ARES of Champaign County Bulletin
September 14, 2007

The September meeting of ARES of Champaign County was held Wednesday, September 5, 2007 at the Fire Service Institute.  Here are important notes from that meeting and other news.

ATTENDING
N9XDC, WB9HFK, K9SI, KC9HXY, W9EML, W9DML,  N9DN,  K9MLT,  KC9HND, KF8ZN, AB9FJ, N9XDH, KC0WER (13)


RESULTS OF AUGUST DIGITAL EXERCISE
Four ARES members participated in a "digital" drill on August 26.  The purpose was to try and communicate between each station using APRS on three different frequencies.   The four stations participating were fairly well distributed:  KB9KAI north of Champaign, K9MLT in Champaign, AB9FJ in Urbana, and N9DN in St. Joe. Communications were most successful on the lowest frequency used  (144.910), with less success on 147.555. 


NEW MONTHLY DIGITAL NET
Beginning on September 25th, we will be instituting a new monthly APRS net.  The purpose of this net is to give ARES members a regular venue for trying out or testing APRS. The net will be held at 8:00 p.m. on the 4th Tuesday of the month (date will be highlighted on the WA9RES Nets web page), which is an hour before our regular weekly net.  The APRS net sessions will meet on 144.390, but may move to other frequencies during the net to test communications.  We are planning to have a couple of meetings devoted to basic APRS set up and operation in the near future to help those who are unfamiliar with or new to APRS.


OCTOBER EXERCISE
We are planning on an exercise in late October to test communications between Red Cross headquarters in Champaign and possible shelter sites throughout the county.  More details will be available at the October monthly meeting.


WEEKLY NETS
The weekly ARES net is held each Tuesday, 9:00 p.m., on the 444.100 repeater, CTSS 162.2.  The ARES 2m Simplex net is held on 146.550 immediately following the 440 net .  Net control stations for the next month are posted in the Nets section of the web site, www.wa9res.org.


NEXT MEETING
The next regular meeting will be on Wednesday, October 3, at 7:00 p.m.