Washington County ARES/RACES

Positions Open

Web Administrator
• This is the technical side of the web site
• Keep everything running
• Web posts and editing continue under Paul with Mike Stevens joining him

Membership Manager
• Pat is moving to Beaverton Station Manager
• Doug plans on retiring as Station Manager latter this year

Duties
• Responsible for new member intro and application process
• Collects required ICS certificates for the Emergency Manager
• Works with the Emergency Manager to get background checks approved
• Works with Chris Arnesen to get email assigned
• Deals with any membership tasks assigned

Oregon DART is Oregon Disaster Airlift Response Team (ODART info). “A local DART is an airport-centered group of pilots, aircraft, and supporting functions that are trained and prepared to provide an airlift response to a disaster.” The Emergency Communications part includes amateur radio operators. In Oregon there are four local DARTS in: Aurora (KUAO), Bend (KBDN), Albany (S12) and Creswell (77S).

They hold exercises each summer. The plan from lats summer is located at ODART WR25.

Whale Run 2025 (WR25) exercise is:
• June 7th (aerial windshield surveys) – no comms (except limited DMR support at KUAO for the Thunder Run exercise in Washington).

• June 14th (cargo delivery flights) – The closest to our county are at Aurora and Albany. The amateur radio equipment used includes HF radios with an NVIS antenna for distance communication and VHF/UHF radios for local communication.

Send a Radiogram

One way to introduce people to a ham radio Radiograms is to offer to send their message from your outreach booth. If you are not yet set up to do this but have internet access, you can go to the web site above. The person can craft and send their message. A volunteer ham radio operator will pick it up.

9-1-1 Now has a Nurse Navigation program. Summary: Appropriate callers can be connected with a licensed nurse to guide them to care options and can arrange transportation.

At 1800 hrs every Wednesday & Thursday: RatPac RatPac

Latest: Vernonia Marathon Sunday April 13, 2025 Vernonia Marathon Oregon Road Runner’s Club.

SeaPac Friday May 30 – Sunday June 1, 2025. SeaPac 2025

Note: The latest Winlink Express program (1.7.21.0) will display a pop-up screen asking you to agree to their terms. The “Logs” shortcut was removed in favor of “Add Callsign.” A change was made to “Send TXDELAY command to Kenwood TH-D7/D72 packet modems.”

ODART 2025 Saturday June 7 and Saturday June 14. Oregon Disaster Airlift Response Team. Contact KD7ISA for info and preparation. We set up HF in a field in Aurora.

Old TV Weather Guys calling for freezing rain, sleet, 0.2″ ice, 1-3″ of snow on the valley floor starting about 0800L, Thursday.

Old TV Weather Guys expect up to 4″ in West Hills and outside the metro areas by Saturday.

Schools going on delayed starts already. Continue reading →

Sim(ulation) City Feb 8, 2025

Recent mailings to YOUR-Call-Sign @ washcoares.org: This email list may not be complete.

New DMR Net: Cascadia Coastal Community HAM Net

February is Earthquake and Tsunami Awareness Month in Oregon. Original source is OEM.

2025-02-11 It will be very cold and dry through Wednesday evening, with overnight lows down to the low 20s and wind chills in the teens. A low-pressure system will push Continue reading →

If you do NOT receive email at [your-call-sign] @ washcoares.org PLEASE contact KU****@wa********.org.

Some of our members have not “activated” their [@WashcoARES.org] account. We can get you going on this if you contact us and we will get you through the password process.

Or you could turn your radio on to monitor the 145.45 repeater and Washington Tactical 1 simplex at 147.400 twenty-four hours a day . . .

I will call for check ins each Thursday (late Wednesday). .

It will work best if we have enough local participants (WashcoARES, live or work in Washington County, OR) all in sync with the lessons.

Each week may have a review of how the group did with check ins published as sent. See Winlink Training Series

If you cannot check in with a radio, we will use your internet email (let me know). Continue reading →

[If you did NOT see this article in your email, see the post just below getting you dialed in.]

01/13/2025

As the firestorms across Southern California continue to threaten millions of residents, trained amateur radio operators are serving critical volunteer roles to help officials spot fires before they get out of control. Dry conditions and wind gusts of 100 miles per hour have fueled days of devastating wildfires. Entire neighborhoods have been leveled by infernos.

Continue reading →