PUBLIC SERVICE

AMATEUR RADIO EMERGENCY SERVICE

Through Amateur Radio Emergency Service

The American Radio Relay League

OHIO VALLEY ARES - RACES NET IS EVERY THURSDAY AT 8:30 P.M. ON REPEATER 146.610 TONES 103.5 This is a quote from a book on amateur radio written nearly half a century ago.

But the sentiment is still correct. Amateur radio offers everyone a great technical hobby, with opportunities for growing your own technical capability, and having fun at the same time.

Amateur radio also provides valuable public service at times of emergency, by providing communication facilities when all else fails.

We are a volunteer group of ham radio operators dedicated to providing communications to our communities during emergencies and disasters. When cell phones and the communications of other agencies become overloaded and fail, Amateur Radio Communications can get the message through locally or to practically any place on earth. Our volunteer group also provides communications for the Ironton - Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade, (every year since 1989) walk-a-thons, runs, and other worthy events.

SOARA -- ARES ham radio operators participate in drills with the local Emergency Management Agency and have a very good working relationship with EMA Director Michael Boster. They also can work with other agencies such as law enforcement, fire, and Red Cross. SOARA -- ARES has a child search program and have been trained by a deputy from the Sheriffs department. In the event of a child abduction or a missing person, hams could be dispatched to areas like the riverbanks, strip mine area, lake areas etc. Their mobile and portable stations would allow them to communicate their findings back to the Emergency Operations Center.

Our ham radio operators provide their own equipment, such as mobile radios, base stations, hand-held radio, and antennas. These can amount to thousands of dollars. On our base stations we can talk all over the world but for local communications, the frequencies we must use for local operations, repeaters are needed to provide close-by communications in our hilly regions. Once a signal is sent to a repeater, the repeater amplifies this signal and sends it back out, thus giving much greater range.

In checking the coverage of our new repeater, we have had stations as far North as Columbus, OH and as far South as Salyersville, KY, and Logan, WV. Check in to the Ohio Valley ARES/RACES Net on Thursdays at 8:30 P.M.,on repeater 146.610, we also have a repeater on 146.715 and is usually linked with 146.610, both repeaters may have tones of 103.5 please see if you can make it in. Hams talk all over the world on HF frequencies but this is great for 2 meter operation.

Repeaters are very expensive, over $7,200 is invested in these repeaters, antennas, other radio gear, and necessary associated electronics. We now have three repeaters in Lawrence County, Ohio. Repeater 146.715 is in the Chesapeake, OH area, repeaters 146.610 and repeater 444.625 are in the Northern section of Lawrence County. All repeaters have the call of W8SOE. These repeaters have linking capability and are sometimes linked for even greater coverage. The purchase and maintance of these repeaters is possible by the donations from merchants, agencies, members, individuals, industries, and others. We wish to THANK EVERYONE who contributed to our repeater fund, your help is greatly appreciated.

We also have an emergency ham radio station located in the rear room of the 911/EMA building. The portable rig can be taken in the field and used for communications in emergencies

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SOUTHERN OHIO AMATEUR RADIO ASSOCIATION INC. -- AMATEUR RADIO EMERGENCY SERVICE.

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