Fw: Monthly Virginia Section News Summary

[Paul Rinaldo]

-----Forwarded Message-----
>From: ARRL Web site <memberlist at www.arrl.org>
>Sent: May 16, 2007 8:48 AM
>To: prinaldo at mindspring.com
>Subject: Monthly Virginia Section News Summary
>
>Section Managers Report for April 2007
>
>The month of April has been active as a number of special event stations
>prepare to operate during the 400th Anniversary Celebration at Jamestown and
>the site of the first landing of English settlement in America.  Other
>special event stations are planned for later in the year.
>
>The section traffic system continues to experiment with a new digital mode on
>HF.  This is the VDN that is held each weekday on 3.578 USB at 1915 EDT,
>utilizing the Chip64 mode.  Additional stations are being heard on this net
>as others are installing the software that is required for using their
>soundcard to operate this mode.
>
>The Virginia Department of Emergency Management conducted their annual
>disaster exercise during April.  This was a multi-day drill this year for the
>first time and Amateur Radio participated on 2 days of this exercise.  The
>VDEM RACES station was up and running on both April 25th and 26th.   The
>drill was a simulation of a category 3 hurricane hitting the SE coast of
>Virginia and moving north into northern Virginia.  Amateur Radio stations
>were up and running along the entire path of this simulated storm and there
>was a flurry of activity from stations across the commonwealth in support of
>this exercise.  The ODEN was operating on both 75 meters SSB, 40 meters SSB
>and digital on 75 meters and 440 and 2 meter packet. CW nets operated on HF. 
>Propagation was poor on 40 and 75 meters but still supported needed traffic
>requirements via the use of relay.  We also used the long-range capabilities
>of some of the broad coverage mountain top repeaters that exist within our
>state.  Some of these allowed for traffic to be passed over 200 miles without
>requiring linking.
>
>Participation between the VDEM and field operations were as follows; VDEM /
>VEOC RACES was able to provide enough radio operators from the local amateur
>community to handle all of the emergency traffic was passed to the VEOC by
>the participating localities and agencies that included: VDH EOC, Norfolk
>Medical Examiners Office, Newport News EOC, VA Beach EOC, Norfolk EOC,
>Spotsylvania EOC, Carroll Co EOC, Portsmouth EOC, James City Co EOC, Norfolk
>Sentara Hospital, NWS Blacksburg, Loudoun Co EOC, Prince William Co EOC,
>Buckingham Co EOC, Charlottesville, Albemarle EOC, Hertford  Co NC EOC,
>Winslow CNC EOC and NWS Sterling Va. There were 142 contacts made on HF, VHF
>and packet modes including normal check ins, Initial Damage Assessments,
>Local Situation Reports and Resource Requests.
>
>A number of other stations were active within their local area and would not
>be a part of the records of VDEM.  I encourage all jurisdictions to complete
>their Simulated Emergency Test (SET) reports and sent them to Steve Ewald at
>the ARRL.  The e-mail address is wv1x at arrl.org  please send a copy to our
>SEC, Henry Wyatt, K4YCR at jandhwyatt84 at verizon.net
>
>73
>Glen Sage, W4GHS
>Virginia Section Manager
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>ARRL Virginia Section
>Section Manager: Glen H. Sage, W4GHS
>w4ghs at arrl.org
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
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