Any ARES/RACES operators around?

[KM4DWS]

So years ago there was a little storm named Katrina that hit the gulf coast. Half of my extended family lives in that area. So within just a couple of days of that storm, the half of the family that did not live there went to help. During our extended stay helping family and friends I had the pleasure of interacting with some HAMs for communications as the cell towers took a couple of days before they came back up.

Looking back and knowing just a tiny bit more than I did then, I assume those HAMs were part of ARES/RACES. First I want to say THANK YOU to all those guys who volunteer their time/knowledge/equipment use for that! Second, how would you suggest getting involved? I only have Dualband Mobile and an HT. But being interested in Overlanding a capable rig with the ability to self-sufficient for a few days I would think that I could possibly be useful.

73

 

[Ubiety]

I have a few friends involved with ARES/RACES and that has been through a local "ham club". Sorry don't know any more. Awesome that you want to give back!

 

[M Rose]

I’m an ARES operator. What exactly are you wanting to know?

Even though a Technician can be an ARES operator, most stuff is done on the 40 and 80 meter bands.

 

[KM4DWS]

I’m an ARES operator. What exactly are you wanting to know?

Even though a Technician can be an ARES operator, most stuff is done on the 40 and 80 meter bands.

So that is a start... I should get General Ticket to able to 'play' on 40 and 80 meters.

 

[Prerunner1982]

Being part of a local club that is active in the community can help get the experience as well. My local club often works marathons, parades, tornado siren test, Skywarn weather nets, all sorts of events.
Last year I believe when a major hurricane hit the Caribbean and decimated one of the countries down there a group of hams deployed and were relaying phone numbers and names back to the states so that local hams could make phone calls to inform families that their loved ones were safe. It was neat to listen to, but something similar could be done on a local level when a tornado hits and take down land lines and cell phone towers or cell phones towers are so tied up that calls can't get through which I have seen happen.

 

[Sparksalot]

I’m an ARES operator. What exactly are you wanting to know?

Even though a Technician can be an ARES operator, most stuff is done on the 40 and 80 meter bands.

All the ARES stuff I’ve done has been storm chasing, so at VHF frequencies.

 

[M Rose]

All the ARES stuff I’ve done has been storm chasing, so at VHF frequencies.

depends on the ARES group in your area... ours runs at 3.955 MHz every Sunday @ 5:45 Pacific. The second part of our weekly exercise is Winlink via Vara which is also HF (mostly 80 meters) but we aren’t allowed to send messages directly to our local WinLink gateway... as an example this week we are to be using a station in British Columbia which will then relay (repeat) the messages back to Salem which then will repeat the messages back to us. None of this is possible on vhf. Although we do have a 2 meter contingency plan that we use 2 times a year, but select operators (like myself) have to be able to operate on both HF and VHF at the same time.