Category Archives: Uncategorized

At our next meeting we’ll hold a clinic of sorts. One thing I’ve heard consistently from folk is how hard it is to configure their hand held radios. At our next meeting, May 25, at 7:00 PM, BYORTC (Bring your own radio to configure). We’ll meet at UW Space Place 2300 South Park Street, Madison. Come in the central doors and down the stairs, down the hall and Space Place is the first door on the left. If you want to join us by zoom, the connection information is below.

We’ll have software loaded and a bunch of cables and as much expertise as we can muster. We plan to have many of the local repeaters to load into your radios if you don’t already have them.

Software – Chirp as well as a number of manufacturer’s packages. Personally I can help with ICOM, Alinco, Yaesu, Kenwood and Baofeng. If we have any additional expertise out there please come along and bring your stuff.

Please also stay tuned for some additional local nets. We’ve also heard that many of our new hams don’t feel confident enough to push the mike and when they do they don’t even hear crickets. We hope to add some new no-judgement nets that are informal and friendlier to new hams so they can get experience and confidence with their newly configured radios. We will welcome some of our more experienced hams to listen in and respond when the calls are made to the repeater. Can anybody find me some Elmers?

More to come. Stay tuned.

Madison Area Repeater Association is holding their hamfest on April 15 this year and you can still get tickets at a reduced price. Order yours today. For more information go to https://w9hsy.org/hamfest-2023/

Dane County ARES was represented at the 2023 Dark Skies Severe Weather Seminar on March 25 at Madison College. Chad, WA4ORM did a presentation on NWS/MWK and Jeff, KC9UNZ staffed an ARES information table during the event.

At our monthly meeting on Feb 23 we revisited Winlink. Jeff, KC9UNZ lead the presentation with help from Tom, W9TDP sending winlink messages from Florida. Please see below for a recording of the presentation, and link to the slide deck and a note about the winlink error we ran into.

From time to time when starting an RF session on winlink, if you get the computer port incorrect (in the case of tonight’s presentation it was a packet Winlink session) the program will hang if it is the incorrect port. Sometimes the session will time out and let you go back to settings and correct your port, but, sometimes it just freezes forever and makes you look stupid during a presentation! I am including a link to a post that shows you how to clear the lock and try again (this time with a different port).

Winlink Presentation Slide Deck

Video of Winlink Presentation

Fixing the Port Freeze

Here is where you can find information about fixing the frozen port: https://jeffrey.fillian.com/2023/03/20/help-my-winlink-packet-session-froze-because-my-port-was-wrong/

We have a tentative schedule of monthly meeting subjects for 2023. Thanks so much for the ideas that came out of the January meeting. For some we have presenters and others we are looking for expertise to either lead the presentation or add expertise. Let us know at kc9unz@arrl.net if you have some expertise to contribute or ideas for the open evenings. Our meetings usually start at 7:00 PM at Space Place, 2300 Park Street, Madison and we usually offer a hybrid option for unable to come. The Zoom connection information in unique for each meeting and will be emailed to Dane/Iowa county ARES/RACES members about a week before the meeting. If you need the zoom information and do not receive the email please send a request with your Call Sign to kc9unz@arrl.net.

• Feb 23: Winlink – Jeff
• Mar 30: Understanding Weather Radar and how it’s used in Skywarn – Chad
• Apr 27: J-pole Show and tell and Build project
• May 25: Tabletop Exercise
• Jun 29: Cross-Banding how and why – Luke
• Jul 27: Dane County EOC Visit (if it is ready)
• Aug 31: Station setup for public service and emergency (outside show and tell)
• Sep 28: Visit a Hospital (the new UW Radio room should be ready?)
• Oct 26: TBD
• Nov 30: TBD
• Dec 28: TBD

SIMCOM 2023 – May 3-5

The SIMCOM Planning team is working on SIMCOM 2023 activities. Please plan on joining us for a 2 days of field training, in the Wisconsin Emergency Management East Central and West Central regions (exact locations TBD), focusing on communications. Watch for signup in early March 2023.

Registration for 2023 Wisconsin Governor’s Conference on Emergency Management and Homeland Security is now open. The event will be held on February 27 – March 1 at the Madison Marriott West in Middleton. Early bird registration (before Jan 31) is $225. Full Registration is $275. For more information you can go to the home page at: https://wem.wi.gov/ready230109/

Save the Date!

Mark your calendars for the 2023 Governor’s Conference on Emergency Management & Homeland Security, February 27 – March 1, at the Madison Marriott West in Middleton.

The future will bring new challenges to everyone who serves their community. In 2023, the Governor’s Conference on Emergency Management and Homeland Security continues to evolve by providing multiple tracks to explore how different aspects of our field intersect. Coming together at the 2023 Conference is only the beginning of putting us on track for the future together.

Find additional information on the conference website and watch for registration to open soon.

Whether you serve through communications, health, the private sector, emergency response or homeland security, the 2023 WEM Conference is set to inspire and motivate you as we all head towards the future. We look forward to seeing you in February!

I discovered recently that there is a set of commands that you can place in email to request a weather forecast for your area. It is a set of FTP instructions that the NOAA server will interpret from your email text and then send you the requested file which in this case would be a weather forecast.

In the TO field enter: NWS.FTPMail.OPS@noaa.gov

The subject is not important and you can enter anything

For the Body of the email you enter a series of commands. For Dane County Weather this will get the Dane County forecast by return email. Remove everything else from the body. Don’t enter the lines

---

open
cd data
cd forecasts
cd zone
cd wi
get wiz063.txt
quit

---

Hit send and in a few moments you will receive the forecast.

There are forecasts from all over the country. To see values for your area (see the “063” above) go to https://www.weather.gov/pimar/PubZone and scroll to your state. You will find numeric values for each county.

To get the full file name that would go after the “get” Command go here: https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/
Then click on forecasts, click on zone, click on your state, and scroll down until you find the file name with your County Number. In our case we are looking for 063 and scrolling toward the bottom you will find the file named wiz063.txt. That is what goes after the “get” command.

Have fun. This little trick could be useful while using WinLink.