Storm Spotter Classes Scheduled for Spring 2024

The ARES Standardized Training Plan AKA The ARES Task Book, suggests that all ARES operators should have Storm Spotter Training at least every other year. To support the National Weather Service has scheduled 4 Storm Spotter training in our area (Dane and Iowa Counties) this spring.

The classes are scheduled as follows:

  • March 21, 1:30PM, Iowa County Sheriff’s Department Conference Room
  • March 21, 6:30PM, Iowa County Sheriff’s Department Conference Room
  • April 2, 1:00PM, Mount Horeb Public Library
  • April 2, 6:30PM, FItchburg, Dane County EOC

For more information on attending and on how to register for virtual attendance if needed please go to the NWS web site here: https://www.weather.gov/mkx/spotter-schedule . Please note you may have to register, click on the event in the calendar on the page for any additional information.

2024 Dark Skies Severe Weather Seminar

Please add February 24 from 9am-3pm to your calendars for the 2024 Dark Skies Severe Weather Seminar held at Madison College at 1701 Wright St and put on by the The MidWest Severe Storm Tracking Response Center (MidWest SSTRC, Inc.). Each year they host a number of presentations on Storm Spotting in our area and the Dane/Iowa County ARES/RACES has an information table at the event. This is also a good reminder that as ARES operators we are expected to attend Storm Spotter Training at least every other year. As soon as classes for 2024 have been published we’ll add them to this site.

Our EC, Jeff, KC9UNZ will be staffing a table with ARES information and answers (hopefully) for any questions people have. He will be bringing stuff to look at. If you’d like to have links to the materials he will have available you can download the Resource List here.

Our latest tri-fold brochure is available as well.

January 2024 Monthly Meeting

We will be meeting this month at the NEW Dane County EOC at 2982 Kapec Rd, Fitchburg, Wisconsin 53719. This month we will meet on the 4th Wednesday of the month, January 24 at 7:00. We’ll get a look at the new digs and I believe we can get our IDs that night! I will at least take some pictures so we can get the IDs created soon. (No Really!, this time I’m not kidding) For those who can’t make it in person there will be a virtual space for you to join us. I plan to review the presentation Kyle, KC9SDK, Steve Haskell and I gave to SCWIHERC about ARES and Hospital support and review some plans for the year. If you cannot be there in person we will provide virtual space for you to attend. Since we don’t want to get Zoom Bombed I’ll not publish the virtual location here. If you would like to attend virtually and you did not receive my email from this week please send a note to kc9unz@arrl.net (please include your call sign) and I’ll send you the Google Meet connection instructions.

Remember when we have in-person meetings on Wednesday’s there is no Net meeting on that night.

October 2023 Monthly Meeting

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.

Current weather forecast through email/winlink

I wanted to document this as a reference. When in the field (or anywhere) that you have accèss to create an email, including using winlink, and you’d like to get the current weather conditions and forecast you can send an email to the National Weather Service. Momentarily you will receive a reply with weather conditions for your county.

Let’s cut to the chase. In your email include the following (this is for Dane County Wisconsin)

Recipient: NWS.FTPMail.OPS@noaa.gov

Subject: anything you’d like

Body:

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

Send your email and in a few moments you will receive a reply with the current weather conditions for your area. The above email will get you a reply that includes this information.

You can get information for any US.county by changing two things, the state abbreviation under the zone line and the text file name on the “get” line. For example to get information for Iowa county replace the get line with get wiz062.txt.

Another example to show the substitutions for Hartford, CT, the body of the message would be:

open
cd data
cd forecasts
cd zone
cd ct
get ctz002.txt
quit

If you want the full help file replace the text in the body of your email with the word “help”

If you want to get information on a different county you will have to find the appropriate file name. All of the available files can be found under each state abbreviation here: https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/zone/

I haven’t found an easier listing connecting county to file name but if I do I’ll update this post.

Simulated Emergency Resource Net – Oct 7, 2023

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.