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.
Chicago Marathon 2025
This year the Chicago Marathon will be on October 12, 2025. We are looking for a new coordinator to gather the troops to support the event. If you are interested in coordinating the volunteers (it is a small enough group to fit in one car), drop a note to kb9orn@gmail.com.
Trek 100 – 2025
Trek 100 will be held on June 7, 2025. This ride starts and finishes at TREK Bicycle Corporation Corporate Headquarters, Waterloo, Wisconsin. If you can help with Communications, SAG, Pick up vehicle, sweep radio vehicle, shadow operator and other positions on that day please send an email to John, n9guu@hotmail.com.
Horribly Hilly Hundreds 2025
HHH will be on June 14, 2025. There are opportunities for SAG vehicles, Net Control, Rest Stops and more. This year we are also looking for a new coordinator to wrangle radio volunteers. If you are interested in taking on the role of communications volunteers drop a note to the Dane ARES EC at KB9ORN@gmail.com. Save the date.
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
- Iowa County – April 2
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.
Dark Skies Severe Weather Seminar – 2025
The Dark Skies Severe Weather Seminar sponsored by the Midwest Severe Storm Tracking/Response Center will be held this year on March 8, 2025 from 0900 CST to 1530 CST at Madison College, 1701 Wright Street, Madison, WI, Room D1630. It looks to be an interesting program including Alex Harington – Chief Meteorologist, WISC Channel3000, some presentations from Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences; Director, Space Science & Engineering Center UW Madison just to name a few. You will also be able to satisfy the SKYWARN Spotter training on your ARES Standardized Training Plan Task Book. For more information please refer to the Seminar website at: https://sites.google.com/view/midwestsstrc-darkskies/home
Hamword
This one is just for fun. If you are committee to Wordle you will love this. Each week a new word is chosen. Once you submit your guess on the quarter-hour you will receive your result and you can guess again. See the URL for instructions and scoreboard.
To: HAMWORD
Subject: Anything you want
Body: A 5 letter word
Florida Winlink Net
Name: Florida Winlink Net
To: All information at: W4AKH.NET
URL for more information: W4AKH.NET
Day(s)/Time of Week to check in: Runs 24/7, but Tuesday 0900 ET is the break-point for the ‘next week’
Additional Notes: All information at: W4AKH.NET
Runs 24/7, but Tuesday 0900 ET is the break-point for the ‘next week’
They encourage battery or solar power sources.
Checkin by regular RMS, or by P2P sessions.
They have a daily schedule of P2P stations around the US, with varying times on several frequencies, including the upper midwest (WI and MN)