Port City Amateur Radio Club - Portsmouth NH

TOUR DE CURE - Sunday May 4th, 2008

Tour de Cure is a series of fund-raising cycling events held in 40 states nationwide to benefit the American Diabetes Association.

The Tour is a ride, not a race, with routes designed for everyone from the occasional rider to the experienced cyclist. Whether participants ride 10 miles or 100 miles*, they will travel a route supported from start to finish with rest stops, food to fuel the journey and fans to cheer them on!

Last year, more than 32,000 cyclists in 78 Tour events raised nearly $13 million to support the mission of the ADA: to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes.

Download the Maps and Directions Here.

Any Further Information Email Dale N0QKN@MSN.COM

Download 25mi_trip_tik.doc

Download 50mi_trip_tik.doc

Download 75mi_trip_tik.doc

Download 100mi_trip_tik.doc

Download Rest_Stop_Handbook_08.doc

27th Annual Prouty Bike Ride and Walk

It is that time. The 27th Annual Prouty Bike 
Ride and Walk Challenge is  Saturday, July 12,
2008. For many years now, local ham
radio operators have  been provided heath and 
safety communications for this fund raiser.
It provides funds for the Friends of the 
Norris Cotton Cancer Center at DHMC in  
Lebanon. The funds are used to support cancer
research  and to help with cancer treatments.

Cycle for Shelter : Help Needed

The event will take place on July 22, 2007. The
start/finish is at the Northern Essex Communiy College
in Haverhill, MA. off of route 110.
The planned start time is 7:00 am for the 100 mile
with staggard starts for for the 62 and 27 mile
courses...

Our own AB1CL Appointed NHSEC

To all New Hampshire ARES Members:

I am happy to announce that Tom Richardson, AB1CL, has been appointed as New Hampshire Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC). Tom brings to the position a long professional background in emergency services, having spent 30 years as a Fire Fighter and a Fire Captain. He has also served as an advisor to the UNH Search and Rescue Team. Over the past 6 years, he has served in various positions, including President, with the Port City Amateur Radio club. He has participated in numerous Seabrook nuclear power plant emergency communications drills. He is currently serving as New Hampshire section Affiliated Club Coordinator...

ARRL Statement on Red Cross Background Checks

ARRL Statement on Red Cross Background Checks
October 24, 2006

The American Red Cross has recently notified their local chapters that their volunteers and staff members must submit to a criminal background check. There are some sound reasons as to why these criminal background checks were required. The Red Cross didn’t want the possibility of having a person with a history of violent crime representing them while assisting disaster victims...

Link to ARRL article

Hampton Seafood Fest '06

The Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce has once again asked us for help with communications at the numerous parking lots during the Seafood Festival Sept. 9th and 10th. Duties include directing traffic into the parking lots, answering numerous questions, herding people to bus stops, (and some years pet sitting, automobile trouble shooting, and other ridiculous things!) If you have worked the Red Hook Brewery 5K race, then you know the drill...

Communication a concern in nuke plant drill

This Portsmouth Herald article expresses concerns similar to the concerns many of us have. Many of our members might like to read it. It goes along with my observation that there was a 23 minute time span between the Governor declaring a state of emergency and that fact being announced in the Incident Field Office. - Tom, AB1CL.

Read more...

Towns Participating in Seabrook Excercise Listed

If you have not yet specified a town where you would like to be posted, please do so by sending an email to eocvolunteer@w1roc.org. You may also want to print this out and carry along with you, as some hams have been asked in the past about who had sent them to a particular EOC.

-From NH BEM:

The following is a list of towns playing next week in the drill that we will need ARES staffing for. The only one supposedly not playing is Exeter, but that still needs to be confirmed. Hope this helps! Please let me know who to expect at each facility. Thanks! Kim

Brentwood		eves
East Kingston		eves
Exeter		?? day
Greenland		days
Hampton		days
Hampton Falls		days
Kensington		eves
Kingston		days
New Castle		days
Newfields		eves
Newton		eves
No Hampton		days
Portsmouth		days
Rye		days
Seabrook		days
So Hampton		eves
Stratham		eves
Newmarket		eves
IFO Newington		BOTH
EOC (Concord)		days

Kimberly A. Kimball
New Hampshire Department of Safety
Bureau of Emergency Management Communications

Interested in ICS Training?

There has been recent discussion of doing a "group learning" session(s) at the clubhouse on the Incident Command System. This would involve a review of the Self-study guide which is available online from FEMA, along with a Powerpoint Presentation. The purpose would be to familiarize ourselves with the details of the ICS, and prepare to take the certification exam(s) offered online. If you are interested please complete this form. This training will likely take place in the latter part of March/early April.

Seabrook Drills Come Early

Subject: [NHARES-STAFF] Seabrook Nuclear Power Station Drill Schedule forEast Rockingham

TO: East Rockingham EC Mike Pelletier
NHBEM has requested that NHARES again participate in the upcoming Seabrook disaster drills.

Seabrook drills are scheduled as follows:
1/24/06  Seabrook drill – Both day and evening drills, town lists to be provided as soon as we know who’s playing when.

3/15/06  Seabrook drill – Details to be announced

4/11/06  Seabrook graded exercise – Details to be announced

As in the past, town EOCs will be staffed under the EC’s direction. I will be assigning a RED Team member to cover the State EOC radio room. I need a recommendation for someone to staff the Newington IFO for day and evening shifts from the local area – preferably someone who has worked there before. I’m assuming we will be able to conduct operations on the 145.15 repeater as in the past.

73,

Dave Colter WA1ZCN

SEC - NH-ARES

To volunteer to participate or for more info please email eocvolunteer@w1roc.org

Motorola responds to WSJ Article Uproar

Motorola apologizes for the way Mr. Screeden's comments appeared in
Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, Mr. Screeden was taken out of
context.

Motorola fully recognizes the incredible work that the amateur radio
operator community has put forth during the Hurricane Katrina response
efforts...

"... ham radios are close to nothing."

So reads a quote from a Motorla Company field repairman in an article from the Wall Street Journal. While the bulk of the article puts a positive spin on ham radio as it relates to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, the article ends with the quote "Something is better than nothing, that's right," says Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair teams in the field for its emergency-response business. "But ham radios are pretty close to nothing."

Nice. Click below to read the entire article, and a response emailed to the author by our own K1FOO...

Editorial: Interoperability a Key Role for Amateur Radio

- From the ARRL ARES E-newsletter, Sept. 3, 2005

National Public Radio (NPR) featured a brief interview with a
Louisiana state senator yesterday, who made the observation that
their biggest problem is communication among the various responding
agencies. That comment brought back memories: interoperability among
agencies has been a long time, deeply entrenched problem, and is
fostered in part by poor coordination and planning, or to put it less
politely, "turf protection." It's a manifestation of human nature and
organizational behavior, I suppose...

Hurricane Response Frequencies

W1ROC.org has a list of frequencies currently in use for Hurricane Relief. PLEASE stay clear of these frequencies and give the folks using them plenty of breathing room. For details on Amateur Radio's response to the disaster, see the article by ARRL President Jim Haynie, W5JBP here.

Hurricane Relief Communications Assistance

From the NH Section Manager
As you have all probably heard on the news, the devastation and
subsequent problems caused by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Alabama are widespread and communications with many
areas is sparse or non-existent.

If you are interested and properly equiped to assist in the disaster
relief communications effort you can register to provide volunteer
services at the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Communications Volunteer
Registration & Message Traffic Database.

All potential volunteers are asked to register on the site and then
wait for further instructions and assignments.

If you are interested in helping please read all of the information at
that site. It is important that any volunteers travelling to the area
be prepared for the conditions likely to be encountered and be fully
self-sufficient including food, water, shelter, and fuel as well as
power and radio equipment.

Please contact me or SEC Dave Colter, WA1ZCN, if you receive an
assignment as part of the volunteer effort and let us know how we can
provide back home support to you in your efforts.

73,
Sterling, AK1K

Sterling Eanes, AK1K
ARRL New Hampshire Section Manager