Connecticut ARES - Region 3
DEC: Phil Crombie, Jr., K1XFC
Asst DEC: Bill Storey, AB1LZ
Where to Find Us:
CT ARES Section 3 DEC
(District Emergency Coordinator)
Phil Crombie, Jr. K1XFC
k1xfc@arrl.net
860-687-7449 (Days - Work)
860-644-0618 (Evenings - Home)
860-338-6332 (Cell)
The DEC's schedule:
2021
October 16 - ARES Simulated Emergency Test (SET) 0900 to 1200
Nov. 25 - Manchester Road Race Radio Communications Coordinator
Alert Level: 0
Watch WWW.CTARES.ORG for near real-time level changes.
ARES SIMULATED EMERGENCY TEST (SET)
The Section SET will be held on Saturday October 16 from 0900 hours to 1200 hours local. Everyone will be able to operate from their home. Please set aside a some time to participate. Here are the details:
SCENARIO:
Your town has been cut off by a severe weather event -- trees and poles down, roads and bridges washed out, no power, no internet, no cell towers, and the town's amateur radio repeater is off the air.
SENDERS:
Make a contact on Oct 16th between 9 am and noon, with any participating ham who is OUTSIDE your own town. You must use a radio and RF, assuming all normal comms are down IN YOUR TOWN but surrounding towns are working just fine. So you can contact anyone willing to forward your message. You may pre-arrange a sched with another ham outside your town. You may use simplex, a repeater located outside your town, a net, HF SSB, CW, or any digital mode. You only need to send ONE message, containing these eight fields:
1) Your FCC callsign
2) Your first name
3) Your town
4) Your postal code
5) The band or frequency you used
6) The transmission mode
7) YES/NO to the question, "Had this been a real emergency, would you have volunteered for activation?"
8) YES/NO were you first licensed more than 3 years ago?
We also ask that you send an email to k1hej@arrl.net. This will help us to update our Region 3 ARES contact list.
RECEIVERS:
Add a ninth field to each message received, containing your call sign.
Any ham can be a message receiver as long as they are willing and able to forward the message. The goal is to pass the message up the ARES appointee chain, ultimately to the SEC, George Lillenstein, AB1GL. Start with your local ARES EC if you know one. If not your ADEC or DEC. Since your town is not affected by the storm, you can using any mode and do not have to use RF.
Region 3 DEC (K1XFC) will be available on several local repeaters and on 3965 KHz to receive messages.
Region 3 Organization
Skywarn Weather Nets in Region 3
Weather nets are held routinely by ARES Skywarn Coordinators, and on special schedules during severe weather.
For Region 3, there is a weather net every Thursday at 9 pm on the W1HDN repeater in Tolland.
Tune to 146.790, minus 600kHz offset, PL tone 82.5.
To report severe weather, please give the information in the order below. Also indicate if it is measured, averaged, or estimated, and if it is storm total or since last report,
| Temperature | Precip intensity | Depth | Damage |
ARES is the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, the field arm of the American Radio Relay League.
Our special focus is the use of Amateur Radio for emergency communications, and the recruiting and training of a pool of skilled radio operators to be available in times of emergency.
ARES in Connecticut partners with state and municipal governments, public health entities, and non-profit providers such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
ARES members have their own radios and many can respond from their homes and vehicles, allowing ad hoc ARES nets to form using operators who are already in place when a disaster wipes out communications infrastructure. This means ARES functions even when the roads are blocked and the electric and telecom grids are jammed or down.
Amateur radio can be used to
- pass welfare traffic ("Aunt Minnie made it safely to the community shelter"),
- forward requests from stranded facilities ("the XYZ nursing home urgently needs oxygen bottles"),
- Pass status messages from outlying hospitals to the central reporting agency ("hospital A has 23 beds available"),
- Digitally convey sitreps, ICS forms, maps and photos to an incident command post
- Act as an email gateway to a functioning part of the Internet via long-distance HF radio to another state or country.
To keep our operators trained and equipment working, we provide Public Service communications at no charge. ARES members volunteer for service at charity races, runs, walks, parades, and other large events. Operators man checkpoints, observe along the course, circulate in large venues. They contribute to public safety, guiding first responders to where they are needed, clearing the way for emergency vehicles, and reporting incidents to the Unified Command post.
Our radios work where cell phones can't get dial tone or coverage, and are interoperable where the specialized public safety and commercial radios are not.
For a detailed list of training available, see the training page of the state ARES web site, CTARES.ORG.
IMPORTANT! Whenever there is an ARES activation, leadership will notify and assign tasks ONLY to those who have current records in the ARES member database. Go to www.ctares.org and update your record now!
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