The May meeting of ARES of Champaign County was held Wednesday, May 7 and the June meeting on Wednesday, June 4. 2008at the Fire Service Institute. Thanks to Debbie, N9DN, for taking care of he meetings while I was on travel.

ATTENDANCE - May 7
N9DN, AB9FJ, WB9HFK, K9SI, KC9IHX, KC9IKL, KC9HXY, K9MLT, K9LMM, W9DML, W9EML, KC9KTD, KC9HND, KF9ZN, KC9MHP, N9GPA, NA8K, K9DDW, 1 guest  (19)

ATTENDANCE- June 4
N9DN, AB9FJ, WB9HFK, K9SI, KB9KAI, W9MH, KC9IWZ, KC9IHX, W9EML, W9DML N9GPA (11)


MAY MEETING PRESENTATION ON IROQUOIS COUNTY FLOODING
Doug Walker, K9DDW, presented on the ARC involvement in the Watseka area flooding, and how the ARES members there helped.  He is looking for folks that would like to be trained in Disaster
Assessment to work with ARC in future disasters.  Disaster Assessment classes are being offered for anyone who is interested. The class is a full day, from 8am - 5pm (or 8:30-5pm). There is not currently a shorter version. Here are coming opportunities

•      Saturday, June 28 (Field Day), in Vermilion County (no fee).  If you are interested in this session you must sign up by June 15th.  Contact the Champaign ARC office.
•      Friday, July 11, 8am to 5pm at the Illinois Emergency Services Institute in Decatur ($16 fee)
•      Saturday, Oct. 11,  8:30am ­ 5:00pm at Champaign office of ARC (no fee).

If there is enough interest from Champaign County ARES members we may be able to arrange for a class.


RST PRESENTATION
Debbie gave a short presentation on the RST reporting system (Readability, Strenght, Tone). Here are the URLs for the websites she mentioned during the presentation:

http://www.hamuniverse.com/rst.html

http://www.electronics-radio.com/articles/ham_radio/abbreviations_codes/rst_code.php


WEATHER NETS
After almost 18 months without a severe weather activation, we're back in action with two activations in the last week.  Please review the severe weather net procedures. The latest version is available on the web site at http://www.wa9res.org/documents/SvrWxNetProcedures06.pdf.  Thanks to everyone who has responded to the activations so far.


FIELD DAY 2008
Field Day weekend is June 28-29. Local TCARC Field Day operations will be at Ford-Harris Park north of Urbana.  Raplh Cox, W9PGE, is coordinating the Field Day effort.  


VE EXAMS
The next VE exam session in Champaign is scheduled for Sunday, July 20, at 1:00 p.m. at the Fire Service Institute. For more information, please contact Debbie, N9DN, our local VE coordinator.


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.  The monthly digital net is held on the fourth Tuesday at 8:00 p.m.  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, July 2 at 7:00 p.m.  at the Fire Service Institute.