Missouri Emergency Services Net
3.963 MHz (LSB)
6:30 PM Central Time on Sunday
Net Manager: Dale Huffington, AE0S
MESN is also activated in case of any large disaster where
statewide communications may be necessary.
Daytime alternate
frequency is 7.263 MHz.
Missouri Traffic Net - Daily
MOTRAN (SSB) 3.963 MHz
5:45 PM - 6:15 PM Central Time
Net Manager: Larry Wilson, K0RWL
MON (CW) 3.585
MHz
7:00 PM - 7:30 PM Central Time
9:45 PM - 10:15 PM Central Time
Net Manager: Kent Trimble, K9ZTV
Net info and NTS in Missouri
Join the Legislative Email Alert for Missouri Hams. Send an email to
our Section Manager, Dale Bagley, k0ky@arrl.org.
Some ARES forms are
available here, and the rest are available
at the ARRL website.
Missouri Section Emergency Coordinator
Don Moore (SEC) - KM0R
8825 W. Shady Oak Lane
Columbia, MO 65202
Email: km0r@arrl.net
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Here are some recommendations on your position as EC. It's really a mini
EC manual! I expect that this one list will take quite a while to accomplish. Give
everyone a job and manage them instead of trying to do all of this personally.
One appointment you should make right away is at least one Assistant EC (AEC)
who can take over in your absence. This is a local appointment entirely
at your discretion. An Assistant EC certificate is available from HQ
through your requisition form. Some EC's have appointed an AEC to act
as a liaison to each club in their county. Some have AEC's appointed
to act as liaison to one or more served agencies. An AEC should be someone
who is groomed to take on the position of Emergency Coordinator at some point. While
some EC's have held the position for only a couple of years, some hold the
position for a decade or longer.
Another appointment you have possible to help you is the Official
Emergency Station (OES). You may recommend to me anyone you
need as an OES. The OES position reports to their EC.
You need two other positions filled as soon as possible, if they are not already. One
is your NTS Liaison. This should be someone who is, or wants to be, familiar
with NTS message handling and who checks into MOTRAN (Missouri Traffic Net)
on a regular basis (... not necessarily every night, just often enough to be
known by the net). This person is your lifeline to the outside world. Do
not count on vhf/uhf or on phone lines to get help outside of your area.
If you have no one in mind, you may discuss some possibilities with your DEC,
but it should be someone from your county. Some other places to
locate possible NTS Liaison's are: send a note asking for suggestions from
Dale Huffington, AEØS, Section Traffic Manager (ae0s@arrl.net). Since
he is STM, he may know someone in your county that is active with NTS. If
you find someone that really enjoys NTS traffic, you may want to talk with
Dale about submitting their name as an Official Relay Station (ORS).
Another source is on the Missouri ARES website, on the
ARES District page for your district. Pick it from the map on the districts page. It
shows all of the ORS's (Official Relay Stations). You could ask any of
them for suggestions.
The other position is that of Public Information Officer (PIO). This
person provides press releases to the media and to QST/CQ. They send
articles and pictures of your public service events and your emergency responses
to them. This helps the public and the Served Agencies understand more
about what ARES is doing. That means that they are more likely to support
you and it means it can be easier to attract more members. PIO is also
an ARRL appointment. Select your district page
of the ARES website for a list of any in your area and for contact information
for the Public Information
Coordinator, Dennis McCarthy, aa0a.
First, get yourself ready.
Second, organize your ARES Team
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Hold
organizational meeting |
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Decide
when to have ARES meetings and nets (Register
your Net with the ARRL Net Directory at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/nets/client/snet1.html) |
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Register
interested Hams that you are comfortable working with |
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Make/submit
appointments as necessary (ARRL
Field Organization)
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Don't
do it all yourself. Give people jobs and manage
them. Team members with jobs are more likely
to be active members. |
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National
Traffic System (NTS)
Liaison |
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Assistant
Emergency Coordinator(s) (AEC) |
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Official
Emergency Station (OES) |
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Public
Information Officer (PIO) |
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Digital
Communications Specialist (This may be an OES. The
DCS job is to get digital communications working
for you. You should be able to communicate
via rf packet and rf APRS to at least Jefferson City. Once
we all can do this, then the whole state will have
digital communications. HF modes like PSK31
and Pactor are also encouraged.) |
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Create
a Call-up plan of action (Frequencies to monitor in a possible
emergency, Telephone tree, Email list, Central location to
meet) |
Third, training
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Use
the ARRL Continuing Education Courses (http://www.arrl.org/cce/ & http://www.arrl.org/cce/syllabus.html). The
ARECC (Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Course) Level
I, II, and III are available online. These are worthy
courses for everyone in ARES. |
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Sign
up for State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) classes.
(http://www.sema.state.mo.us/trn.htm) |
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See
your local
American Red Cross for a schedule of available classes |
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Talk
to the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the nearest
National Weather Service Office about SKYWARN Training. These
are often held in late Winter and sometimes in the Fall. Here
is a list of NWS offices covering
Missouri. |
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Practice
Radio Direction Finding in order to locate emergency locator
beacons on aircraft or watercraft or to locate lost Hams. See
Welcome to Homing In, All About Radio Direction Finding (RDF),
by Joe Moell, ham radio callsign k0ov: http://members.aol.com/homingin/. |
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Use
public service events to stay in practice for tactical communications. Thons
and parade organizers usually are thrilled to have your help. |
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Participate
in drills organized by your Served Agencies. |
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Organize
your own drill and invite others if appropriate |
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Participate
in Field Day as an Emergency Communications exercise |
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Organize
and execute a SET (Simulated Emergency
Test) each Fall. |
Fourth, contact Served Agencies and other VOAD members to
discuss working together.
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Remember
that ARES is there to provide communications, not to make
general policy. See the Memoranda of
Understandings for some ideas. |
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Hospitals
(Even a telephone outage is an emergency here. http://www.hdscs.org/) |
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Office
of Emergency Management |
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American
Red Cross |
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Salvation
Army |
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National
Weather Service |
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Search
and Rescue Teams |
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MoVOAD (Missouri
Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster) |
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Local
VOAD |
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MARS |
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Civil
Air Patrol (CAP) |
Fifth, create a Emergency Operation Plan
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Outline
the number of team members and their potential availability |
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Talk
with the Served Agencies and outline their potential communications
needs |
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Outline
the potential emergencies in your jurisdiction: flood, flash
flood, tornado, winter storm, earthquake, major fire,
nuclear power plant meltdown, biological warfare such as
anthrax, airliner crash, hazardous materials incident, train
derailment, hospital or police telephone failure or radio
failure; Please see a more complete list at the SEMA
State Hazard Analysis (http://www.sema.state.mo.us/hazard.htm). |
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Review
these potentials with your Planning Committee (AEC's, OES,
lead members of your team), DEC, and Served Agencies to determine
who will do what in specific possible callouts. In
other words, it may be difficult to make a firm commitment
to all of the Served Agencies in your jurisdiction. |
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Prioritize
your responses during a major disaster and let your Served
Agencies know what to expect by creating a local Memoranda
of Understanding with each of your Served Agencies -- based
upon the Plan of Action and the ARRL National MOU's mentioned
above. |
Sixth, recognize your team members' contributions
We each spend a lot of our time and money on helping other people.
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Give
credit where it is due and do it in public in front of others
whenever possible. |
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Take
advantage of ARRL certificates and appointments. The
certificates are available to you directly at no charge thru
your Leadership Officials Requisition Form. |
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Use
your monthly report as a a newsletter not only to your DEC,
but also send it to all of your team members. Mention
names and callsigns. Some months, you'll just have
time to fill in the blanks, but still share it with everyone. |
There are many needed and necessary activities for an ARES Team.
Remember that you cannot make them all happen in an instant. I say that
because you can be overwhelmed and burn out; I would rather that you
keep moving in a positive direction and improve things as you go along.
Everything won't be perfect on day one, but they will get better as you
nudge them along.
Thanks EC!
73,
Don Moore, km0r
Missouri ARES Section Emergency Coordinator
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