Bernalillo County ARES
Bernalillo County Amateur Radio Service (BCARES) is dedicated to providing auxiliary emergency communications service to the Bernalillo County Department of Emergency Management.
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In The News
BCARES EAST MOUNTAINS FIRE STATION EXERCISE
Date: April 24, 2021
Exercise Duration: 1 PM to 5 PM, operators should be in place by 1230 PM
Equipment: Mobile Rig, capable of 25 watts, and your best mobile antenna
Equipment provisions: If you don't have a mobile rig we can provide you a Go-Kit or possibly an ICOM 2720 rig for this exercise. You need to check one out by NLT Friday, 16 Apr, so you have adequate time to become familiar with it and know how to operate it in the field.
Participants: need to sign up by 16 Apr so fire station teams can be put together. Contact BCARES Emergency Coordinator, Bill Tucker, K5WRT, at bltckr@gmail.com.
Bill will be putting the teams to cover the 3 fire stations and EOC together. I'm going to Fire Station 41, southernmost location.
Tactical Callsigns: Tactical Callsigns will be assigned to each team, for example, Fire Station 41.
Communications Exercise: FM analog voice only, both Cedro Peak repeater-based voice communications with the BC EOC and fire station - to - fire station SIMPLEX voice communications will be exercised.
Jim Frazier, KC5RUO
BCARES EC
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EmComm Practice Sessions Announced
Greetings BCARES Team Members
- 1. Starting on March 18, 2021, there will be one or two practice EMCOM messages transmitted during the BCARES Net. Messages will initially be directed to the Net Control Station for the few several weeks and then eventually directed to a specific net member. All net members are encouraged to copy the message. If a net member needs a re-transmission they’ll request it by contacting net control. Either net control or the message originator will re-transmit the message.
- 2. The purpose of the practice EMCOM messages is to expose the BCARES Team to realistic EXERCISE/INCIDENT verbal messages and develop proficiency in using efficient message transmission procedures over a directed resource/tactical net.
- 3. Jim Frazier, KC5RUO, will solicit net members to transmit each week’s practice EMCOM message. You do not have to be a BCARES member to participate. That week's message script will be emailed to the net member. The net member will transmit the message during the frequent check-in roll call. When net control calls you and asks if you have any traffic you’ll transmit your message.
4. In the event that a repeater does go down during the Net, it is advised that BCARES members move to 145.13 SIMPLEX to reestablish the Net.
Jim Frazier, KC5RUO
BCARES EC
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BCARES Meeting
Thursday, May 6, 6:30PM
We have been authorized to resume our monthly BCARES Team in-person meetings.. IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS IS A THURSDAY EVENING. The BCARES Team meetings will now be on the first Thursday of every month and NOT the first Wednesday. There will be NO VHF/UHF net aired on the first Thursday of each month. Hence, the BCARES meeting replaces the BCARES Net on the first Thursday of every month.
The location is, 6840 2nd St NW, Albuquerque, in the Atrium Building. The meeting is held in the Bernalillo County Department of Emergency Management Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Enter via the BC OEM sign on the east side of the building.
Attendance is subject to NM DOH recommendations. Please pre-register your intention to participate in April's meeting at ARES Connect:
https://arrl.volunteerhub.com/lp/nm/
WEAR YOUR MASK!
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Field Day, June 2021 - BCARES is putting together a Team for the emergency communication exercise known as Field Day sponsored by the ARRL. If you are interested in working out details for our participation, please email Ed Poccia, KC2LM at: kc2lm@arrl.net to express your interest. Put "BCARES FD" in the subject line.
* Chris Petroff, W5CBP has joined the BCARES Field Day Team.
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The SCEST Digipeater W5SCA-11 is back on the air and can connect to Capilla Peak Digipeater Node.
Jim Frazier KC5RUO reported; We are greatly indebted to Paul Choc, WA5IHL, and his team for repairing the broken antenna and bringing SCREST back online. The SCREST digipeater/node is used to support EMCOM packet radio and Winlink operations in our region and in adjacent counties. For example, if McKinley County EOC is subject to a massive internet outage due to a cut fiber optic cable they can connect through the DEZA Packet Node to SCREST and then into one of our three Radio Message Server (RMS) gateways to send email to outside destinations. BCARES practices with SCREST as our regional digipeater to establish Winlink peer-to-peer (P2P), i.e., radio-to-radio, email message transactions if our own internet goes down.
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New Mexico HAMWAN RMS Gateway (NM5HW-10) is operational on Sandia Crest on 145.01 MHz. You use it to send emails just like you use NM5PB-10 and KC5QOC-10, no difference.
You can still use the RMS gateway but you may have to access it via the Sandia Crest digipeater node, SCREST. Gary encourages us to report to him or Chris Drummond, NM5F, any abnormalities we experience, at kc5izr@arrl.net
More RMS Gateways, in ABQ
Gateway #1: KC5QOC-10, GRID: DM65QD, Near Edith NE ABQ.
Gateway #2: NM5PB-10, DM65 QC, in Knobhill area, close to I-25 and I-40.
CLICK HERE - Mike, KM5GH's Winlink RMS Training Program.
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BCARES Net, Thursday 7PM 145.13, 145.15, and 442.05 MHz
PLEASE JOIN US: for the weekly Thursday evening BCARES Net at 7 PM on the Bernalillo County Amateur Radio Emergency Service repeater system (145.13, 145.15, and 442.05 MHz) with Bill Tucker, K5WRT, as Net Control. However, There is NO Net on the first Thursday of the month as the BCARES meeting will be taking place at 6:30PM.
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The Slide Shows below were presentations first developed for the American Red Cross Nov. EmComm Drill. They are being left up because they demonstrate how to send Packet messages.
CLiCK HERE for slide show on "How to Send ARC 213 Messages using Winlink"
CLICK HERE - Mike, KM5GH's Winlink RMS Training. Information here in is based upon Winlink Express version 1.5.32.0 and using a Kantonics KPC 3+ USB Terminal Node Controller
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Antenna Installed at the Balloon Park Museum.
BCARES completed the Balloon Museum public safety communications antenna system installation for the Bernalillo County Department of Emergency Management today, 9/17/2020.
It involved the installation of a permanent 50-ohm coax cable run through the bulkhead wall of the roof hatch and the installation of a VHF antenna on the rooftop railing of the Balloon Museum.
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View the latest listing of Coordinated NM Repeaters at: QSL.net/NMFCC
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BCARES EOC Radio Room Packet Operations Updates.
Winlink Express software version 1.5.32.0 and VARA HF are installed on both the Station 1 and Station 2 PCs.
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BCARES Packet Radio Practice Net Announcement
You are invited to participate in the BCARES packet radio practice net, every third Tuesday of the month at 7 PM. The net will be initiated by way of voice on the Bernalillo County Amateur Radio Emergency Service repeater system (145.13, 145.15, and 442.05 MHz) with Bill Tucker, K5WRT, as Net Control.
He'll provide instructions on how the packet net will be conducted and then we will transition over to 145.01 MHz for the packet net.
In these packet radio practice nets, we focus on Winlink Peer-to-Peer email exchanges (P2P) to include passing the ICS-213 General Message Form.
Be prepared to provide Net Control your SSID.
Jim Frazier, KC5RUO
BCARES EC
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Updated FEMA Courses
I noticed that FEMA released an updated course IS-800 . d on 5/6/2020. So, the current versions of the courses our members need to take are:
IS-100.c (6/25/2018),
IS-200.c (3/11/2019),
IS-700.b (6/25/2018), and
IS-800.d (5/6/2020)
It is important that all of us take the latest versions of these four courses as there have been some significant changes.
Note that there is still no IS-802 course available. After I take the updated IS-800.d course, it may become clear why this is so and whether the ESF-2 COMU concept is still valid within the National Response Framework. I'll fill you in if I come to any conclusions.
73,
Ron Reder, NM5AA
Emergency Coordinator
Sandoval County ARES
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There is a relatively new Sandoval County ARES (SCARES) repeater at INTEL, Rio Rancho, you may be interested in programming into your radios.
Receive Frequency: 444.70 MHz
Transmit Frequency: 449.70 MHz
Offset: 5.0 MHz
Offset Direction: PLUS
Name: INTEL
Tone Mode: Tone
CTCSS: 100 Hz
Rx CTCSS: CSQ
Comment: Linked to SCARES Repeater Network
73,
Jim Frazier, KC5RUO
BCARES Emergency Coordinator
The 145.13 MHz Repeater Information as of 5/23/2019
Input Frequency: 144.53 MHz, PL Tone = 100 Hz
Output Frequency: 145.13 MHz
Location: Fire Station 35, along Paseo del Norte, NE Albuquerque, near the intersection of Lowell and Paseo del Norte
11700 Paseo del Norte NE, Albuquerque, NM 87122
The 145.15 MHz Cedro Peak Repeater Information as of 5/23/2019
Input Frequency: 144.55 MHz, PL Tone = 100 Hz
Output Frequency: 145.15 MHz
Location: Cedro Peak, Tijeras, New Mexico
The 442.05 MHz Repeater Information as of 5/23/2019
Input Frequency: 447.05 MHz, PL Tone = 100 Hz
Output Frequency: 442.05 MHz
Location: 1120 Coors Blvd SW, Albuquerque
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