Meeting – Dane and Iowa County ARES and RACES

Feb 2026 Membership Meeting – Change of Plans

I realized that I don’t want to step on our PL-259 work or give short shrift to our APRS work.

Soooo….

We will hold the APRS work until a later date. But if we have time I would like to spend a few minutes talking about using AllStar to connect to the MARA “15” repeater. There are Ham purists that might suggest that using the internet to connect to a repeater is cheating but I think it fulfills our “by any means necessary” You’ve heard a number of folks joining us using the AllStar link lately, including me from Connecticut. Let’s also talk about that as well.

See you on Wednesday (2/25/2026). 7:00 pm at the Dane County EOC at 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI.

and for those who cannot be there in person you should have received an email with the virtual connection information, otherwise drop a note to k9unz@arrl.net.

February 2026 General Membership Meeting

Our February meeting will be held on February 25 at the Dane County EOC at 7:00 PM. The Building is behind the KwikTrip and is located at 2982 Kapec Rd. Fitchburg, WI 53719.

Our plan is to demo NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave), a way to connect to one another at relatively close proximity using HF. Often we need the power of HF for a local incident but HF typically works better for longer distances. NVIS bounces a signal virtually straight up so it will bounce nearly directly down for local traffic.

We also plan to spend some time demo-ing and testing our ability to connect a PL and SO 239 to coax. If you’ve not checked off that capability on your ARES Taskbook, here is a perfect opportunity!

You should receive an email later this weekend with the connection information for those who cannot come in person. If you do not receive that email by Monday please send a note to K9UNZ@arrl.net and let Jeff know.

January 2026 Dane/Iowa County ARES/RACES Membership Meeting

Our January meeting (often referred to as our Meeting of Record) will be held on January 28 at the Dane County EOC at 7:00 PM. The Building is behind the KwikTrip and is located at 2982 Kapec Rd. Fitchburg, WI 53719.

We will look at the coming year.
Fill out Radiograms or ICS-213s for those who have not already filled them out indicating your interest in participating in ARES activities for 2026
- Fillable Radiogram
- Fillable ICS-213
- Or use the Radiogram or ICS-213 that is bundled with winlink
- Send them to K9UNZ (on winlink) or k9unz@arrl.net through email
- We will take a look at the hybrid ics/radiogram available through ARRL
We will see how the State ARES Standard Operating Procedures effect membership
And (I am quite tardy on this) get final information on those for whom I have not yet requested State IDs.

I think that will do for the night.

If you are unable to join us in person you can join us virtually by using the meeting information below.

Obviously there will be NO net meeting this week!

See you there,

Jeff, K9UNZ

You should have received the virtual meeting information in a separate email. If you do not have that information and would like to attend virtually, please send an email to K9UNZ@arrl.net and ask. Please be sure to include your call sign.

“Bonus” 10 meter net tonight (Nov 19)

After our usual 2 meter net at 8:00 let’s see how a 10 meter net would work. We need to leave enough time to make the change from 2 meters to 10 meters so let’s plan to start a 10 meter net at 8:30 and see how well we propagate. We’ll plan our frequency so everyone with the proper equipment, technician and above can participate. Jeff, K9UNZ, will be net control (for the 10 meter net, Patrick, NT9A is NC for the 2 meter net this week). We will gather at 28.350 at 8:30 pm and if that frequency is being used we will move to 28.375. This will also be a good opportunity for those who might have trouble checking in on our normal 2 meter net to participate as well.

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.

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

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.

Dane/Iowa ARES/RACES In-Person Meeting Feb 26

We are meeting in person this week at the Dane County EOC for our monthly in-person meeting. Tom Kucharski, W9TJK, who coordinates Amateur Radio volunteer communicators for the National Weather Service Milwaukee/Sullivan (https://www.weather.gov/mkx/), WI under whose umbrella we reside, will join us to describe how they work with counties in our area. When reviewing the role of Amateur radio communicators in this part of Wiesconsin one of the most frequent concerns that comes up in conversations is related to weather events. We don’t get hurricanes but we get weather which has consistently been a concern on the county and state level. We will meet both in person and virtually on Wednesday evening March 26 at 7PM at the Dane County EOC, 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53719. See below for the virtual connection information.

Please also consider these weather related events.

Dark Skies Severe Weather Seminar
- 9:00 am – 3:30pm at Madison College on March 8th. for more information: https://sites.google.com/view/midwestsstrc-darkskies/home
Additional Spotter Training Opportunities https://www.weather.gov/mkx/spotter-schedule
- Iowa County – April 2
  - 1:30 & 6:30, 109 E Leffler St, Dodgeville, WI 53533, USA
- Dane County – April 16
  - 1pm – Fitchburg-Dane County, 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53719, USA
  - 6pm – Marshall-Dane County, 119 Industrial Dr, Marshall, WI 53559

Connection information for In Person Meeting

We do not publicize connection information in this space. If you are interested in joining us for this event and need the connection information please email kc9unz@arrl.net and include your name and call sign.