Emergency Coordinator – Dane and Iowa County ARES and RACES

Materials for SET 2025

Starting at 1:00 pm on Oct 4, 2025 Dane/Iowa County ARES/RACES will testing a subset of our activations frequencies, including using the stations at the EOC, Hospitals and operators at home or mobile. For an overview of how the net will be conducted, a list of frequencies (ICS205), the Net Script and to view the log see the links below.

Overview of how the net will be conducted: https://fillian.net/2025setoverview
Net frequencies (ICS205): https://fillian.net/2025setfreq
Net Script: https://fillian.net/2025setscript
Net log: https://fillian.net/2025setlog (this only includes the MARA15 log – I’ll correct this soon)
Map of Contacts: https://fillian.net/2025setmap

In-Person meeting – September 24, 2025 at Dane County EOC

We will meet in person on Wednesday (or virtually if you can’t make it) on September 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM at the Dane County Emergency Operations Center at 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53719, USA

We expect to participate in this year’s SET (Simulated Emergency Test) on October 4 at 1:00 pm. We’ll discuss our plans. We hope to include the EOC, some hospitals and folk at home or on the road.

There will be no Net Meeting on that night.

For those of you who can’t attend in person, the virtual connection information has been sent out in an email. If you haven’t received the email please send a note to kb9orn@gmail.com.

Activation: Milwaukee Flooding Damage Assessment

We have officially been requested by Emergency Management and the IMT to assist with damage assessment. We are looking for ARES members to assist Tomorrow 8/12 and Wed 8/13 from 7AM until 5PM, or as much of that time as possible. Time assignment is 7AM at the command post in Glendale to receive training. Operations are then from 8AM-5PM. We will be teamed up with others to form strike teams to conduct the surveys. we should expect to download the survey1-2-3 app on our phones. The command post where we will be trained is the Glendale Fire Station #2, 5901 N. Milwaukee River Pky.

Please let me know at me@k9unz.me if and what days you are able to activate.

No July 2025 In-Person Meeting

It is summer. We are busy. Many of us will be working Dairyland Dare on August 2, so we won’t be having our in-person meeting on the last Wednesday of July. We’ll have our regularly scheduled Weekly Net at 8pm on the MARA “15” repeater. See you on the radio!

Dane/Iowa ARES/RACES Nets during Field Day

During ARRL Field Day exercises this year we will be exercising the frequencies on our ARES Communication Plan. We will conduct a series of Nets starting at 4:00 PM on Saturday, June 28. If all goes according to plan we should be done by just after 4:30. I have a document outlining the times and purposes of each net. We would like to see how we propagate both with our repeaters as well as with Simplex frequencies. If you are available on Saturday at 4 please plan on joining us.

The plan and timing as well as the ICS205 can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wNo8SmguZ6o-fQ93Kqa8Nz1hjWjqYvaIv9BUT_mBCZ4/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know if you have any questions at me@k9unz.me (k9unz@arrl.net)

73,

Jeff

Severe Weather Reporting

I admit, even after a number of training sessions, I am still a little (just a little) uncertain what to report and what is important. I learned this week that the Sullivan Committee which supports the teams of storm spotters for NOAA in Milwaukee, whose area includes Dane and Iowa Counties. In addition to a who lot of interesting links and information (see http://www.sulcom.org/) there is a form that lists the types of weather events in order of importance that we report. It is worth a look see and worth printing a few copies to keep in your storm spotter notebook (you do have a storm spotter notebook don’t you). Please click the image/link below for a copy of the form.

http://www.sulcom.org/summer_procedures/sullivan_net/report.pdf

ARES Activities for June 2025

Hey there Communicators!

3 things for June 2025

There will be NO in person meeting on June 25. We will hold our regular 8:00 PM net meeting on the MARA “15”
Instead of meeting at the Dane County Emergency Operations Center, you are strongly encouraged to at least visit and participate in ARRL Field Day being organized by the Four Lakes Amateur Radio Club. Field day will be held at Badger Prairie County Park in Verona. Every year on the last full weekend of June hams around the country take to the parks and fields and wilderness and set up their equipment disconnected from commercial power and make as many contacts as possible. While doing a bike event in the Driftless also challenges us to set up in unfamiliar places, another opportunity that coming to field day affords is the operating modes that you may not normally be able to. A technician or someone otherwise limited by space can operate on HF and watch and try out digital modes. For more information take a look at the FLARC website: https://w9jz.org/field-day/arrl-field-day-2025/
We are planning to have a few different ARES net meetings during field day. This is still in planning. Different frequencies, repeaters and some simplex. You will hear more about scheduling soon.

Jeff, K9UNZ

No In Person Meeting May 28

There will be NO in-person meeting on the last day of the month this month, May 2025, however the normal ARES/RACES Net Meeting will be held at 8PM on the 28th as it is every week on the MARA “15” repeater.

There WILL be a net this week – March 26

As part of our becoming familiar with the EOC Amateur radio room, we WILL have our regular net at 8:00 pm this week (March 26). If you are unable to be with us at the EOC for our regularly scheduled in-person meeting, turn on your radio as you normally would and join us for the Net Meeting. It will be part of our demo of the equipment.

Bike the Barns 2025 – Save the Date

Save the date! Bike the Barns will be run on September 21, 2025. We’ll post more information for volunteer communicators here as it becomes available.