Monday NOVEMBER 22, 4PM on ZOOM. Email Rich Combs at richsfpd@gmail.com for link. Residents of Tuolumne County interested in Fire Safety and Emergency Communications are invited to an online presentation by Alan Thompson, Satellite Internet Field Engineer of El Dorado Networks of Placerville. Alan helped restore Internet service at several downed cell-phone towers in Paradise shortly after the Camp Fire. What he saw there and learned later about the colossal emergency communications failures during the fire, turned him into an “Accidental Advocate” for fire safety and communications resilience. Since 2019, Alan has given over 100 presentations before Civic Groups, Fire-safe Councils and […]
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Tuolumne County Amateur Radio Electronics Society has joined Amazon Smiles. Amazon smiles is a charitable organization with Amazon.com. When you choose to use our amazon smiles link we, as a Non profit, will receive a half percent of the eligible purchase. Amazon Smiles Link: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/77-0266803 If you are an IOS or Android user please: Go to your app store and download the amazon shopping app. Login to your account like normal Go to settings Select Amazon Smiles and turn feature on Select Tuolumne County Amateur Radio Electronics Society as your charity of choice. * Thank You For All Your Future Help!!
UPDATED FOOD RESOURCES HERE Download this Tuolumne County Resources Booklet ——- **Interfaith is offering food delivery from items they have in stock in their food pantry. Must be 65 or older. Food is free, donations are accepted. Please call 532-0905 to sign-up. **The Senior Center is offering to-go meals for seniors age 60 and over. Please call 533-2622 by 9am to reserve your meal. **Area 12 – Home-Maker Program provides a grocery shopping service for seniors. Please call A12 at: 532-6272 and ask for the Home-Maker program. **Dollar General in Soulsbyville is having Senior Only Hours, 8:00am – 9:00 am; **Save Mart is offering […]
Links to every FEMA NIMS & ARRL on-line course of interest to ARES. If you get into this do the ARRL EC-016 last – or you might get discouraged & miss all of the good ones. As many of us are working from home or are spending more time at home here are a number of online courses you may take to expand your skills as emergency radio operators. Basic (read: must have)FEMAIS-100.c Introduction to the Incident Command System, ICS 100IS-200.c Basic Incident Command System for Initial ResponseIS-700.b An Introduction to the National Incident Management SystemIS-800.c National Response Framework, an Introduction ARRLEC-001 Introduction to Emergency Communication (guided and self-study […]
VIEW INSTRUCTIONS HERE TCARES MEMBERS REGISTER HERE Amateur Radio Emergency Service Transitioning to New Online Reporting System The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) will phase out the traditional ARES report forms later this year in favor of an online system called ARES Connect, a volunteer management, communications, and reporting system. The new system will allow information to be logged by ARES members and managed through the Field Organization. The advent of ARES Connect was among other highlights in “The Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) 2017 Annual Report,” released this week. “ARES Connect is a volunteer management system that covers event signup, reporting, and roster management,” […]
TCARES was asked by the Motherlode Bike Coalition, on short notice, to provide radio communications for a bike event on Saturday August 24. More info about the event can be found here. A request went out to the club for 2 or 3 hams to assist. N4NED, KM6NCU and WA6N volunteers to work the Old Priest Grade from 6 am to 9 am. The CHP closed the road and were stationed at the top and bottom of the grade. We set up three stations along the route and help the race organizers communicate between the start and finish and we also […]
https://www.uniondemocrat.com/localnews/7225176-151/local-ham-radio-group-takes-part-in-national For more information about amateur radio and field day events in Sugarpine, visit http://tcares.net/ Roots of amateur radio date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than a hundred years ago, and locals here in the Mother Lode, up and down California, and all over the rest of the planet are still doing it. They call themselves hams and ham radio operators and amateur radio operators, and they are in downtown Sonora and up in Mi-Wuk and Sugarpine and over in Calaveras County, too. They don’t just listen to radio, they use radio to talk back and communicate […]
Segments of the course entered Yosemite Park TCARES had the privilege of providing radio communications for the Route Marshalls during the 2019 Groveland Grind Adventure Ride for Mountain Bikers. Cyclists enjoyed a course of over 40 miles of terrain between 3400 and 5500 elevation. A team of 15 ham radio operators provided professional tracking and communications for the 60+ participants during a 7 hour period Saturday May 18th, 2019. TCARES deployed a temporary Cross Band repeater (see photos below) at a local peak with a 5800 elevation. http://grovelandtrailheads.org/groveland-grind-2019/ On May 18, 2019, The Groveland Trails Heads in partnership with the Stanislaus […]
We had a GREAT Workshop! On Saturday, April 27, TCARES members presented a workshop oriented toward new and potential Amateur Radio Operators (Hams) and to the general public who might not have a good understanding of what Ham Radio is all about. The workshop commenced at 0900 hours and ended about 1500 hours with topics including what to expect as you study for your FCC license exam, practice exams, demonstration stations, and mingling with current Hams of all stripes. For the first ever workshop of this type, we have a great turnout of eight folks interested in learning more. The excitement […]
TCARES & ARES I am pleased to announce that we will have a very special guest at the TCARES Membership Breakfast Meeting on May 11, 2019. Dan Sohn, Assistant Section Emergency Coordinator, (and perhaps others) representing the San Joaquin Section of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) (Tuolumne County is in this Section) will be here to talk about ARRL, ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) and the San Joaquin Section. There have been significant changes at ARRL / ARES in the last few months as it tries to recover and maintain relevancy today’s world of electronics in the public safety world. […]
There was recent documentary called “Mega quake 10.0.” With my apologies to the seismologists here is a little comparison to our more familiar dB scale measurements. In some respects we all live in Earthquake Country not just California. The program described the effects of an earthquake in various magnitudes. Some of the bigger quakes have occurred in the middle of the country such as the “New Madrid Quakes” around 1809 and 1810. They rang church bells in Boston! The presenter tried to explain the earthquake scale using stacked quarters. A magnitude one quake was 1 quarter and magnitude 2 quake was […]
I have only been a licensed ham operator since August 23, 2011, so most of the history of the hobby comes from what I hear from other hams who have been in the hobby longer than I have. But I have been in the emergency services as a fire fighter and medic for 38 years. I have observed the evolution of the emergency services in America generally and in California specifically over that time. My observations have lead me to think that perhaps The Future of Amateur Radio will be different from its past. Learning about the history of the ham […]
DOWNLOAD FLYER HERE Have you ever wondered what Ham Radio is all about? Come to this FREE Saturday workshop to learn about Ham Radio. See demonstrations and equipment, talk to local Hams, see what you will need to learn to get your own license, You can even talk to other Hams on our radios, take practice examinations using the FCC questions and take the FCC exam if you want. Self-paced study guides will be available for $23 if you want to learn more and study for the FCC test. Workshop Agenda: Why Ham radio? (when all else fails, radio works) Radio […]
By Jim, N6TP The recent interest in WLW (500 Kw in the 1930s) reminded me of the technology that went into producing a good quality high level plate modulated transmitted signal. You may remember prior to rule change of 30 years or so by the FCC that the maximum power limit (where licensed) was 1,000 watts input. This meant that if you were running high level plate modulation, you had to have 500 watts of RMS audio power for 100% modulation. You will recall that the secondary of the modulation transformer was in series of the B+ to the final tube(s). […]
Decibels: Pesky Little Critters In our telecommunication careers, we may have all used dBs in our work. Here is a little background and how we use them in amateur radio. Decibels are a form of mathematical shorthand using logarithms. Logarithms probably originated with the ancient Greeks. Logarithms have the property expressing large values or ratios in more easily understood human terms. Decibels originated when the engineering of analog telephone circuit became more complicated. The Bell System of fond memory in the 1920’s needed a way to design telephone circuits taking into account cable and component losses plus the gain of amplifiers. One […]
By Jim, N6TP, n6tp@arrl.net We are familiar with the formula for a half-wave dipole. It appears in the antenna handbooks and in various test questions for amateur radio license exams. It goes like this. Divide the operating frequency in MHz into “468” and the answer comes out in feet. For example: 468 divided by 7.150 MHz equals 65.5 feet! If we do a little rounding, we will cut our half-wave dipole to 65 feet 4 inches. Let’s look a half-wave dipole. As the name implies it is a half-wave antenna resonant at its operating frequency. We choose to make it a half-wave dipole as […]