Arkansas SKYWARN® Names New President: MOU Renewed with NWS Little Rock and CAREN

By Danny Straessle, KE5WLR - Arkansas District A Public Information Officer

Entering its fourth decade of providing community service and emergency communications, Arkansas Weather Net, Inc. (aka Arkansas SKYWARN®) has named Greg Staton, K5GSS, as the organization’s president. He is preceded by outgoing President Pat Dixon, N5ZSN, who served for the last three years.

Staton is on-call 24/7 with the National Weather Service Little Rock Forecast Office, which activates SKYWARN® at its discretion whenever weather may be severe enough to threaten its 45-county warning area. An updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among Arkansas SKYWARN®, the National Weather Service, and the Central Arkansas Radio Emergency Net (CAREN Club) has been signed and will serve as the framework for volunteer Amateur Radio operators to coordinate their services, facilities and equipment with the National Weather Service in support of the state of Arkansas and local governments for early warning of emergency weather information and emergency communications.

Section Manager's Update

Hello to all:

I had a great time at Russellville, and I can't say it often enough.  I understand attendance was up from last year.  That's great!

Speaking of hamfests, remember the Arkansas Section Convention is April 24 2010 at 4911 W. Pleasant Grove Rd. Rogers, AR.  The ARRL is sending Debbie Johnson K1DMJ from HQ to speak at the forum.  She is the Education Services Manager so we should have a good time learning from her.  Springfest in Jonesboro, the Hanging Judge in Ft Smith, and the NEARC Swap Meet in Jonesboro are all upcoming.  Plan to attend!

Emergency Services

Many amateur radio operators participate in some type of emergency service activity. Those who do are volunteers who provide selfless service in times of public need to help protect life and property. There are many agencies who are served by these volunteer emergency communicators, such as the National Weather Service (as part of the Skywarn program), the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management (as part of the RACES program), and many others.

To locate any of the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) leadership in Arkasas, visit http://www.arkansas-aresraces.org/AresRaces/leadership.htm

For more information about ARES and RACES in Arkansas, visit http://www.arkansas-aresraces.org.

For more information about Arkansas Section Traffic Emergency Net , visit http://www.arkansas-aresraces.org/ASTEN.htm

Department of Health Exercise and Section Emergency Test

Hello all,

I wanted to make sure everyone is up to speed for the November 18 exercise and Section Emergency Test (SET). Here is a kind of timeline and other information.

At 0800 local we experience a big earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone. For the first hour, in some counties, there are no commercial communications or power available. AWIN will not work. The only things functioning will be ham radio and satellite phones. Remember not all counties are playing in this exercise, and even fewer are playing in this part of the exercise. Messages can be about almost anything, and we will see several about needing resources. Lists would be well served to be sent digitally. I don't believe any Health and Welfare traffic will be passed during this exercise.