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 Homeowners’ Associations, detailing the clear and present danger we now face from an over-dependence on vulnerable Internet and telecom services, and the urgent need for backup emergency-communications systems.

This will be a 45-minute online presentation via Zoom on Monday, November 22nd , time is 4 PM. Those interested should email Rich Combs at richsfpd@gmail.com, and he will send you a link to the meeting and the time. Please don’t wait until the last minute! You can ask questions at the same address.

The post The urgent need for backup emergency-communications appeared first on TCARES.

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!!

The post You shop, Amazon gives to TCARES!! appeared first on TCARES.

Download this Tuolumne County Resources Booklet

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**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 Senior Only Hours on Tuesdays/Thursdays 6:00am-9:00am;

**Safeway is offering Senior Only Hours Tuesdays/Thursdays 7:00am-9:00am

**Nancy’s Hope, 1000 Technology Dr Columbia, is offering food & hygiene products for delivery or curbside pick-up.  Please call (209)533-2647 for more information.

**Twain Harte Market has senior days and hours. Those days are Tuesday and Thursday between 7am and 8am. 

**Mar Val in Groveland has senior hours and days. Those are on Tuesday and Thursday from the hours of 7am to 8am. Mar Val also offers shop for you and curb side pickup. Everyday from 10am to noon. 

**Tuolumne County Transit, is operating a General Public Dial-a-Ride for essential trips! Fares for the service have been eliminated.We are limiting passengers to 1-2 per bus and then wiping buses down after each trip.Here is what is being considered essential travel:

 1.    To obtain medical supplies or medication, visiting a health care professional, or obtaining supplies they need to work from home.

2.    To obtain necessary services or supplies for themselves and their family or household members, or to deliver those services or supplies to others

3.    To engage in outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Social Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, or running

4.    To perform work providing essential products and services at an Essential Business or to otherwise carry out activities specifically permitted in this Order, including Minimum Basic Operations.

5.    To care for a family member or pet in another household

6.    For trips to work for or obtain services at any “Healthcare Operations” including hospitals, clinics, dentists, pharmacies, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, other healthcare facilities, healthcare suppliers, home healthcare services providers, mental health providers, or any related and/or ancillary healthcare services.

7.    For  trips to provide any services or perform any work necessary to the operations and maintenance of Essential Infrastructure.

8.    For first responders, emergency management personnel, emergency dispatchers, court personnel, and law enforcement personnel, and others who need to perform essential services performing or accessing “Essential Governmental Functions,”

Please call our office if you have any questions about the trip that you need to make. 209-532-0404.

Thanks for your support of our vulnerable populations and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to call me.

Please forward this notice on to others you work with that will benefit from this information.

The post Tuolumne County Resources appeared first on TCARES.

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)
FEMA
IS-100.c Introduction to the Incident Command System, ICS 100
IS-200.c Basic Incident Command System for Initial Response
IS-700.b An Introduction to the National Incident Management System
IS-800.c National Response Framework, an Introduction

ARRL
EC-001 Introduction to Emergency Communication (guided and self-study options available)

Advanced (read: nice to have)

FEMA

IS-120.c An Introduction to Exercises

IS-230.d Fundamentals of Emergency Management

IS-235.c Emergency Planning

IS-240.b Leadership & Influence

IS-241.b Decision Making & Problem Solving

IS-242.b Effective Communications

IS-244.b Developing & Managing Volunteers

IS-288.a Role of Voluntary Organizations in Emergency Mgt. 

IS-2200 Basic Emergency Operations Center Functions

ARRL

EC-016 Public Service and Emergency Communication Management for Radio Amateurs

PR-101 Public Relations 101 for Radio Amateurs

Another good course might be: 

IS-520: Introduction to Continuity of Operations Planning for Pandemic Influenzas

They also recommend that you obtain a copy of the national ARES Task Book. 
Obviously, that task book was not developed with the needs and requirements of West Coast ARES groups in mind. But nevertheless it can serve as an approximate basis for your personal skills development.

—

Every try to stay safe and follow the shelter in place guidelines.

The post Things you could do as you are sheltering in place appeared first on TCARES.

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,” ARRL Emergency Preparedness Manager Mike Corey, KI1U, said. “It does not change how ARES operates when serving a partner entity; it is simply a system that will make managing volunteers and events easier.” Beta testing of ARES Connect will begin in March. ARES made changes to its report forms last year to make it easier to process information at ARRL Headquarters and to standardize the format for all forms. ARES Monthly Reports have been posted to the ARRL website, providing regular information on Amateur Radio public service communication activity, the report noted.

According to the 2017 report, ARES membership stands at 31,332, up by nearly 13% from 2016. The number of emergency operations events reported was up by 665 from the previous year, with 1,913 reported in 2017. The top three states in terms of ARES membership in 2017 were California (2,265), Texas (1,930), and Ohio (1,858).

Reported ARES events amounted to 51,673 in 2017 — a 4% increase — accounting for 718,930 volunteer hours at a calculated value of more than $17.3 million.

“There was a noticeable increase in reported activity during August through November,” the ARES 2017 Annual Report said. “During this period there was Amateur Radio response activity for hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria; wildfires in the western states, and the total solar eclipse that occurred on August 21.”

What is ARES Connect?

ARES Connect is a volunteer management system that will allow each ARES group to manage their roster, create and staff events, and track nets and training. Each ARES group and ARRL Section will have a unique page on the platform with appropriate admin control given to the ARES Emergency Coordinator.

ARES members will be able to create a user profile that connects them to their local ARES group. Through their profile they can register for ARES (pending EC approval), sign up for events, log volunteer hours, and log training.

Reporting will be different through ARES Connect. As users log activity, data is created that allows ECs, DECs and SECs to run custom reports. The current ARES report forms will continue to be used through 2018 as the system is being built, but our current plan is to shift all reporting over to ARES Connect.

The post Register with ARES CONNECT for Tuolumne appeared first on TCARES.

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 monitor the health and wellness of the 100+ bike riders along the route.

The post 2019 Frost Memorial Old Priest Grade Hill Climb appeared first on TCARES.

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 with each other and the rest of the world. 

Amateur radio operators have also helped out during disasters and emergencies like the 2013 Rim Fire and the 2018 Donnell Fire. Radio communications technology has improved in recent decades, so local law enforcement and fire agencies do not rely on amateur radio operators as much as they used to. But they are still able to play key roles during disasters, Liz Peterson, coordinator for the Tuolumne County office of emergency services, said Tuesday in a phone interview. 

How it works

Most of us think of radio and we picture the knobs we turn on the dashboards in our cars, to listen to music and news and talk. The radios we go buy in the store are really just radio receivers. 

Amateur radio people use radio transmitters, combined with receivers, which they call transceivers, said Ned Sudduth, 49, a resident of Phoenix Lake whose radio call sign in N4NED. 

The planet, our solar system, and the rest of the universe are populated by electromagnetic waves and radio spectrums that existed in time before humans came to be here on Earth. The waves and spectrums have to do with radiation that comes from the sun and other stars. 

Historians say it was more than 115 years ago in December 1901 when a radio pioneer named George Marconi used radio waves to receive the very first known wireless trans-Atlantic Morse code transmission, sent from south Cornwall in England to Signal Hill, Newfoundland. 

Federal licensing of radio waves, radio stations, radio communications, and amateur radio operators started in 1912 with an act of Congress, called the Radio Act of 1912, Sudduth said. 

These days the Tuolumne County Amateur Radio & Electronics Society, who call themselves TCARES, have 100 members and there are more than 400 licensed hams in the county, Sudduth said. 

Hearing people in outer space

“We can listen to astronauts in space with our antennas,” Sudduth said. “It takes them 10 minutes to pass over California. I’m authorized to speak to them but I don’t because they’re usually speaking to school children in the Bay Area as they go over us. I can usually hear them 10 times a year. When I hear them they are closer to us than we are to Disneyland.” 

In other words, Sudduth said, it’s about 350 miles to drive to Disneyland in Anaheim, and the international space station is in an orbit about 250 miles above the earth’s surface. 

In emergencies, local amateur radio operators can serve as a backup communications network, Sudduth said. In places where radio reception is weak or poor, they have reception, and when existing radio networks are overloaded they can step in and help, in part because they have access to five radio repeaters that cover most of the county and the high country. 

During the Donnell Fire last summer, when the fire broke out, the American Red Cross set up an evacuation shelter in Sonora, and the American Red Cross in Sacramento asked Tuolumne County Amateur Radio & Electronics Society members to set up a communications station at the Red Cross shelter in Sonora, at the Discover Life Seventh-day Adventist Church near Woods Creek. 

Sudduth said they set it up so people could send emails over ham radio air without the internet. 

Helping out

Some TCARES members helped out during the Rim fire in 2013 in the back country where there was no cell service, Sudduth said. They were able to relay information, updates and requests for supplies. 

Peterson said Tuesday she went to speak to TCARES people on Saturday at one of the group’s monthly meetings. 

“They can help us with a variety of communications needs during disasters,” Peterson said. “There’s a subset of TCARES called RACES,” for the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service. “They’ve been around since the 1950s and they’re licensed with the FCC. They can provide additional or redundant radio services in an emergency.” 

County communications and technology have improved but the TCARES and RACES people can still help county authorities reach a lot of people, Peterson said. 

“We generally have coverage around the county,” Peterson said. “But they can still help us when AT&T lines go down for example, they can stage at schools in case somebody needs an ambulance. We used them during the Rim Fire and as PIOs and manning public information phone lines.” 

Event is planned and everyone’s invited

Members of the Tuolumne County Amateur Radio & Electronics Society plan to take part in a two-day national amateur radio exercise, June 22 and June 23 at Mi-Wuk Sugar Pine Fire Station, 24247 Highway 108, said Larry Crabtree, president of TCARES and the former chief for Mi-Wuk Sugar Pine Fire Protection District. 

Ham radio operators across North America have been doing public locations to showcase amateur radio since the 1930s. The two-day event in Sugarpine is open to the public and everyone is invited. 

Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of radio waves for non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emergency communication. 

The term amateur is used to specify a person interested in radio communications with purely personal aims and without monetary interests, to differentiate amateur radio from commercial broadcasting, public safety, or professional two-way radio services such as naval radio, air traffic control, and taxi dispatchers, for example. 

For more than 100 years, amateur radio — also called ham radio — has allowed people from all 

More than 35,000 people from thousands of locations participated in field day 2018 activities nationwide, according to Crabtree. 

Ham radio functions independent of the internet and cell phone infrastructure, it can interface with tablets or smartphones, and it can be set up almost anywhere in minutes, according to David Isgur, communications manager for the American Radio Relay League, a national association. That’s the beauty of amateur radio during a communications outage. 

“Hams can literally throw a wire in a tree for an antenna, connect it to a battery-powered transmitter, and communicate halfway around the world,” Isgur added. “Hams do this by using a layer of earth’s atmosphere as a sort of mirror for radio waves. In today’s electronic do-it-yourself environment, ham radio remains one of the best ways for people to learn about electronics, physics, meteorology, and numerous other scientific disciplines.” 

Anyone can become a licensed amateur radio operator, Crabtree said. There are more than 725,000 licensed hams in the United States, as young as 9 years old and as old as 100.

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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 National Forest, Yosemite Lakes RV Resort and Campground, and the Adventure Sports Journal present the 2019 Groveland Grind, a Yosemite area Adventure Ride! This is a multi terrain (pavement, broken pavement, gravel, small rocks and dirt) adventure ride that takes riders through some of the most beautiful and historic sections of the majestic Stanislaus National Forest. All three routes are truly special as they hug the border of Yosemite National Park! With some sections on the original road and railroad to Yosemite!
The GROVELAND TRAIL HEADS mountain bicycling club, a non-profit educational association whose mission is to create, enhance and preserve great trail experiences   has been partnering with the Stanislaus National Forest, Groveland Ranger District to develop a public use, mountain biking specific trail system in Groveland, CA. The proceeds from this event support this mission as the project has recently been approved and we are able to start the process of building mountain bike trails!

The post Groveland Grind Bike Ride Event Photos appeared first on TCARES.

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 and interest was palpable and there was no shortage of questions about all aspects of the hobby.

I want to especially thank all the TCARES members who showed up to help in any small way: Grayson KE6KYI, Mike W6MVM, Larry W6LDB, Ned N4NED, Sterling AE6RN, Lou WA6N, Dave W6PHO, Melissa KD6FFX, Doug KM6VYI. A very special thank you to Tuolumne County Sheriff Bill Pooley and the Community Services Unit for graciously permitting us the use of its facility in the Junction Shopping Center.

Watch this newsletter for the next Workshop, or perhaps a bone fide training program to teach folks the basics of Ham Radio at the Technician Level.

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