The Sumner County ARES monthly meeting was held on June 12th directly after the Sumner County Amateur Radio Association’s monthly meeting. You can read about that meeting at www.SCARA.net.
Brian, NG2S, SCARES Co-EC started off the meeting discussing the important of continuing training and the ARRL ARES Taskbooks. After the taskbooks topic was completed Paul, KF4VOY, led a discussion about the upcoming Freedom Festival in Hendersonville that SCARES and SCARA will be providing communications support for. Expectations and requirements were part of the discussion.
After the overview of the Freedom Festival event was done the topic switched to the SAG Unit boxes that have been in development for the past month. Brian has built 4 prototypes and a final 5th design for a portable self contained portable radio in a 50 caliber ammo box. All that is need in addition to the box is an antenna. This project came out of the AAR, After Action Report, of the Pedal for Paws event earlier in the year. There will also be some APRS and Meshtastic testing at the Freedom Festival because SCARES is interested in a system for Asset Tracking at field events. And by Assets we mean Radio Operators.
The equipment portion of the meeting was followed by a report from Brian about his experience volunteering at The Great Tennessee Airshow. This event was enthusiastically discussed and recommended to anyone who has the opportunity to volunteer for it in the future.
Things were moving along quickly as a lot was needed to cram into the 1 hour meeting.
Next up was a reminder about The Milligan event a couple days later and supporting the Nashville Radio Club and their ARES group.
NCS duties and recommendations on operation were the next topic. Some suggestions and recent situations were discussed. One such discussion was about the concept of the NCS runs the net and to move along at a pace you are comfortable with. There is no need to rush. There is nothing scheduled on the repeater system after the ARES net on Tuesday evening so slow down, do not rush. After NCS duty we spoke about logging and Steve, W4STX, gave a description of his logging experience for the prior 2 weeks. Logging is not as easy at it sounds during the heat of the moment on an active net. Checking in procedures were the last discussion on the topic of nets. A preamble was suggested before your call sign while checking in. The preamble’s purpose is to take up the 2 seconds or so that is needed for all the repeaters on the system to link up and activate. If you do not wait the 2 seconds and just speak whatever you said may not be heard by the NCS during the linking process.
The last topic of the evening was an in-depth dive into Safety Vests. This is why Jon, W4JDM, was wearing his vest during the SCARA meeting. It was to bring attention to them. OSHA requirements and standards were discussed. The 3 categories, 3 colors and 3 types were showcased for an understanding of the differences. Class 2 or higher safety vests will now be required for all SCARES deployments going forward. Safety is the #1 Priority and that is the main reason for the new requirement. The meeting came to a close right around 2100 hours.
