Saturday, December 30, 2017

Two Thousand Seventeen

To All ECs adn DECs
Please Forward

As we plummet headlong into 2018, I thought it might be worthwhile to recollect what an amazing 2017 we had, and I am looking forward to an even more exciting 2018.

All our ARES members, and especially our ECs, did yeoman duty this year. We began the year with the news that our Section reported more volunteer hours than any section in the country. I don't know how it will turn out for 2017, but certainly there was a lot of reporting.

A few years back, FEMA asked us for a database on what capabilities we
had at public facilities, and our ECs updated that database this year. In addition, ECs reported how many folks they thought they could
muster in various circumstances and with specific skills. These
reporting tasks may seem mundane, but they are important to understand
so we can plan effectively.

I would like to ask each EC to take on another task immediately. Thank each of your members for their generous service. Those folks often come out for rather boring, but necessary duties. But each and every one is important, and each deserves recognition.

In March and April and again in June we had a number of severe weather events, including flooding in the U.P. and flooding in Central Michigan. In July and August we had additional, but localized, severe weather events.

Folks came out to support numerous walks, runs and other public service events, perhaps most notably the Labor Day Bridge Walk, where members from Luce to Antrim impressed the professionals with the kind of accountability APRS offers.

Besides actual activations, we participated in a large number of drills and exercises. As a Section, we participated in the "Statewide 2017" exercise as well as our annual SET. The SEOC crew additionally activated for three radiological exercises and the 100th anniversary special event station.

We had our first, in-state AUXCOMM class this year, and another planned for the end of January. We also had the first, amateur radio focused MI-CIMS training, and expect to have more in the coming year.

We had an amazing Division convention at MIS, which I hope we can repeat in coming years. Rick Roderick was an amazing speaker, and it was great to see so many folks that we don't get to see so often.

Your SEC followed a number of SEOC activations that ended up not requiring communications assistance, as well as three tabletop exercises.

The Auxcomm Working Group is finishing up the volunteer radio portion of the Michigan Emergency Communications Plan, and will shortly be turning to the Michigan Emergency Management Plan. In addition, we hope to update the rather stale "Michigan ARPSC Guidelines" in the coming year. Further, we will be providing input to the State Communications Interoperability Plan, so we are well entrenched in that state's communications planning. With all this planning in the works, the state is offering the assistance of their planners.

The FEMA Region V Auxcomm Committee has established a region wide frequency plan, and will be documenting activation procedures shortly. If you need assistance from outside the state, look to 60 meters channel 4, if busy, try 5, 1 2, 3 in that order. If conditions warrant, go to 40 meters, 7.180 and up. If Internet is available, look to REF024A on D-STAR (we hope to have a dedicated reflector before too long) or R5AUXCOMM on DMR. Of course, in most cases you will go to the SEOC first and they will make the out of state contact, but you should at least be aware of the frequencies.

So what will the new year bring? We have heard that changes will be coming to ARES, and we will hear more about that at Interop in February. From what we can tell so far, it looks as if those changes will be positive.

As mentioned, we have a number of plans to work on. We will essentially re-run our SET on April 28. We will be working with the state's Training and Exercise Section to include us more meaningfully into the state exercises.

We will be asking the ECs to provide us details of their primary repeater. We have had a questionnaire ready for some time, but we were hitting the ECs with one request after another, so felt it best to hold off. Meanwhile, KE8CRV will be providing us with MI-CIMS boards for that purpose, which should be a lot easier to use.

At the SEOC, we still need to get the Pactor station on the air. The packet station is up, but I hear not working properly, so that is something to investigate. We still need to identify and acquire a new tuner so we can get a power amp on the air. We also plan to have an intercom system so that the place won't be quite so noisy when there are multiple stations on the air, get additional Internet connections into the station, and perhaps move some of the positions a little so the VHF/UHF seats aren't so crowded.

We have some really good presentations planned for Interop. Looking forward to hearing from Mike Horn, Chuck Cribley, Dale Williams, Mike Corey, Ron Peterka and others. it promises to be a very ham-heavy conference.

We had some good success providing a training video on voice communications, and plan to prepare more videos in the future. We have been offered assistance from both the League as well as the state's Training and Exercise Section. We may well incorporate those videos into Mi-Train so that folks can track the videos along with other courses they have taken.

So a lot happened in 2017, and we expect a lot more to happen in 2018.  Again, thanks to all of you for your service and dedication. I may get to schmooze with the bureaucrats, but the folks in the field do all the heavy lifting. Thank you all so much.

73 and Happy New Year
de WB8RCR