Category Archives: Meeting

Dane/Iowa County ARES/RACES July 2026 In-Person Meeting

It is the last Wednesday of the Month so we will be meeting in person this week. No Radio Net Meeting!

As usual we will meet at the Dane County Emergency Management office at 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53719 at 7:00 pm on July 29.

Our main agenda item will be introducing you all to our new team application to help keep track of all of us. This has been pushed off the agenda for other items for at least a couple of months so, in addition to walking through some of our upcoming events, we’ll get through the app. We’ve had a couple people using it over the last month or so and I’l like to move it to the rest of the team for your use and comment.

If you are unable to attend please join us virtually. I’ll be sending out the virtual information in an email later. If you do not get the email please send a note to kb9orn@gmail.com for a copy.

Jeff

June 24 ARES/RACES In-Person Meeting

The Last Wednesday comes a little early this month!

We will meet for our monthly In-Person Dane/Iowa County ARES/RACES meeting on June 24 at 7:00 pm at the Dane County EOC at 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53719

If you are unable to attend in person please see below for the links to attend virtually.

I am still building the agenda but a couple things that we will discuss will be:

  • The items on the Horribly Hilly Hundreds Post-mortem (no, nobody died)
  • Dane/Iowa ARES/RACES team application
  • Severe Weather Activation
  • Reminder on how to connect to our weekly Net meeting if propagation is difficult

We have created a “curated” list of items for the post-mortem discussion. I am not publishing the address here because, you know, THE INTERNET! If you would like to add to the existing items, Good, Bad or Ugly, please send your list to “me_at_ k9unz.me”

Please let me know if there is anything I’m forgetting

73,
Jeff K9UNZ

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
  • 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.

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