Good afternoon,With the upcoming ARRL Field Day arriving next month, I would like to remind all those that are participating in the event to post your event on the ARRL Field Day Locator page as soon as the page is available.
If your club does not have a Public Information Officer (PIO), this might be time to volunteer for that position. Not only do you get a lot of practice of helping your club, but you also get to make contacts in your community that will benefit Amateur Radio.
Now is also the time to start thinking about where to have your Field Day at. If you have not already located a place yet, try going to your local Fire Department, or getting in touch with with your City Hall and asking which agencies would be receptive to you asking or could even allow access for the twenty four hour period.
And as in the past, all the elected positions in the Division, Section Manager, Vice Director (WGD), or Director (WGD) will be out and about visiting locations during this years Field Day. If you or your club invites either of us to your Field Day, we will try to include you in our route if possible. We only ask for you to invite us as soon as your plans are set. This gives us time to plan our route, and if your club closes down your Field Day event please send an email to those who were invited so we can adjust accordingly.
For those that have not seen the ARRL home page, there are two new courses for Emergency Communication to take for training. The first one is The Basic EmComm course, and the second is The Intermediate EmComm course. They replace the EC-001 and EC-016 programs.
http://www.arrl.org/news/arrl-learning-center-features-two-new-emergency-communication-training-courses
We only have two more Hamfests left in the South Texas Section, they are listed below. Come out and support the Amateur Radio Community!
Tidelands Texas City Hamfest 2024 - 7/13/2024
https://www.arrl.org/hamfests/tidelands-texas-city-hamfest-2024
Radio Fiesta - 07/19/2024 - 07/20/2024
https://www.arrl.org/hamfests/radio-fiesta-3
The next topic that I think needs to be discussed is ARES, and more specifically the Info Depot/Gateway we in South TX use for ARES and our workbook. I know that ARRL HQ has a form for new ARES members to fill out and submit to the Section Manager. When I get those forms, I forward them to our Section Emergency Coordinator - Jeff Walter. If there are any new prospective ARES members wishing to learn more or join, send them to our Info Depot at:
https://www.arrlstxvps.org/vault_area/vault_gateway/site_gateway/vault_gateway.php
This also leads me to another topic, Communication. If you have been appointed as an Emergency Coordinator and your contact information is not up to date on the site listed above (Info Depot), please do so as soon as possible. I am getting an unusually large number of new ARES members stating their EC either has not approved their membership on the Info Depot, or are not replying back to them when they have questions.
Neither of these are acceptable options in South Texas. If you as an EC have not logged into the Info Depot in a while to approve applicants, you may want to check out your roster. I recently approved five individuals who were waiting to be approved so they could start filling out their workbooks.
If you no longer wish to be an Emergency Coordinator, please contact Jeff Walter -
The last thing I will mention for those who have not heard is that MFJ is ceasing On-Site Production as of May 17th, 2024.
https://www.arrl.org/news/mfj-ceasing-on-site-production
Thank you,
ARRL STX Section Manager
Stuart Wolfe - KF5NIX