What?!

There is a growing number of social media platforms that are using a protocol called ActivityPub to allow users on disconnected social networks to follow one another. You may have heard of Mastodon, an open source web service that supports ActivityPub. Others include Pixelfed, PeerTube, and Lemmy and many others. The key is that using Federated platforms you can follow and communicate with people on different systems. What would email be like if you had to have a yahoo account to send email to a yahoo user and you couldn’t email a gmail user. ActivityPub solves this problem for social media. This protocol is growing rapidly. Soon it is expected that the new social media site “Threads” by Meta will also be federated allowing users to follow accounts outside of the Meta ecosystem.

All this is to say that the Dane/Iowa County ARES/RACES site is now federated as well. If you have a social media account that allows you to follow federated accounts you can add @KB9ORN or https://kb9orn.org/author/kb9orn/ to those that you follow and every new post that we create on this site (including this one) will show up in your feed.

A whole bunch of you are enjoying your summer vacays and can’t come to the July meeting anyway…so, don’t! Take the last Thursday of the month (July 27) off this month, we won’t be meeting, However….

Aug and Sept Are On!

• August 31 – We will gather in a park and talk about and demo setting up outside. What should you bring? What should you think about? If you have solutions or questions come on down. I’ll send out a notification about Place and Time next Month
• September 28 – Luke, KC9IFF is going to talk to us about cross-banding. What is it? Why do it? How do I do it? I saw a cross-banding presentation back in 2012, time for a reminder. We’ll be meeting at UW Space Place for that one. I’ll send out more information in September.

Auxilliary Communications training will be available in person in October. This class adds to our credentials and expands on how we can provide additional communications capabilities during an incident. The class will be held on the weekend of October 21-22 in Oshkosh. More information can be found in the PDF, below as well as by logging to your account at https://www.trainingwisconsin.org (you do have an account don’t you!) and searching for AUXCOMM.

We’ve got plenty to do this month what with Field Day and Horribly Hilly Hundreds so we will NOT be having our regular monthly In-Person (and Virtual) meeting on the last Thursday of the month. Since Field Day helps us to practice setting up and operating off the grid you are STRONGLY encouraged to participate (see below). Make sure July 27 is on your calendars we will plan to meet then. I’ll send out more info next month

Only a few days left.

Everyone,

The WI ARES / RACES store is now open for a limited time (only until May 24th) so please distribute this flyer widely and encourage everyone to place an order right away and not to procrastinate. 

There needs to be a minimum of 24 items ordered for screen printing and 18 for embroidery. 

The closure date will allow enough time for the items to be ready before Field Day. and the items can either be shipped to your home (for a fee) or you may pick them up in person from Eagle Graphics in Kaukauna’s northside industrial park along I-41.

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.