St. Louis County ARES

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service^® (ARES^®) provides emergency communications to "Served Agencies" such as fire and police departments, the American Red Cross, the National Weather Service, hospitals, and others. Many ARES^® teams also provide communications for public service events such as marathons, parades, bike riding events, and boat races. Individual ARES^® teams are organized at the county level in Missouri. This is the Web site of the ARES^® team serving St. Louis County, Missouri.

The Amateur Radio Emergency Service^® is a program of the American Radio Relay League. "ARES" and "Amateur Radio Emergency Service" are registered marks of and are used on this Web site by permission of the American Radio Relay League.

Emergency Communicator's Notebook

UHF as well as VHF

We are used to ARES activities taking place on the 2 meter band, but this may not always be so. The Missouri ARES Interoperability Plan indicates that on-site operations should take place on the UHF 70 centimeter band. If you do not have any 70 centimeter equipment, consider purchasing a hand held transceiver for that band.

More hints, tips, and other tidbits about emergency communications
compiled by St. Louis County ARES^® Registered Volunteers

County-Wide Simplex Exercise
Saturday July 27, 2013 - 10:00 AM

St. Louis County ARES weekly Will be holding a county-wide simplex exercise (2 meters) on Saturday July 27, 2013. Details and instructions will be posted later. Net control operators, and backups, are needed to make the exercise work. Handling net control is not diificult, and the scripts will have been prepared in advance, so if you would like to give it a try, please contact Bob Gale, WA4GDX - wa4gdx@yahoo.com and tell him that you are interested.

This will be an open exercise. All amateur radio operators in St. Louis County and surrounding counties are invited to participate. You do not need to be an ARES Registered Volunteer to take part in this activity, everyone is welcome.

St. Louis County SKYWARN Frequency
147.360 MHz

The St Louis County SKYWARN net can be found on the Monsanto repeater, 147.360 (no tones required). If you wish to give local severe weather reports to St. Louis County, you can do so by reaching them at that frequency.

Weekly Practice Message Net

Click here for details on the practice net and for copies of messages that have been read on the air.

Interested in joining ARES^®?

Please fill out an application and mail it to the Emergency Coordinator (see contacts page). The forms do not get sent to us electronically. You will need to print out the physical form, fill it in, and mail it to us.

ARES^® application in "Word" document format¹
ARES^® application in Adobe Acrobat "PDF" format¹
You can make entries directly on this PDF form before printing it. (** Not all versions of Adobe Acrobat can display this form **)
ARES^® application in Adobe Acrobat "PDF" format¹
Older PDF form that does not allow you to make direct entries

1 - Please see the Software section of the Resources page if you do not have software necessary to read these files.
Or, if you prefer, write or email us and request a physical application form.

Check In St. Louis County ARES^® holds a 2 meter net every week (see date and time listed below). All amateur radio operators are welcome to participate.	Yes, We QSL Do you monitor St. Louis County ARES^® activities? Write to us and we'll send you a QSL card. Click here for more information.	Net Control Run the show! We will teach you what you need to know. We'll give you the opportunity to control a net and help you if you have difficulties. See out Voice Net Operations page.	Emergency Communications Information Not sure where to begin? Contact us and we will help you get started.
Presentations If you haven't been to our monthly meetings you've missed talks and demonstrations on Go-Bags, Message Handling, the Missouri Emergency Packet Network, DC Power and much more.	Help Is Available Do you need help building a go-bag? Are you unsure about what to use for emergency power? Would you like some information about personal preparedness? We can help.	Share Your Expertise Do you have emergency communications experience or knowledge that you'd like to share with others? Do you have some other skill or talent that could benefit the group? We'd be happy to hear from you.	ARES^® Wallpaper Would you like St. Louis County ARES^® as your wallpaper? Click here to display our 1280 x 1024 poster then save it to your computer.
Next Meeting The date and location of our next monthly meeting can be found on the Calendar of Events page, along with directions how to get there.	Field Exercises Join us in our field exercises and develop your skills. Find out what things you do well and which areas you could improve. Help us to create a robust response team.	Yahoo Group Click to join STLARES Licensed amateur radio operators are invited to join the St. Louis County ARES^® Yahoo group.	Donations Yes, we accept donations of stamps, cash, items to sell or raffle, items that we can distribute to our volunteers, and so forth.

St. Louis County ARES^® regular nets

Weekly 2 meter voice nets:
The weekly ARES^® 2 meter voice net operates on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 PM Central Time. The net is on the W0SRC repeater, frequency 146.850 (-) MHz, tone 141.3 Hz. All amateur operators are invited to participate. Next net is Wednesday, May 29, 2013, 7:30 PM
Immediately following the regular voice net is the weekly ARES^® practice message / traffic net. A test message is read over the air to give you an opportunity to practice copying down formal traffic.

Weekly 2 meter packet net:
Off the air until the net controller can erect another antenna or a second net controller can be found.

1 - Please see the "Software" section on the Resources page if you do not have software necessary to read these files.

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