A first digital net for our SE metro area using FL Digi was held on Wednesday, January 25, following the SEMARC ARES check-ins and Activity Net. SEMARC and WashCoARES members KS0J, N0UC, KA0HYR, W0MCQ and KI7FX participated, trading digital messages for a little over an hour. The net was coordinated over the SEMARC repeater (146.985) in order to work out bugs. You can down load the FL DIGI software from the web site http>//www.w1hkj.com/download.html . It is suggested that you download the programs for FL Digi and FL Message to start with.

An additional session on FL Digi will be presented on January 28 from 9 am to 12 noon. The location will be in the metro area: the Bloomington Police Department/Public Safety Building. There will be additional time in the afternoon for participants to work with their own rig set-up under the guidance of the Sibley County ARES hams. All interested hams are invited. If you are planning on coming, please contact Don Burgess (KC0QNA, ASEC - Training) to let him know you are coming: Email: KC0QNA@Yahoo.com or 612-578-7561.

Our MNWASHCOARES Net this evening focused on the topic: The Year In Review. The Washington County ARES group is at 52 members. There were 72 nets conducted on 2 meters and that will rise to 74 nets by the end of the year. Members participated in 3 quarterly meetings at served agencies; spring flooding set-up and briefing at Lake St.

Sibley-LeSueur County ARES will present Digital Training using FL DIGI and FL Message on December 10th, 9am to 12noon at the City Hall of Henderson, MN. RSVP to KC0QNA@yahoo.com . Talk-in will be on 146.610 (PL 136.5). There will be a Power Point presentation by experienced users (similar to Skip's (KS0J) presentation at SEMARC and SARA) followed by a practical help session for users. Bring your laptop computer, 2m HT, with cables and sound card. You should also have downloaded the software from the FL DIGI web site:http://www.w1hkj.com. KA0HYR will be driving down. Riders are welcome.

The FEMA EAS Test was held at approximately 1 PM on November 9th. There were twelve (12) check-ins including 6 via email (no access to radio or the net at the drill time). The EAS Test time varied depending on the media outlet from 30 seconds to over two (2) minutes. The Test message included a full screen with the message, a crawler message across the screen, a newscaster announcing the test, and the usual claxton and Emergency Broadcast System test. Hams checking in indicated that they had heard the EAS Test message on broadcast radio and on cable TV on multiple stations.

On November 9 at 1 PM Central FEMA, in coordination with the FCC and NOAA, will send an EAS test message to all participating radio, television, cable, and satellite providers. The test may look like a regular, local EAS test, but will repeat "This is a test" for up to three and one-half (3 and 1/2) minutes. Following this test, MNWashCoARES will conduct a brief 2m net on 147.180 (PL 74.4). The net will take check-ins and ask participants to indicate how they received the alert (one or more sources).

Is your calendar stuffed with little time for volunteering, but you still want to make a difference? Thanksgiving is just around the corner - the time to be thankful, assess what you have and find some time to share your talents.
Assisting at your local hospital with communications is a perfect way to give back to your community without a large time commitment each month. You can participate in community preparedness that has cross training built in (Skywarn is one such current but not year round endeavor).

The regular quarterly meeting of MNWashCoARES is scheduled for Tuesday, September 20, at 6:30 pm. The location is the American Red Cross Building in Bayport (Address: 342 - 5th Ave N, Bayport, MN). Agenda items include the SET exercise for October 1, ID card changes, Activation folder and web page activation format, the upcoming Hospital Compact Conference this fall, GIS mapping presentation, and other items of interest. Pen us into your calendar and we'll see you there.

The SET Exercise for 2011 was scheduled and held on Saturday, October 1, 2011. The exercise was in the Recon Rally format to check coverage across the length of Washington County and was designed and headed by Assistant Emergency Coordinator (AEC) Mike (KF6WQH). Twelve MNWashCoARES members participated in the exercise including 2m voice communications with the (simulated) EOC, signal reports, detailed forms of GPS locations and maps, and logs. Traffic was also received from and passed to another county EOC as part of the exercise. The exercise concluded with a debrief by participants.