Polk ARES Frequencies Concern

[Robin Retzloff]

Here is a reply to a concern about our Polk ARES Frequency List. I thought
it would be good information for all.

I am glad CERT has established standardized frequencies within their
organization. ARES has done the same.
The frequencies that we chose have been in use for three years.

The purpose of the chosen simplex frequencies was to provide tactical
groups, such as CERT Teams, to have less chance of interfering with each
other on amateur frequencies, if multiple teams are deployed in the county.
This will also facilitate finding a tactical group on the bands, if they
are on a limited set of frequencies, should the repeaters go down. The
simplex frequencies were chosen after two months of listening by a group of
ARES members. I am pleased that you have included most of them in the
Solivita CERT Frequency List.

The WC4PEM Polk Emergency Management Repeater system, Lake Wales W4LKW
repeater, and the Lakeland, W4LKL repeater, are the primary and backups
that ARES will use for the Imperial Polk County ARES Net. In the event that
these three repeaters systems are inoperable, we will continue on 146.985
simplex, with a encode PL of 127.3 on transmit only, no decode PL on
receive.

Polk County Emergency Management has many Amateur band radios. The order of
the frequencies are to facilitate programming continuity on ARES radios.

I have not included frequencies that are out of my purview. There is no
mandate outside of Polk Emergency Management radios as to the frequencies
included or the order listed. If an operator works within ARES, it would
benefit them to have our frequencies in the order given, somewhere in
memory on their personal radios. I personally have most of Solavita CERT
frequencies on my radios. MURS, FRS, GMRS, NOAA, and many repeaters are
included on my radios that have the ability. Our Polk County Frequency Plan
has all the primary repeater and simplex frequencies listed I could find
for the ten counties that are adjacent to Polk county. These are there for
use by our members at their discretion. I have them in my radios. I will
soon be listing all the frequencies used by WCF section ARES groups on the
Frequency Plan. The eighteen channels listed will not change, but the rest
of the document is considered fluid and subject to change as organizations
adjust and publish their frequencies.

I will publish to our PolkARES.org <http://polkares.org/> website the
frequency list of any recognized emergency response group from within Polk
County. With your permission I will start with the Solivita CERT Frequency
List. I am listing CHIRP files on our website and if you have a CHIRP files
for Solivita frequencies they could be placed on the list for your CERT
members use.

Claude Brown, K7TEN, is AEC of CERT Operations for Polk County ARES. As
such, please include him on any mailings regarding CERT as he is the ARES
representative to CERT. Coordination and planning with ARES should also go
through Claude as he will be the one to present it to ARES, and at our
meetings.

I hope I have answered your concerns and given you some insight to how ARES
plans to operate on amateur radio frequencies during a deployment.

I have copied those that you CCed on the initial email, and those that I
need to see this as they are the people I hold myself accountable to.

Cordially,

Robin Retzloff   AF1RE
Polk County ARES Emergency Coordinator
407-421-8422
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.lakelandarc.org/pipermail/cq-lakelandarc.org/attachments/20140604/68405f64/attachment.html>