Welcome
This is the home of the East Thurston County ARES Team in
Washington State.
The all-volunteer ETC ARES Team was established by the
ARRL
Western Washington Section leadership to serve the
communities of Yelm, Rainier, Tenino, and the
surrounding areas of East Thurston County, Washington.
For training and administrative purposes, our team was originally
organized under the ARRL Western Washington
Section, District #5.
We now fall under ARRL
Western Washington Section,
District/Region #3.
Our team is affiliated with the
Yelm Amateur Radio Group.
We work with the Thurston County ARES
(TCARES) Team who are the
amateur radio interface to the Thurston County Emergency
Coordination Center (ECC) and
Thurston County Emergency Management.
We also work with teams in Lewis County and Pierce County.
Vision
The ETC ARES Team's vision is to increase public safety and
reduce the uncertainty and chaos in our communities in the aftermath
of a disaster event by facilitating efficient and effective radio
communication between our neighbors, local organizations, and
government officials.
Net Schedule
Sunday Weekly PNW Digital ARES & EMCOMM Check-In Net.
This net is held at 6:30 PM local time on Sunday evenings
on the
Pacific Northwest (PNW) Digital
repeater network, on "Pacific Northwest Regional" or "PNWR",
DMR talk group 31771.
This DMR-mode check-in net is open to all Pacific Northwest region
hams interested in amateur radio emergency communications.
Net control follows this preamble:
PNW Digital ARES EMCOMM Weekly Net Preamble.pdf.
Sunday Weekly District 3 Net.
District 3 holds a net each Sunday evening at
7:15 PM local time on ETC channel D3-1s, the Capitol Peak Repeater,
145.470 MHz, minus offset, PL 100 Hz (input and output).
The repeater is linked into the Beachnet network of repeaters
during the net, so remember to pause for a full second or two before
talking when transmitting to allow for all of the repeaters in the
network to sync up.
Tuesday Weekly ETC ARES Team Net.
This net is held each Tuesday evening at 18:45 (6:45 PM) local time.
The net is divided into two parts.
We start with check-ins on 2 meter simplex, channel "ETC-1d" (146.550 MHz,
PL 103.5 Hz). After the simplex check-ins, we then move the net to the
Yelm repeater, K7YLM (440.200+/PL 100.0) for announcements and traffic.
Visitor check-ins are always appreciated.
Net control follows this preamble:
ETC ARES Weekly Net Preamble.pdf.
Note: Net control and all ETC ARES Team members
transmit and receive CTCSS (103.5 Hz) on our net frequency
for all "official" traffic.
Team members are using this feature so they can leave a radio
tuned to our net frequency 24/7 for the purposes of emergency
call-out drills, emergency announcements, and nets.
For rag-chewing on our team channel, program another channel
in your radio that doesn't use CTCSS tones - that way the
team members monitoring with receive tone enabled (103.5 Hz)
won't be disturbed by the rag-chewing QSO's.
Monday Weekly District 5 Training Net.
District 5 holds a training net each Monday morning at
8:30 AM local time on District 5 channel PC-1s.
FRS/GMRS Emergency Radio Nets
Our group works with a multi-layered approach at disaster communications that
encourages the integration with other non-ham radio services such as
FRS/GMRS.
The primary benefit is that we expand the reach of our finite amateur radio
resources and increase our contact with the public.
We hope to grow the following list of organized neighborhood emergency radio nets:
If you represent a neighborhood group or would like to help form one
please contact us with the e-mail link at the bottom of the page.
The ETC ARES team has regular comm exercises and drills where we'd
like to practice interfacing with any local neighborhood emergency
radio nets.
Membership
Anyone with a current FCC-issued Amateur Radio license may apply for
membership on the East Thurston County (ETC) Amateur Radio Emergency
Service (ARES) Team.
Having a current FCC-issued General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) license
is optional, but also a helpful asset to the team.
We serve the eastern area of Thurston County, so ideally you live in
Yelm, Rainier, Tenino, or one of the surrounding areas.
Our current Disaster Communications Plan in the Documents section
below describes our served area in detail.
If you are interested in joining the team or have questions that our
Plan doesn't answer, feel free to contact the ETC ARES Team
Emergency Coordinator (EC) via e-mail [ec@etc-ares.org],
text message,
HH VOIP phone
[x11893],
or analog phone [+1 (360) 999-0680].
Member HH VOIP Directory
A directory of the
Hamshack Hotline (HH)
phone numbers of our members with HH VOIP phones is available for use by
your HH VOIP phone.
For CISCO SPA3xx and SPA5xxx series phones, under the "XML Service" section of
the "Phone" tab, enter "http://etc-ares.org/ETC_ARES_HH_Directory.xml" as
the "XML Directory Service URL".
Label it as "ETC ARES Directory" in the "XML Directory Service Name" field.
Documents
The documents listed below reside in a repository on
GitHub.com.
When you click on the links they will take you to a "file finder" view
provided by the GitHub web site for our "etc-ares" repository.
You can select the file to view it with an option to download to
your local computer.
We encourage all members to keep a copy of these files on their
local computer(s) so they have access to them offline in the event
there is an internet outage.
The advantage of having these files in GitHub is that you can "clone"
a copy of the entire repository to your local computer and use the
features of GitHub to synchronize your local cloned copy with the
"master" copy of etc-ares at any time.
Information on cloning to Linux, Mac, or Windows computers is found
in this
GitHub Help_Document.
Radiograms
A radiogram is a telegram sent by shortwave radio nets
operating 365 days per year, 24-hours per day.
These nets are sponsored by
Radio Relay International
and use a variety of communication technologies including voice,
Morse code, and the latest, very sophisticated, digital methods.
See the frequently asked questions on the back of the
"Standard Radiogram Form" below.
