From ARRL Alabama Section Section Manager: JVann Martin Sr, W4JVM

Hello Alabama Section,

I hope this email finds everyone doing well.

ALABAMA 2016 SET is right around the corner so I wanted to send out information for everyone to start promoting on social media, Club meetings, Club websites, and on community news outlets. We need everyone involved so please begin talking this up, sharing the date and times with other amateur operators, and promoting this event with as many served agencies as you can in your districts, counties, and communities.

Although our ARRL scoring results have continued to grow and demonstrate teamwork across many of our counties, we still have a great opportunity to expand our participation into all counties in Alabama. I encourage our EC’s to not only reach out to your county served agencies and local hams, but also reach out to your neighboring counties that do not have an EC and ask those EMA’s, and other served agencies to please participate. If you would like some assistance with knowing what counties around your area do not have an EC, please contact me or your SEC, David Gillespie, W4LHQ. [email protected]

We understand that not all counties will be conducting your 2016 SET on OCT 14-16 as you may elect to hold your SET event before or after those dates. Please send in your reports to your SEC David Gillespie, W4LHQ at [email protected] once you have tabulated your traffic and scores.

This year’s SET will be divided into small segments of time so that we maximize our ability to get as many hams and served agencies involved. We have met with the NWS representatives and they have asked that we partner with all three NWS offices that support the State of Alabama during our SET. This means that each NWS would like for those counties supported by the area NWS to please involve as many of your county EMA’s as possible so that we get them on the air during the SET activities. We are excited that the NWS sees the value in working with Amateur Radio and sees the value in having us involved in our local
served agencies.

To better our chances of getting as many of the county EMA’s to participate during SET check ins, we will start the Alabama 2016 SET at 1500 hours on Friday afternoon in hopes of collecting that traffic at our EMA’s and other served agencies that are normally closed on Saturdays.

SET OPERATING TIMES ARE LISTED BELOW SO PLEASE HELP US GET THE WORD OUT.

We will send more details to all EC’s and DEC’s soon about the type of event and details about what will take place during the exercise.

I also want to encourage each county to participate in all modes of communication including standing up HF nets, 2m/440 nets, Digital nets and other Digital modes of collecting traffic. During a real disaster, we may not have the ability to utilize all of these types of COMM, but during an exercise, this is how we test, plan, and then test again our equipment, our reach, and our ability to work together with lots of people at one time.

Please share parts of all of this communication with your clubs and on social media outlets.

I want to personally thank each of you for your hard work and willingness to make our state a stronger partner with other served agencies by maximizing our skill and education through effective use of Amateur Radio.

ALABAMA ARES 2016 SET PARTICIPATION TIMES INCLUDE:

October 14 Friday 15:00 to 17:00 NCS initial call out to county EMA
officials.
October 15 Saturday 08:00 to noon traditional SET for operators, Served
agencies, etc.
October 16 Sunday  20:00 Simplex Net with check ins per SET protocol

73,

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ARRL Alabama Section
Section Manager: JVann Martin Sr, W4JVM