to schedule 6 ARES operators to participate. They were; Trevor Black, District Emergency Coordinator (DEC), KC0QLU; George Pease, Assistant DEC, KC0GP; Mike Council, Grundy County Emergency Coordinator (EC), WU0G; Bob Pugh, Caldwell County EC, KG0CX; Larry Heisey, K0MET; and Jack Smith, KA0UTD. I would like to give a big Thank You to all the HAM radio operators who participated, THANK YOU!

The incident began at 7:00 am with the set-up of our equipment. Breakfast was served at 8:00 am and a meeting was started at about 8:30 am to prepare all the workers and volunteers for what needed to be done to carry out the objective, dispensing injections of the flu vaccine. The injections were given from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and there were 69 drive-thru injections given. After picking up and packing our equipment, we left the incident sight at 3:30 pm.
We had a control station, with an awning for shade, with the control operator positioned near the fourth Health Department tent, where the injections were dispensed. The Control Frequency we used for this incident was 146.550 MHz, simplex. We had two mobile operators with hand-held radios, one with Neelie on a four wheeler, so she could be contacted as needed by a relay from Amateur Radio. The other mobile operator was riding a golf cart so he could run errands as necessary. The other four ARES operators used hand-held radios at fixed locations to relay tactical messages and help direct traffic as needed.

According to the ARRL form FSD-57: “Public Service Activity Report”, we provided 42 ¾ total person hours; the estimated person hour value at $19.00 per hour is $812.25; the estimated value of our equipment used is $2500.00 and therefore, the total estimated value of our ARES voluntary service for this incident is $3312.25. We are proud to serve as volunteers, and this paragraph was inserted here to show our served agencies an estimate of what our service could be worth.

The driveway through the park was very well suited for the traffic. It was about a mile long and looped back past an information tent, after the injection receivers, received paper work and filled it out at a tent near the turn-around point. The cooperation between the served agency, the Sheriffs Department, the volunteers, including the ARES personnel, the food volunteers, and the injection recipients, was amazing.

This incident was one of the best I have participated in throughout my many years in Amateur Radio. Thanks, again, to all who were involved!

The Caldwell County Health Department will be having a drive thru flu shot clinic Tuesday September 11th from 10a to 2pm in Polo, MO. Members of the Caldwell county ARES, Livingston County ARES and the NWMO ARES group will be on hand to help with sign ups, traffic control, communications. Anyone interested in helping please email kg0cx to sign up. We will be going over this event at our meeting Saturday Sept. 8th.

The Pony Express Hamfest has been cancelled for this year….
It is with regret that due to several factors the hamfest scheduled for September 15th 2012 has been cancelled.

Members of the NWMO ARES ® Group will be gathering at KG0CX’s house to make repairs to the Caldwell County repeater. If you are available to assist or just want to hang out and watch and learn, feel free to stop by around 9am Saturday Aug. 18th.

For those of you who have or would like to start testing WINLINK® email I have started a blog topic on my website about my testing of RMS Express. You can find info about WINLINK® on this LINK and sign up to start using it. You don't have to have all the equipment to get started but this is a very useful tool to have in your possesion. The blog is mainly to log which nodes work for this area on a reliable basis so we can get a list for referencing for drills or emergencies. I am finding that the HF prediction software is not as accurate as I would like for it to be(HIHI) so I've started testing different nodes to get a feel for which ones will make the list……

Anyway the blog is HERE

73

Thanks to the efforts of KC0EFQ and NF0L the Cameron EOC now has digital capabilities using a SignaLink SL-USB and CAT controller cables connected the ICOM 706. This will be an extremely valuable tool should local internet services be rendered useless and information needs to be relayed to the State EOC or other entities. Using WINLINK® email or other digital modes this information will still be able to be sent when all other communications infrastructure has failed.
KC0QLU plans to use this setup on the 3rd Sunday of each month when he calls the weekly net to test the equipment. If you would like to runs tests from your station he will plan on running those tests immediately following the net.

Thanks again Corey and Blair for all your work on getting the EOC up to date with all the latest tools available to Amateur Radio and A.R.E.S. ®.

The NWMO ARES Group meeting is this Saturday 9am at the Cameron, MO PD. Hope to see you there!