Greetings All ARES Leadership,

Saturday, August 5^th, 2017 at 10:00 AM, the entire leadership team of SC ARES is requested to attend a leadership meeting at the South Carolina Emergency Management Division located at 2779 Fish Hatchery RoadWest Columbia, SC 29172. The purpose of this meeting is to bring everyone together to start the process of building closer relationships amongst the team and plan our path forward. This meeting will also include an introduction by Gabe Turner Communications Manager for SCEMD. This meeting is open to ARRL Leadership ASEC’s, DEC’s, ADEC’s, EC’s and AEC’s. Please email feedback@ares-sc.org with the subject RSVP for Leadership Meeting.

SCEMD will be hosting an ICS/NIMS Forms Class at 2 PM for anyone interested that might need a refresher. For more information regarding this class, please contact Gabe at SCEMD. His contact info can be found at www.scemd.org.

Lookinng Forward to seeing everyone,

Billy L. Irwin – K9OH Section Emergency Coordinator ARRL South Carolina Section

SC ARES has been busy over the last few weeks. We are continuing to rebuild the organization and improve it’s functionality. Below you will find a report out of Edgefield County where an EF2 Tornado caused significant damage. I’ve heard from many counties statewide and have continued to be impressed with the level of interest in our program. Please stay tuned for more upates on several exciting things coming soon.
April 5, 2017 ARES operations Edgefield County

1. National Weather Service issued at Tornado warning for Edgefield County near Johnston area at about 1300 hrs
2. Shortly there after, Edgefield County sheriff department started receiving reports of damage
3. Edgefield County EM director requested ARES support at about 1400 hrs, requested 2 hams to support EOC
4. We provided three hams, KM4TWA, AE4UX and W3MIF for the EOC
5. One ham, AB4BF did ground truth reports on the damage since he lives in damaged area.
6. Skywarn was very active on the 145.49 mHz repeater
7. The Edgefield repeater, 146.85 mHz was used for ARES communications to EMD and K9OH in Columbia (This is an SCHEART repeater but the linking hardware has not been installed.
8. Johnston was the center of the damage area. The mayor of the city is KM4GLS.
9. Damage report is extensive.
10. Damage: Many trees down, some snapped off and others pulled from the ground by their roots. Trees blocked roads and took down power lines. Damage to many homes from tree falling on them. One business roof was totaled removed and ended up in the highway. One report of injury.
11. Two shelters were opened. Closed one shelter at 2030 hours and attempted to close the other, but people arrived. It remained open. Shelter support was provided by CERT team members.
12. ARES support ended at 2100 hrs
13. Normal communications remained operational for police, fire, EMS and cell.
14. Post event discussion will look for improvements to our team efforts in Edgefield. Meeting not set yet.

Donald, W3MIF
EC Edgefield County

SC ARES Tactical plan V4.3

The 2017 ARES/RACES Auxiliary Communications Tactical Guide contains new information on ARES organizational structure, changes in SCHEART repeater information and better clarifies auxiliary communication functions during an emergency.  Latest addition includes new DMR repeaters at Clemson and Pickens.

The V4.3 update release on March 9th is to correct an error in the DMR frequency table.  Murrells Inlet repeater frequency was incorrectly listed and has been corrected to reflect 441.8875 Mhz transmit and 446.8875 receive.  Thanks to W2FTV for reporting the error.

On April 13 the DHEC PeeDee region will conduct a Redundant Communications Exercise focusing primarily on hospitals and healthcare facilities.  The main focus will be on hospitals but all regional healtcare facilities may participate.  This will be an amateur radio exercise using the scenario that all other means of communications have failed.  SCHEART volunteers should contact their respective facility to determine if that facility is participating in the exercise and how you can assist.  If your facility is not participating and you want to be involved contact George KK4F (kk4f@arrl.net) and we will find a place for you.  The exercise is scheduled to begin around 10:00 AM shortly after the regularly scheduled Thursday SCHEART ESF-8 statewide net and should last an hour or two.  We will be using the linked UHF side of the SCHEART system because in a disaster that is where healthcare facilities will be operating.

We are currently updating the leadership roster. If you do not see your name on the list, please ensure you have registered under the Join ARES page and then email k9oh@arrlnet to ensure we get you listed. We are not wanting to leave anyone out.

For all ares members in area 3

We are going to have a exercise On Saturday February 11, 2017 @ 10.00am from your county.   All EC’s please contact your members and let them know about this. All E.M.A. 3 members contact your E.C. for details.

Fore more information, please email n4ldl@w4rwl.com

Over the passed couple of weeks, we have been working to gather updated contact information for our leadership team. We are well aware that the EC list is very much out of date and are going through it thoroughly. Since most the information is outdated, we are going to disable the EC lists while we work through it.

As many of you have experienced, Avast Anti-Virus is falsely alarming to our site due to a security issue from several years ago from a previous hosting provider. That issue was corrected many years ago, but Avast has refused to remove the ARES-SC domain from its black list.Users that are having this issue may add the site to a white/trusted list. You may also check via Google to show this is a safe site.

In an effort to move the South Carolina ARES Program forward, we are moving to a new electronic ARES Registration form. This form will replace the paper forms previously managed by your local Emergency Coordinators. So, if you are interested in continuing to provide emergency communications, please visit the Join ARES at the top of the page to fill out the short form. This will assist us greatly in responding to future disasters quickly by having immediate access to contact information for all SC ARES members.

Greetings All South Carolina ARES/RACES/AUXCOMM Members,

I wanted to take this time to introduce myself as your new Section Emergency Coordinator. My name is Billy Irwin K9OH and I am currently living in the Forest Acres area of Columbia, SC. Previously, I served as an Emergency Coordinator for Spartanburg and Richland Counties and then on to the role of SKYWARN Emergency Coordinator for the Greenville-Spartanburg NWS Forecast Office where I had a service area of 46 counties in 3 states.

Currently, I operate 1 VHF repeater on Caesar’s Head MT and 2 UHF Repeaters in the Midlands of SC. My Amateur Radio Hobby also includes my station at my home QTH. My home station has antennas placed on the roof of a 6 story apartment building. With all that being said, I am very interested in emergency communications and their various systems. My other hobbies also include railroading and the weather.

My professional background is both in Information Technology and Emergency Services. Over the years, I’ve served in various county and state government positions as a technical specialist dealing with networks of various types and functions. This hasn’t been just in the field of radio. Currently, I am finishing up a degree at Midlands Tech in Network Systems Management.

Now to the good stuff… The ARES program in South Carolina is heading for some exciting new changes in 2017… We are currently looking at what is working and what is not. For our program to grow, we need all of your participation. So, if you have input on our program, please do not hesitate to reach out and contact me. Remember, I am your SEC, and I work for you.

Please stay tuned for more updates.

Best wishes for a happy holiday season,

Billy L. Irwin – K9OH Section Emergency Coordinator ARRL South Carolina Section 2000 N. Beltline Blvd Apt 613E Columbia, SC 29204 Phone: 803-497-5560 E-Mail: k9oh@arrl.net

The latest edition of the South Carolina ARES/RACES and AUXCOMM Tactical Guide is available for download. Significant Revision changes include: Updates to County Tactical Frequency Table, Change of DMR data talk group for emergency operation, Transfer of  Winlink HF data operation from Army MARS to Department of Homeland Security SHARES.

SC ARES Tactical plan V3.1a