ICE - In Case of Emergency - Have you put a contact in your phone for ICE? If you are injured in an accident or disaster, emergency responders will check your phone for an ICE entry to check on your medications and to find out your emergency contact info.
ARPSE - Please check ARPSE.NET. There are a large number of events coming up in September that are in need of Ham Radio operators to help with communications.
BATTERY CHECK/CHARGE SCHEDULE - It is a good idea to establish a regular schedule for checking your batteries and charging your batteries. There is nothing worse than having discharged batteries when you suddenly need to use the device that has the bad batteries.
CYALUME LIGHT STICKS - It is also a good idea to check the expiration dates on your stored light sticks. They generally are good for full power for about 4 years and then they begin to give less than full light for less than the advertised time. The expiration date is usually on the wrapper around the stick.
The ones from Emergency Essentials are NOT toxic. The little bracelet/necklace ones that show up at parties, concerts and specialty stores around Halloween often ARE toxic. Most of those are made in China and ARE toxic.
LIGHTNING PROTECTION - We have been getting surprise storms lately. Be sure to disconnect your outside antennas and be sure all your lightning protection is in place.
HARBOR FREIGHT - One of the ongoing Harbor Freight sales features the following two products which are VERY handy in an emergency when there is no power:
Butane Pencil Torch $7.99
Butane Micro Torch $8.99
CENTRAL LOCATION - Our stake has been experimenting with finding a central location from which a mobile rig could communicate with all the hams in the stake. The current "best spot" just also happens to be the highest location in the Stake.
This is a very good thing to know BEFORE the disaster hits. Experiments with FRS radios from the same location have not been as successful.
SEPTEMBER is national Emergency Preparedness Month. A good time to check your supplies and plans and update where necessary. Also a good time to get extended family members and neighbors involved. Better to have them do their own emergency preperations rather than to have to feed and take care of them later.
Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Training Course - There is a 200+ page PDF document on Ham Radio Emergency communications. It is free and can be downloaded from the site listed below. It is an amazing document and parts of it will be used for MARA training for some time to come. It covers just about everything imaginable about ham radio and emergencies including calculations for how long your emergency battery will last with various radios at various power settings. VERY INFORMATIVE!
I highly recommend this free manual to anyone who is involved in ham radio. It is located at:
www.fresnoares.com/downloads/Emergency_Com_Training_Course.pdf
That is it until next week.
-N7OZH-
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