Every July, QST, the membership journal of ARRL, publishes a special issue with an EmComm focus. This issue is a perfect opportunity for your ARES group to share your experiences doing exercises and drills, as well as participating in responses, so other groups will benefit from your experience. Here’s what QST is looking for:

–1,200 to 1,800 words–Tell the story of your participation in an exercise or response with a “how-to” angle. For example, if your club designed an exercise, talk about the rationale that led to the choice of the exercise scenario and parameters.

–2-5 high-resolution images–Include captions that explain what’s happening in the photos, the names and call signs of any hams pictured, and the name (and call sign, if applicable) of the person who took each photo.

Send the manuscript and photos to qst@arrl.org by May 1.

Amateur Radio station WX4NHC is located at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida. The station has been totally assembled from donated equipment and is operated by an organized group of volunteer amateur radio operators since 1980. Read about its history.

WX4NHC activates whenever a hurricane is within 300 miles of landfall in the areas of the western Atlantic, the Caribbean or the eastern Pacific. The team of operators also provides emergency backup communications from NHC to NWS Offices and other agencies in case of local landfall. The NHC operators work in conjunction with the Hurricane Watch Net, VoIP WX-Talk Hurricane Net and other volunteer networks to collect real-time surface reports for the NHC hurricane specialists via amateur radio using many modes such as HF and VHF/UHF voice, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) systems, EchoLink and IRLP, and Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS). Input also comes from two non-amateur volunteer weather observer networks–ON-NHC (Observers Network), and CWOP (Citizens Weather Observers Program), using on-line reporting, email and fax. WX4NHC also relays hurricane advisories via the amateur radio nets to the hurricane affected areas and governmental agencies when conventional means of communications have been interrupted.

Observers’ surface reports provide the forecasters with supplemental weather and damage data that are not normally available to them and are frequently incorporated into their advisories as they provide a human perspective and eyewitness accounts of what people are experiencing during a hurricane. The WX4NHC team has been nationally recognized for its volunteer international humanitarian efforts by the National Hurricane Conference and the South Florida Hurricane Conference.

Our group has higher general ham radio operators’ participation in public service/training than many. In order to have an ARES group serving the county, you must have a certain level of altruistic–willing to serve others–hams in the county and group. It can’t be everyone just sitting at home depending on an ever-diminishing group “down at the EOC” serving them. It has to be a two-way street. There has to be a sharing of responsibilities. Otherwise, eventually, there won’t be anyone “down at the EOC” to get your call.

Part of that is being willing to join in and be part of the group, the “team,” sharing the responsibilities. Over the years, we have had the expected number of hams moving in and out of activity. But there has to be a supply of more hams moving into activity with the group, learning how things work, understanding and serving at the EOC, deploying to shelters, being involved in our training, and exercises such as the ARRL SET, and Winter and ARRL Field Days.

You have to be “trainable”–willing to learn. Most of the problems in groups stem from difficulties in personal interaction–we have to work at getting along and all these activities are part of that. Time working shoulder to shoulder with others is how you get to be understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, which we all have. You must be flexible: “Semper Gumby” is an old saying in the ARES community.

Exercises like the Field Days, the annual Simulated Emergency Test and others are chances to get out of the house, and into a group. It can’t be all loners–you don’t build public service strengths with loners. All of us have tendencies to just want to be on our own–but that means there won’t be anyone at this or that shelter, or at the EOC, etc. Our group always has plenty of empty spots and slots for activity: lots of places for people to plug in, ask for help, get some mentoring, join in the fray! We have all kinds of people in our group, with all kinds of different ways of serving (which we appreciate) –but in the end, we have to have a team.

And this is how you keep a volunteer public service group going. So, what will be your decision? Join in, or shrink back? The hams in the community basically decide where ham radio “goes” in public service. The professionals simply look to see if we have volunteers in the needed slots. If we don’t–they don’t see us as useful. That’s obvious and fair. Now it’s up to you.–Gordon Gibby, KX4Z