Amateur Radio

Personal:

• License:   General Class issued April, 2013; Technician Class issued June, 2007
• Additional Training: Em-Comm I, FEMA IS classes; SKYWARN (many years); RACES, extensive mentoring
• Member: Tarrant County ARES / RACES, Arlington Amateur Radio Club
• Communications / Net Control: Arlington, TX OEM/EOC (K5OEM);  Tarrant County ARES/RACES; Fort Worth/Tarrant County Joint EOC
• Participant: Fort Worth/Tarrant County RACES Leadership Group

  My Equipment:

• Yaesu FRG-7700 receiver
• ICOM Dual Band FM Transceiver: IC-2720 - 50 watt with hand mike and fan
• 20 foot exterior dual-band isopole antenna
• Alinco DJ-596T/E Dual Band FM Transceiver - 5 watt with battery compartment (battery pack does not charge) commonly called an HT ("handie talkie")
• Dual Band Mag Mount antenna for car with adapter
• Kenwood TH-D7 Dual Band HT 
• Speaker Mike 
• Tram Dual Band Mag Mount 

Local Repeaters:

•  146.940 - Fort Worth primary repeater for Tarrant County ARES / RACES
•  146.760 - Fort Worth back-up
•  147.140 - Arlington primary repeater and Fort Worth Back Up
•  146.880 - Dallas primary repeater for Dallas County ARES / RACES
•  146.920 - Denton primary repeater for Denton County ARES / RACES
•  North Texas SKYWARN Spotter Frequencies - link

FYI:
Amateur Radio "Nets" and Net Control:  Think of an amateur radio "Net" as sort of a conference call between numerous participants with a similar purpose all wanting/needing to talk on the one phone line more or less at the same time. When there is a reason to activate a Net on a specific radio frequency (such as a training Net, a RACES Weather Net, the city's siren testing net, etc) someone has to be in charge to explain the purpose and guidelines of that particular Net and to control who has permission to talk next  - in other words, keeping order and collecting specific and important information in the process. That radio operator is called Net Control. During the time period a Net is activated all transmissions are made to Net Control starting with the operator's call sign in phonetic alphabet. The calling operator then waits for Net Control to give permission for that operator to speak. An activated Net takes over a specific radio frequency for a limited period of time during which operators not directly involved in the Net are either prohibited from transmitting by FCC Rules or Regulations (RACES Nets are the only ones I currently know of to which those regulations apply), but most often non-participants simply and politely restrain from transmitting during that limited period, or go to another frequency to chat. When the Net is closed, the frequency is released to normal operations.

Phonetic Alphabet
A	Alpha	N	November
B	Bravo	O	Oscar
C	Charlie	P	Papa
D	Delta	Q	Quebec
E	Echo	R	Romeo
F	Foxtrot	S	Sierra
G	Golf	T	Tango
H	Hotel	U	Uniform
I	India	V	Victor
J	Juliet	W	Whiskey
K	Kilo	X	X-ray
L	Lima	Y	Yankee
M	Mike	Z	Zulu

LINKS:

• Tarrant County RACES
• DFW Area Ham Radio Interoperability Group
• ARRL - American Radio Relay League - The national association for amateur radio, connecting to hams around the US with news, information and resources
• ARRL on Twitter
• RACES - Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service