🚀 go-pugleaf

Sam Barricklow  <k5kj@pulse.net> wrote:
> Yes, I have heard of ARES, and REACT for that matter.

> Remember the post where I suggested putting SKYWARN net audio on the internet?
> ... so that a group in one part of the country could
> monitor a group in another part of the country, and maybe learn something!  

One of our local ARES training people was impressed by one of the
audio files he found of some ARES/RACES/SKYWARN net on the internet.
It's worthwhile.  Not in real time, but as a training archive.

> I am currently a member of both RACES and ARES, although I am much
> more active > in RACES.  But, that's only because RACES handles SKYWARN
> in Dallas County, where I >  live.

As I understand it, the ARRL has a national MOU with the NOAA/NWS
for ARES to provide ham assistance to SKYWARN (non-exclusively). 
If RACES operates SKYWARN radio links in your area, that would be at
the local NWS option or due to RACES being (or having been) stronger in
that area when the current SKYWARN operations solidified.  Since there
is no national organization of RACES except a clause in PART 97 and
there is a national MOU for ARES-SKYWARN, one _could_ take the point of
view that Dallas County was the exception. 

(In reality, one should consider whatever happens in Torando Alley
to be the norm, I guess. :-)

Up here in New England,  NWS WFOs have CFA's crossing state lines,
which means they crosses both RACES and ARES jurisdictions too.  
The SKYWARN single-point-of-contact for the NWS WFO currently holds an
appointment as an ARES DEC in the ARRL section which includes the
WFO, but also coordinates for that WFO the skywarn teams in portions
of 4 other ARRL sections (3 other states).  Some of our Skywarn net
coordinators also hold ARES or RACES appointments, but not all do.
Here, ARES, RACES, and SKYWARN are separate organizations with
different strengths whose leadership work together for regional
planning and local cooperation.  Only if an individual SKYWARN net
is sponsored by a RACES team is the local government considered as
even a secondary served agency by SKYWARN here; the information is
flowing to NWS, with the backflow sufficient to keep the spotters
informed for their safety and preparedness and the net controls
polling, querying, and filtering usefully.  Warnings go out to town
EMD centers on the police and state EMA teleprinter circuits, so that
warnings on Skywarn frequencies tend to be for the information of
our net controls and spotters (and to alert other hams in the
vicinity to disconnect their antennae and get the HT out and look
for hail).

(I still think New England should be one state with two senators and
however many reps, and California and NYState should be broken up.
This would solve several problems, including NWS WFO boundaries not
nicely aligning with the served political jurisdictions ...
particularly if the several NYStates got the counties the ALB and
NYC are warning now ... :-)

73,

Bill N1VUX
-- 
Bill Ricker  N1VUX  wdr@world.std.com  "The freedom of the press belongs 
http://world.std.com/~wdr               to those who own one."--A.J.Liebling