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October 29, 2025,  7:00 PM is our next in person meeting of the Dane/Iowa County ARES/RACES team. There will be no Net Meeting on that night. We’ll be meeting at the Dane County Emergency Operations center at 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53719. For those who cannot be there in person we will have a virtual connection to the meeting. 

We’ll have a couple agenda items. I have a slide deck that was used for October ARES/RACES Training in the State entitled Volunteerism: What Do Clients Expect from us? I’d like to walk through it and get feedback from the team.  We will also review what 2025 looked like and lessons learned as well as start to get ready for 2026

The virtual connection information for those who can’t be there in person was sent to team members in an email. If you did not receive that information please send an email to kb9orn@gmail.com.

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

Hey there Communicators!

3 things for June 2025

1. There will be NO in person meeting on June 25. We will hold our regular 8:00 PM net meeting on the MARA “15”
2. 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/
3. 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

Well, after a weekend back in the stone age my internet service is back today!

We are meeting in person this week on Wednesday, 9/25 @ 7PM at the Dane County EOC at 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53719

In various ways over the last few months I’ve been answering questions about “Getting Started.” I realize I need to update that information on our website for new and old alike. I’d like to start that update at this week’s meeting. There are some new things to take note of and some reminders of things that have been out there for a while. 

For those unable to join us in person you can use the Google Meet virtual space. (Google Meet information went out in an email to Hams in the area, If you did not receive the email please send a request with your Call Sign to KB9ORN@gmail.com

Please also note that due to scheduling conflicts and holidays this will be our last in-person meeting for 2024. However the Net meetings at 8PM every Wednesday will continue as usual.

We are all on Summer Break. We won’t be meeting in person on August 28, 2024. We will hold the Net Meeting at our usual time.

It’s the last Thursday of the month and time to get together. We’ll be meeting at 7:00 pm on Thursday, October 26, at UW Space Place at Villager Shopping Center, 2300 S Park St # 100, Madison, WI 53713. Come in the main door, straight ahead, down the stairs, into the hallway and Space Place is on the left.

We will be discussing how we might respond to an emergency incident using a tabletop exercise. I’m looking forward to getting us around the table and hearing your creativity. If you can’t make it in person, check your email for a link we sent out. Otherwise send an email to kc9unz@arrl.net including your call sign and we’ll send you the Zoom connection information.

Rather than let the SET weekend pass without any acknowledgement we decided to have a Simulated Emergency Resource net. We asked any operators who were able to check in using our normal net repeater and give us a call sign, location and whether they were using a battery or commercial power and if they were using a fixed or mobile station. We had 14 check-ins. We had a scheduling conflict with a home Badgers game so some of our regulars would not be able to check-in. You gotta have priorities!

Just for fun(?) I decided to map the check-in and you can view the map here.

Thanks to all who were able to participate.